“Beware of shoddy admin!! Had a family stay in a barn conversion in Welland Nr Malvern that was very successful except for the poor cleaning that had been carried out at the property before arrival. On return raised issue with Cottages.com (not a complaint but just observation) and it promised to get back to me asap. Not a word from Cottages .com by phone or email!!! Also made enquiry of its nominated insurer about small claim , and despite chasing, no action!!!”
“The cottage I rented was dirty and full of left over items, including toe nails, out of date food and personal items. When I complained to cottages.com they said they were only the marketing and booking agent. They passed my complaint to the owner who refused to take responsibility for anything. They then gave me a voucher as ‘a goodwill gesture’, so I could book another holiday through them! Unfortunately I haven’t been able to upload the photos I have but there are many!”
“Cottages.com is now run by a company called Awaze. As you can see from the reviews, it has gone downhill of late. I had a holiday booked for this summer, 2024. We had arranged for automatic payment to be made. Instead of taking the money, they cancelled the holiday, giving us only an afternoon's notice and charged us an extra £100 for the cancellation. When I tried to resolve the matter, they said they would charge me an extra £50 to restore the holiday. When I refused to pay anything extra, they literally ignored all of my further attempts to resolve the matter and sent threatening emails requesting the cancellation fee.
This is a company that I will be staying well clear of in the future.”
“arrived at Westfield Isle of Wight. Horrified to find dilapidated and scruffy exterior. Inside hallway tiny, dingy and in appalling decorative condition. Overwhelmed by the most nauseating smell of damp and must. Evidence of botched repairs on significant fixtures. i.e. duct tape holding glass panes in front and back door. Wobbly veranda railing held up with rusty and corroded fittings. Outside found live electricity cables running across entrance path at very least a trip hazard apart from electrocution risk. expecting stream in garden but not sewer with no lid just covered with chicken wire [which had large hole in centre] and a random piece of garden fence placed loosely over top. Toilet flushing could be heard. Each of rooms were equally disappointing. food crumbs on kitchen worktops and table. dirty toaster and kettle. Loft sitting room had stained and shabby sofas. Large dead blue bottles encased in light fittings. Bathroom had dirty glass fittings, tiles, dirty grout and silicone. Had no immediate choice but to stay. Didnt know island and we had our dog with us. Contacted Cottages.com next working day and complained. We then began to make arrangements to leave. We spent next few hours cleaning to provide ourselves with sanitised space. We have lots of photos but only managed to get 3 uploaded
We asked for a full refund. Cottages.com offered £97 "compensation" We declined but this was ignored and this money paid into our account. Cottages. com then declared case closed. We are now being gaslighted being told owners were upset by our complaint!!! Now call centre staff are hiding behind a wall of silence. We have found out that their internal procedures dictate staff do not speak with complaining customers. COTTAGES .COM THIS DISASTER IS ENTIRELY DOWN TO YOU AND YOUR ADVERTISING. WE BOOKED, AND PAID THROUGH YOU. WE SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN FACED WITH THIS. WE ARE PURSUING A FULL REFUND. Next step ABTA and Ombudsman. Sharing this as a warning for anyone booking this property or booking with Cottages.com. You see a rather ugly side to this company when things have gone wrong. This company does not care.”
“Can’t find a phone number to talk to a person. Booked many cottages with them, always good. They sent me a voucher but chat bot says I can’t use it online, what other way is there?
Disappointed customer at lack of communication”
“Booked a late holiday for next week received e mail confirmation saying register to download booking details website won’t allow me to register so I don’t know how to gain entry to the property I have rang ten times no one answers the phone. No e mail address to contact cottages.com absolutely disgrace DO NOT BOOK WITH COTTAGES .COM”
“In late March we booked a house to visit Chester for a trip about 2 and a half weeks away. Two days later my mum died suddenly, so that same morning I canceled the trip as we were grieving and I needed to care for my family.
Explained the situation to cottages.com, even providing a death certificate to show I was being truthful. I wanted a refund of the £400 as we aren't able to travel anytime soon, had only just booked less than 48 hours before and there was still ample time for soemone else to book the property.
Cottages.com offered us to change our booking but refused our refund, telling us we should have booked the travel insurance if we wanted a total refund.
I don't care about policy, we have been through an awful situation that I wouldn't wish on anyone and cottages.com simply didn't care, they'd rather keep hold of £400 than show a tiny bit of human decency. Had they helped me out I would have been a customer for life and spent far more than £400 in future. Now I wouldn't ever use them again and will never recommend them to anyone else.
I've since sent seversl emails to cottages.com asking them to reconsider, however these emails have been ignored completely.
A greedy, shameless, callous organisation. Avoid like the plague.”
“I am desperately trying to cancel a holiday booked for mid July. I cannot get hold of anyone by phone and there is no email address. I will continue calling but judging by the other reviews here I will not be able to get through. The customer service robot is utterly useless and the website says that it is easy to get information about cancellation and then when you find the section on the site it just says contact us, but doesn't say how....
Non existant customer service.”
“End of last year booked holiday cottage for July this year. Have now found out the property we have booked is up for sale. Tried to contact cottages.com by phone to find out what's going on - kept on hold for ages without a response. Tried their live chat, told no one available. Tried DM via Facebook - no reply. Tried DM on Twitter - no reply. Non-existent customer service which is extremely concerning.”
“Regrettably we had to cancel our booking way before the final payment was due. We had paid a low deposit £25, on a total holiday cost of £475, and when we cancelled we were told to pay another £148.75. There were no details on the booking confirmation that any additional charges would be required to cancel, if done before the final payment was due. We had expected to lose the £25. In their small print, which is not included in the booking information, a figure of 25% is mentioned which would be £118.75 - £25 already paid, would equal £93.75, not the £148.75 which they took in order to cancel. It is a waste of time trying to phone as it’s all automated and nobody ever phones back.”
“A friend and I booked cottage in Tenbury Wells advertised for 4 people. Definitely not - second bedroom could only hold a double bed - no storage - and a dining chair, which had to be carried down an extremely steep flight of stairs to make up enough seating for 4 people. The table was not the one pictured in the details. It was sited in the alcove under the stairs and would have to be pulled out into the kitchen to make room to sit. Three people would have to sit together on the small settee with the fourth the other side of the room on a single chair. antiquated, inefficient log burner, shed with extra logs etc padlocked so couldn't replenish logs. No firelighters or matches although said there was - we had to buy our own. No secure outside space for a dog, no garden furniture and we wouldn't have used it anyway as it would have been like sitting in a gravelled car park. Details very misleading. The very steep stairs should have been mentioned, especially for elderly people. The TV difficult to operate. The freezer compartment in the fridge was very iced up and needed defrosting. No rug o the lounge floor, only tiles. I would not recommend this property at all. Should have been advertised for only 3 people and instead of the second double bed, a single and storage would have been better. We have been self catering for over 60 years and this was the worst property we have ever stayed in. Old fashioned hotch potch of furniture not worth the money.
VERY DISAPPOINTED would not use this holiday agent again.”
“Terrible customer service. Never pick up their phone. Tried five times for 30 minutes each time. Arrived at our holiday in Wharfedale Lodge Thornton Clsveleys. One bedroom infested with bed bugs. No refund as yet of the refund we need for the £695 wasted. Did not stay one night. No holiday.”
“The cottage I booked was not as discribed as it was without heating and I had to pay for my logs to heat up the main living room from a small log fire I have made two complaints etc seems that Cottage. Com have taken the side of the landlord and have not had the decency to call verbally for my side of my displeasure as asked for.”
“Appalling service from them. We booked in Dec23 for a holiday in Dec 24 and paid a deposit. I subsequently have paid an amount monthly off the balance. April 24 I received a phone call stating that the owner has increased the rental for our booking by £350. I asked if they can do this when I have already booked and was told yes. I was told as I refused to pay the increase I would receive a full refund. The problem is we had booked a cottage next to our son, daughter in law and grandkids too, and theirs has not increased so they are unable to cancel without losing their deposit!! This is dreadful treatment by the company and the greedy owners!! Bookings should be honoured. The company now are uncontactable as no phone’s answering and no chat available, absolutely disgusting way to treat customers.”
“Cottages.com was a complete nightmare to deal with. We booked our dates and our account showed correct dates; however later we received confirmation with incorrect dates (off by 1 day). The only way to get a human to resolve issue was to pay 25 pounds. She fixed dates but suddenly our new rate was 100 pounds more. It was highway robbery. The date issue was their mistake not ours and it cost $125 pounds to rectify. If we had cancelled we would have lost even more so we reluctantly stuck with them. Felt like a bait and switch to purposely scam more money from an existing reservation. Do not use cottages.com. No customer service unless you pay a fee to converse with you. Is there a Better Business Bureau equivalent in the UK? If so, this company needs to be reported.”
“Just spent a week at Victoria's Haven in Kirkcaldy and absolutely loved it!! So close to the beach, immaculately clean and very well equipped... oh and very pet friendly which was great for us. An exquisite house with gorgeous decor with amazing little touches from the plaques on the walls to the wee tortoise half way up the stairs, we loved it all!! The owners are fantastic and couldnt do enough for us. We will definitely be back”
“Cottages.com are there for you when you need to make a payment, no messing about. Something goes wrong on your holiday, nothing to do with us.
Let's be clear, Cottages.com is a booking agent, they have no contract with you, they only have a contract with the home owner and they only care about that relationship. So if something goes wrong then you only have the owner as a way to sort things out with you. Just bear that in mind when you book a holiday with cottages.com.
If you want to get in contact with them make yourself comfortable, make a flask and cancel all plans, you could be on hold for a long long time. They are really hard to get into contact with and don't like to advertise any telephone numbers.
Don't be fooled by the call back option either, it won't happen. Hang on long enough you'll be cut off. Ah you say, there is a chat option, yes there is, but you'll be on there just as long as the phone call before someone contacts you. They also have the option to cut the chat off leaving you to start again.
So my particular holiday experience. We had a stressful few months with one thing or another so we needed a break. We tend to go on cottage holidays in the UK so our dogs can come with us. So we hit the internet and went visited cottages.com like we have done for knocking on 17 years now. We chose a cottage in one of our favourite places, Anglesey.
We were enticed by one property that was described on the Cottages.com site (spoiler alert, they tried to share the blame for the descriptions on their site as a joint effort with the owner) "This lovely lodge sits beside a peaceful stream and is within a stones throw of eateries, shops and the beach. An idyllic place to unwind." sounds great we said, let's book it. The payment was efficiently taken.
We arrived and things seemed ok but for a few niggles like you get at these places. Three days into the holiday and the building work on the owners house a few yards away resumed that had been ongoing for two weeks prior to our arrival. Now, as a customer you are supposed to be notified of anything that might affect your enjoyment on holiday before you arrive, we were not. So on our arrival day we were informed that the owners property had a leak and the floor of their conservatory had been dug up to the water level and more work was needed on it which in the end would be all of the week we were there.
Monday morning came, and so did the the workmen, along with their heavy machinery. Part way through the day the Builders Symphony in A major din began and our idyllic place to unwind ended. That's when we tried to contact Cottages.com as described above.
After three movements of the symphony we finally got a call from someone to ask what the problem was. we told them including a seizure episode that one of our dogs had with the volume of noise. We were told that they would call the owner and look for some other properties that we could try to move to so long as the owner would give up the booking (yes you need permission to get some peace). We were told we would be contacted the next morning. So off she went and off we went and found three properties.
The next day around noon we got a call and the tone was a shade different, they had managed to negotiate with the owner 15% compensation for the 5 days disturbance and this was non-negotiable. In fact the owner was not willing to give any compensation, she must have thought it was an extra, I would have preferred a bottle of wine as a welcome gift. It was at this point the terms and conditions were waved in our faces and it was take it our leave it because that's all they can do and its nothing to do with them because we have no contract with Cottages.com.
So in summary, we were promised ‘An idyllic place to unwind’ and found a building site
We wanted to just be somewhere that wasn’t a building site but we were denied it, and
We were told you are on your own when we needed someone
Welcome everyone to the cottages.com Customer Relations Team, where the customer is the property owner and the relations only go as far as the owner. Their job is done, they have your money and whether you have a good holiday or not is none of their concern.
Think carefully when you use Cottages.com”
“Booked in at Private Pod (ie) Stuart’s Farm. Well only did 20 minutes in the pod, cooking facilitates not adequate…. Air fryer would help. Bed linen not nice like it had t been washed, along with the bed was so so hard. So unwelcoming. It was disgusting, no personal treatment showing you to your pod, from Roger! Just a key at the gate. Went into the Pod and it smelt damp. Towel on the rack were damp. It was a total scruffy mess. £279 for two nights!!! And the new prices for this year are more expensive. Really, totally dreadful accommodation. Cannot believe this is rated high !!!! You could get one of the best hotels all inclusive including jacuzzi tonnes cheaper
Hot tub certainly has had its day. Along with awful plastic grass.
Wow, what money making scam !
Advice, do not visit this POD, fantastic ones elsewhere. Just needed a treat for my partner but ended up 60 miles back home!!
I did sent Roger a message when we left to say the place is substandard….. he hasn’t had to decency to return a message.”
“Avoid this company with dire customer service, care or understanding. Booked a cottage, got cancelled offered a replacement - paid for it and then rang the owner to check. The cottage wasn't even available in the week we had booked as they did not open until 1st April. Took an age to speak to anyone. Took an age to get a refund. We never found a replacement. Family holiday cancelled because of how bad this company are. Avoid them at all costs.”
