Name: Sykes Cottages
Address: Sykes Holiday Cottages Lime Tree House Hoole Lane, Chester
Rating: 1.20

“This firm removes negative property reviews from their website! I noticed ours stayed up there for a couple of months and then conveniently disappeared. We arrived to broken glass at the property and were told to hover up by the owner! Sykes tried to help but in the end just left us to it.”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“Really disappointing experience with Sykes. We booked a holiday cottage in Worcestershire for our baby daughter's first Xmas. The directional information to locate the cottage was not correct. Upon arriving at the village it took us almost 1.5 hours to find the place - in a one-road village of no more than 40 properties. We only found it (down a dirt track off the main road) after knocking on doors around the village and speaking to neighbours. Another family who were renting the cottage next door (part of the same development) had also been driving around for an hour or so, as had their Tesco food delivery driver. Yet when we located the property, it was quite easy to find and would have been had simple directions been made clear. If the neighbours hadn't have been able to give us the location we'd have turned around and gone back home. Upon arrival, we noted there was soap scum left in the bathroom sink, the glass shower screen had been pulled from the wall and was hanging on by a thread, the wooden floors were very dirty, the cutlery appeared to have been rinsed but was still soiled, dog mess was on the outside yard gravel, animal hairs were on the bedroom rugs, animal hairs were beneath the pillows etc. etc. etc. Anyway, after cleaning up ourselves we weren't too fussed and got on with our holiday. Now the cottage had feature spot lights set within the floor to illuminate the drapes across the back wall. These lights were not easy to spot - even when turned on - but particularly of a day time. On the first morning of our stay our 9-month old daughter was crawling on the floor and placed her hands on one of the lights. After being switched on for a matter of seconds the lights were hot enough to boil eggs on. Our daughter received burns on both hands, requiring medical treatment at Evesham Hospital. In the course of 7-night stay, we had to take her back and forth 4 times to the hospital to have her wounds re-dressed and treated, burnt skin removed etc. We've had two further appointments since returning home. We politely contacted the cottage owner to alert him to the problem with the lights and he was very cagey about it. Very business-like and mono-syllabic, but essentially he was clueless as to what to do or how to handle it. Upon our suggestion that he'd used the wrong type of bulbs in the lamps, he sent round a worker the next day while we were out and changed the bulbs, declining the opportunity to see us face-to-face. We never received an apology or a courtesy call to check on how our daughter was doing, but we weren't particulary troubled by this and thought he may have been inexperienced in handling such matters. On our final day we had another appointment at the Hospital to have the wounds checked but attending this clashed with the 10am latest leaving time. We asked the owner to allow us the necessary extra time to leave, which he gave us. In the end we left the cottage about one hour 20 mins late. Upon returning home, Sykes contacted us for feedback on our experience so we sent them a private message to let them know what had happened. The intention of this being that better checks could be put in place and/or discussion with the owner to ensure another family didn't go through the same drama in future. We were contacted the following day by Sykes' complaints department, which was frankly a bizarre experience. We were told that our 'complaint' was effectively meaningless because we have no direct contractual relationship with Sykes and therefore they have no liability towards us. We were told that if we wanted to pursue our compensation claim then we'd have to make a private claim against the owner's insurance policy and we weren't entitled to vouchers and the like from Sykes so none would be offered to us. It was also implied by Sykes that we may have exaggerated the injuries to our daughter in order inflate a potential claim, and that we should be grateful that we were allowed to overrun our stay on the final morning to attend the Hospital again to the inconvenience of the cottage owner's 'cleaner'. First of all, we never made and have not made a complaint against anybody despite what has happened. We were asked for our feedback and we gave it to Sykes hoping they'd use the information to improve their service to others. Secondly, we never and have not asked anybody for compensation or vouchers or anything of the sort. Only Sykes has mentioned this - which suggests they are hyper-vigilant against such matters and knee-jerg to conclusions. Thirdly, I've uploaded photographs of the left hand of our daughter as it was when it was re-dressed on the third occasion on Boxing Day. Out of interest, I've also uploaded a photograph of the spot light hidden beneath the drapes and welcome people to try to spot it. At no point have we exaggerated the injury. In fact, the only information that we've offered to either party is that we were advised by Evesham Hospital the burn would be classified as a Second Degree burn in their file notes. We're by no means experts on skin burns nor do we know the specific differences between the burn categories and so we'd welcome feedback from more learned others on this as to whether Evesham Hospital are correct or not. Evesham Hospital wanted to refer our daughter to the burns unit at Birmingham Children's Hospital as they were concerned about how it was developing and suggested our daughter may end up with visible scarring on her thumb. We were advised to have an appointment with a plastic surgeon to explore whether the scarring could be prevented with surgery. We did not disclose any of this to Sykes or to the owner at the time so to imply that we were exaggerating is quite insulting given that we have withheld details that potentially make the situation more serious. The take-away from our dialogue with Sykes is this: - They are a 3rd party agent introducing holidaymakers to property owners. They have no direct contractual liability with the holidaymakers. - As such, checks on the properties being offered for rent seem to be at best rudimentary. - Sykes aren't particularly interested in constructive feedback on the properties they're offering for rent as since they don't have contractual liability with either party they are disinterested in matters occurring within the properties. - In the event of a 'complaint' being raised, Sykes is likely to take the property owner's side instead of doing the right thing and remaining impartial until the facts have been clarified. Needless to say this will be the last of our dealings with Sykes and we'll be more careful in future to make sure that any property we rent is not being managed by Sykes in any way.”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“Poor customer service. Misleading information on website. Company only concerned with taking money for bookings”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“This is a nasty and particularly aggressive company. Their 'Terms and Conditions' contain a number of devious and questionable 'conditions', which can be summarised as being highly questionable and borderline compliant in terms of UK Contract Law and from a Consumer Law perspective. With the benefit of our experience, we would strongly suggest you source an alternative administrator; that relates, to your property, for rent a and your holiday cottage!”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“Paid 2 booking fees for a 14 night stay. Other agencies I have booked with will only charge 1 booking fee for a 14 night stay. Have got nowhere by ringing. Apparently they charge a booking fee for every week booked. Pay extra for being a good customer seems to be Skye's policy.”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“I booked a cottage holiday at Penmaen Amlwch Road, Benllech last Thursday. After I did the booking online and made the payment, I received the confirmation with a number of 9 people instead of 11 as it should be (possibly it was my error) so I immediately telephone the number that was provided in my email and it was the Property owner at Penmaen. I clarified with the lady the number of people attending the property including my old cat. She was very understanding and friendly and said that was not going to be any problem whatsoever. I explained to her that the number of adults were 9 plus 2 children, she said that there were only 10 beds and If I was ok for one of the kids to share the bed with their parents. I said that was not going to be a problem and not the cat either. The conversation was amicable and she in fact offered a Christmas decoration which I was delighted about too. She then said that as they were going to be away by the time we arrive, she gave me the key code to access the property. The next response was an email from Sykes Holiday Cottages saying that the owner pulled out the booking due to the number of guests, as only 10 were the maximum for insurance purposes. I then spoke to my family and they were upset. They said that it would not be a problem as a member of my family couldn't make it for work reasons, so I informed the Sykes Holiday Cottages that would no longer be a problem. They then said that it was my pet that the owner did not want in the property... I could not understand and still do not understand why they did it to us. I booked this cottage on 5th December and the refund was credited to my account on 11th December with 96.46 euros lost.. I have not only lost this money but now all the holiday properties are 3 times more expensive and not days with wanted available. My money should have been refunded the minute that Sykes Holiday Cottages said that my booking was cancelled and not 7 days later having taken 96.46 euros from my account when it was them who have caused all this distress to me and my family.”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“I am upset and appalled by this company. Cold, robot like responses to my problems. Reading from a script. I will never book through Sykes again. I didn't realise when I used booking.com that Sykes were the operators.”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“Holly cottage, Higher Kinnerton 1 week in October, 2019 This was our 5th (and last) weekly cottage booked through Sykes during our 6-week UK visit. The previous 4 cottages had either met, or exceeded, our expectations, but not Holly cottage Arriving at 3pm we were greeted by an apologetic cleaner who explained the cottage was not ready for occupation. The clean bed linen was in a padlocked trunk which could not be opened, and the cleaning supervisor was in the process of obtaining bolt cutters and would return shortly - and that was the start of the saga. The cottage was hot, very hot, and smelt strange too. It seemed the heating had been left full on with the thermostat registering over 27 C. The smell appeared to be from the dishwasher, full of unwashed dishes, which the over heated cottage had amplified. The supervisor returned with large bolt cutters and promised (if we could return in an hour and a half) to have put into effect the linen changes and cleaning. Having little option, and no alternative accommodation within easy reach, we agreed and returned later. Instructions for the cottage could not be found although at previous cottages all had these left in a prominent place. We did find these, much later, at the bottom of a drawer with many papers on top. The cottage heating proved to be faulty as lowering the thermostat setting had no effect on the radiators output. We did manage to turn off all but one of the radiators and reduce the temperature to 24 C by opening windows, but the lounge radiator remained fully on for the whole week in spite of all efforts. The dishwasher problem was sorted by setting it in motion, then emptying the contents. The washing machine was never used as it had hair along the door, plus a sock left inside. There was also no drier, or washing line for drying clothes. The oven was unclean, hence not used. The microwave was used, once it had been plugged back in via a difficult to reach socket behind the fridge. The TV when turned on had Polish? set as its language and it was not until the following day we managed to reset the language to English. The main cable was also unplugged (as our Polish instructions had been telling us). In the kitchen an overhead light was flashing constantly but we were unable to remove the globe and so had to endure this problem as well. We have emailed the list of problems to the owner (who does not live locally) with the added suggestion a local person is needed when help is required. Still waiting for some compensation. Sent to Sykes Cottages as feedback. These comments were never published by Sykes. Favourable comments sent in regard to the previous 4 cottages however were all published.”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“These delete bad reviews for the cottages and keep only the good ones. We have recently left two reviews, I property was rubbish, so 1 STAR and other one was a top property hence 5 STAR. Our 1 star review has been deleted, when I spoke to the co. according to them, i have chosen to hide it from the public. The 5 star review is still there. Both reviews were left same day/time and same way. Avoid this co.”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“When I booked a cottage with Sykes over the telephone in November 2019 they charged me £6 for doing so. Free if booking on line. Not everyone has access to the internet. As well as the £39 booking fee they also charged me £3 this year for paying the low £20 deposit which was free last year. Admittedly I discussed this with the Sykes Rep but I don’t feel inclined to book with them again in future years as too many add-on prices.”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“Definitely will not be doing business with Sykes, after reading these reviews...enough to turn me stirr crazy,”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“Sykes Cottages used to be a company with excellent and helpful customer service (I was a property owner). This became worse in recent years and we have now ceased trading through them following poor treatment of guests and problems on our own account. I would not recommend them.”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“"0 Stars" Went to a cottage in Orford, Suffolk in August...disgraceful, filthy and dilapidated accommodation requiring major refurbishment to bring it up to an acceptable standard. We reported our concerns to Sykes within 2 hours of arrival and sent photos via email. Staff member seemed genuinely concerned at our predicament. Only stayed 2.5 days and one of those we stayed away from the property so that a "deep clean" could be completed. On our return we have sent many emails including photographic evidence, made numerous phones calls to Sykes (waiting too long each time to get through) to Customer Relations, spoken to 8 different people, been promised phone calls from "Managers" that just don't happen...have been give a £200 refund from a holiday costing £600. They just keep saying that your contract is with the owner of the property, they are just the agent. The owner will not refund any monies. This is a shortened version of the email I sent to Sykes and received no response and had to telephone (Again!) Along with a number of other issues, we found the accommodation as follows: All windows dirty both inside and out Ladders and garden tools left in front garden Porch dirty - spiders in every corner / cobwebs Lounge - spiders/ cobwebs behind curtains and radiators curtain tieback broken Kitchen - cobwebs above curtain rails spiders in corners dirty cutlery drawers untidy equipment drawers dirty/greasy cooker hood dishwasher dirty down sides and no plinth underneath microwave dirty turntable toaster - right side didn’t work/crumbs inside and in tray corner cupboard - containing saucepans and mouse droppings sink cupboard - untidy and delapidated sink plug and drain hole dirty limescale buildup at base of sink tap black stain on worktop at back of sink unit electric fire - glass missing and door broken fridge - makes horrendous noise, salad container dirty, underneath salad container disgusting pantry/boiler room - generally scruffy and unfinished hole in wall between pantry and kitchen no curtain - rail missing floor tiles - very badly cracked tiles covered over with door mat- several other tiles cracked Back porch - spider’s web under curtain Bathroom- dead flies above and to side of shower area brown stains at base of toilet and u-bend stained no safety restraint for venetian blind cord Back garden - unsafe undulating brick paving into garden Dog poo bin not emptied Outhouse - washing machine in old outhouse full of rubbish, spiders, cobwebs and snails Stairs - very steep spiders in each corner of bulkhead Bedroom 1- Water stains running down the walls No wardrobe - 1 hanger left on cloak hooks on bedroom door Chest of drawers - no liners and handle missing (on mantlepiece) Fly on floor Snail to side of window inside Spiders and cobwebs Bedroom 2 - Water stains running down the walls Cobwebs The level of cleanliness and the condition of the property was far below any reasonable expectations of acceptable holiday accommodation. The Sykes website misrepresented the property with the photos and description. As at today's date (9/11/2019), my review has not been put on their website. A duty of care is expected from a company supplying holiday accommodation to the public. I will be reporting them to the Advertising Standards Authority and putting a claim through the Small Claims Court...do not use this company!!”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“I have yet to go on our 4 day break, we was quite annoyed that we had to pay a £39.00 booking fee. We have been to various destinations round the world never ever have we paid a booking fee. we will not book again with Sykes cottages it is daylight robbery, not a happy customer this is our honeymoon to very bad customer service.”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“Arrived to find the apartment has not been cleaned. The cleaner was not aware of our booking. Tried to contact Sykes as did my wife both hanging on for over 10 minutes. No contact. I see that the CEO said that the company has been transformed in the last 5 years. Well all I can say Mr Donoghue is that it's a mess now so if you call your customer services an improvement then goodness knows what it was like before. Don't expect any help from sykes they are not interested.”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“DO NOT BOOK WITH THIS COMPANY! I wish there was the ability to post 0 stars - I would for this experience with Sykes. Upon arrival at the cottage (Weavers Cottage in Clayton West) it was immediately clear the off road parking was too small for my car. It was not big enough for anything but a small / medium sized car - nothing about this in the property description despite previous feedback highlighting this problem. Having nowhere to park my car (and I always ionly ever book a property which states that it has onsite parking) I phoned Sykes who were not interested and immediately took the owners side - their default position if you trawl the hundreds of bad reviews this company gets across Tripadvisor, Feefo and Trustpilot. Wrote to the directors of Sykes asking for a full refund as we did not stay at the property. We could not park our car safely and we had no choice but to drive home. The directors didn't have the courtesy of acknowledging my letter let alone responding,I then sent photos and measurements of the "parking space" to fully illustrate that our contentions were borne out by the facts. Despite overwhelming evidence that the property is being mis-sold and the reality bears no resemblance to the photos on the website, Sykes just keep telling me the file is closed. I have contacted Citizens Advice who after consultation, advised that they will report this to Trading Standards on my behalf as "potentially misleading business practice." I will therefore continue to pursue my full refund via my credit card company, Trading standards and will go to the travel and consumer media next - I may or may not get my money back but one thing is sure they'll lose a lot more in lost bookings. My advice to all the other unhappy customers is to pursue the matter and maybe we can get something done about this appalling lack of customer service and a company that simply takes your money and then walks away.”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“Left a neutral review last year struggled to get it on their website eventually they did, next year gave a mainly positive review but with a few small issues again not published. I would not use Sykes again as their reviews are obviously selective.”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“AVOID THIS COMPANY You really need to read that bad reviews! 85% of people that have used this company have rated it with one star. We rented a house in Whitby through Sykes holidays this summer. I have only got round to writing this now as it's been a busy few months. We spent just over £2500 for the week and when we arrived the house was dirty and the bed sheets had not been changed. So, we complained to the landlord first and then to Sykes. Sykes did not care, they where not interested and took the side of the landlord. In the end, after the landlord made up some story about us breaking furniture so that he would not have to compensate us. It got to the point of either taking legal action or chalking it up as a bad experience and never using Sykes again. We opted for the latter. I cannot stress this enough. Do not use this company. They are terrible. They do not do what they say they will do, and when something goes wrong you are on your own. Believe the bad reviews! AVOID.”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“AVOID THIS COMPANY You really need to read that bad reviews! 85% of people that have used this company have rated it with one star. We rented a house in Whitby through Sykes holidays this summer. I have only got round to writing this now as it's been a busy few months. We spent just over £2500 for the week and when we arrived the house was dirty and the bed sheets had not been changed. So, we complained to the landlord first and then to Sykes. Sykes did not care, they where not interested and took the side of the landlord. In the end, after the landlord made up some story about us breaking furniture so that he would not have to compensate us. It got to the point of either taking legal action or chalking it up as a bad experience and never using Sykes again. We opted for the latter. I cannot stress this enough. Do not use this company. They are terrible. They do not do what they say they will do, and when something goes wrong you are on your own. Believe the bad reviews! Over a two thirds of people using this company have rated it as one star. That means there is a strong chance of you wasting your money and having a bad holiday. AVOID.”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

“I have been ripped off, left without operational furniture, had guests arrive to no bedding or linen, had my business drastically de-valued due to lack of maintenance - all whilst paying a small fortune out to this company. This was an exhausting process and it all ended with me selling my business! I was on Syke's top tier, fully managed service (with their merged company Cornish Cottage Holidays since 2012). Below are some of the 'highlights' of my time with them. - walking in finding their housekeepers with the heating cranked on full, doors and windows open, drinking my guest's tea with their feet up watching tv whilst charging me for cleaning services. - being told I needed to buy a new BBQ because mine was broken only to find out the housekeepers had sold it to my neighbour and pocketed the cash. - been charged a sizeable amount of money for hours of cleaning each week only to find the cleaners were gone within an hour every time for almost an entire season - hundreds of pounds of false invoices - had numerous bad reviews on my property due to a lack of housekeeping quality. - been asked to pay guests compensation due to a lack of housekeeping quality. - had my photos from my property used for neighbouring property listings - been charged for broken and missing items and furniture because they didn't want to lose the guest's future business. My coffee table apparently collapsed when guests put things on it (it was a 100lb wooden table) - had the maintenance book ignored for huge parts of seasons and received multiple bad reviews due to it - had to visit the property and check for myself - had invoices and correspondence sent to old addresses even though I had notified them multiple times of change of address - from which I got sent threatening emails telling me they would be sent to collections as I hadn't replied to letters (sent to an address I moved from 5 years previously) even though other mail had been coming to my new address from Sykes for years so in short - I got sent a demand for payment for a mistaken overpayment reimbursement to an address I hadn't lived in since taking ownership of the business - they have the most unnecessarily complex payment system - even their own accounts department couldn't make sense of it. To this day I still don't know if I've ever been paid the correct amount - I regularly work outside the UK so I paid for the fully managed service which works out to around 20% of my income (25% with VAT) and I still had to regularly ask family members to drive a six hour round trip to find all the problems every month, check the guest and maintenance book comments had been addressed (which were extremely rarely actioned and almost never removed) - this was not a fully managed service at all. - My property was generating a large sum of money every year and I would end up with less than 30% of it - this is not a viable business after taking into account all the contacting housekeeping and accounts departments, checking things had been done properly, paying for repairs and replacements and hours of investigating guest feedback required to keep my business investment profitable. - none of the departments seem to want to communicate with one another meaning that if you need something sorting out - you will have to chase up multiple employees (hopefully you have their correct contact details, most of them bounce back with 'email address not found' notifications) - they just recently took on a client management company - 'helpful holidays' which makes it an even harder and longer process to get anything done or speak to the person you need to speak to. - housekeepers didn't notify me or Sykes that furniture was broken for weeks - leading to more negative reviews - to which I got the feedback - "we need to provide more training to our housekeepers" - they didn't inform me of a leak leading to damage of my property - "we need to provide more training to our housekeepers" - every time I had a bad review the only response was we need to provide more training. When I brought this up with the head of housekeeping for the umpteenth time - I got an incredibly offensive personal email from a member of their corporate team, talking about how much more money he gets paid than the housekeeping team and that I shouldn't be venting to them. Meanwhile nothing was changing, they had a new housekeeper in each week, my reviews and bookings were being negatively effected and I was completely powerless. To whom was I then supposed to 'vent'? In short - if you don't care about you property, your income, your guest experience or indeed your sanity - Sykes is the way to go. I ended up selling my extremely desirable beachfront property - which I had spent a year of my life and tens of thousands of pounds renovating for use as a holiday rental business - all because I just couldn't tolerate Syke's lack of professional management or have them dropping the ball any more times. It should all have been completely taken care of and fully managed for the amount of money I was paying and the services they had described in their sales pitch. This was the most stressful business I have ever owned - and it was almost entirely so due to the management. I would not recommend their services.”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

Shipping & Delivery
Delivery Methods	Own Driver
Customer Service
Communication Channels	Telephone, Email, Live Chat
Queries Resolved In	Over A Week
Customer Service	1.1 out of 5
Returns & Refunds
Refunds Process	Difficult
Returns Process	Could Be Better

Sykes Cottages Reviews