Sykes Holiday Cottages

We have used Sykes Cottages a few times over the years and never had any issues. We visited Wales to one of their listings and due to it being owner managed it was way below standard and the owner was uncontactable. I contacted Sykes Cottages and they were beyond excellent when handling the many issues that the property revealed. They were polite, efficient and did their utmost to find a resolution even when the owner was not very helpful! I can not speak highly enough about them! 10/10

Communication very good, response to booking with relevant information, directions etc was almost instant, can’t fault, can’t comment on property as not started holiday yet.

Poor booking experience!

We paid the deposit and then we were told we had to pay the remainder 6 weeks before the holiday date, but not given a choice of dates to pay. The date they gave us to pay was 4 days before my payday. When I asked if I could delay payment for 4 days until I got paid, I was told "No"! It was also made clear that this was non-refundable and I'd lose the deposit if I never paid on (their) time. I had to get a 'payday' loan to pay for the remainder because they wouldn't extend the date by 4 days.

Shocking in this climate with rising costs and inflation. You;d think Sykes would want to help, not hinder.

Last minute 5 day short break. Booked three days before going as weather was nice . Fabulous country annexe , spotlessly clean in lovely location ready for exploring many different places. Welcome pack for us and our dog was a lovely touch. Would definitely recommend.

Ryepiece, a lovely cottage
Ryepie cottage was very cosy , clean and well equipped
Our host Ant was helpful and extremely knowledgeable on the local area .
The village of Ettington is peaceful
and has the basics, shop and pub etc. It's location is perfect for exploring the Cotswolds, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwick and Leamington spa .
Overall a very pleasant experience and we would definitely recommend it !

Myrtle cottage in Wyke Regis was a beautiful home to stay in its very cosy & warm
It had everything we needed and more for a relaxing holiday it was clean and tidy had comfortable beds clean bedding and towels The cottage is in a peaceful quiet area it is fairly secluded when the gates are closed but well within reach of local amenities should you need them
We would definitely stay here again
What’s more it accepts 3 dogs which means we can all have an enjoyable time away
Thank you

Young lady was most helpful and phoned the owner direct to see if we could take our budgies to which the reply was yes Thank you for all your help

A fantastic cottage in a great location with wonderful owners. Enjoyed our short stay and would go back there again

Not a good booking experience! The booking confirmation email received all as expected - then an hour later another email was received with a link to complete the booking process, and when the link was clicked on it said "Booking now cancelled - We're sorry to inform you that the property you are trying to book, is no longer available for the dates you have requested".

A frantic phone call to the help line and speaking to a helpful lady established that this was a computer glitch, and that the booking was in fact in place - but it's all very unnerving, and without making the phone call we would have assumed the booking had been cancelled and may well have double booked a holiday elsewhere.

Two and a half years ago we booked an 18 person cottage in the Lakes. I paid the deposit and then Covid arrived. I phoned Sykes to see what we could do to postpone our holiday. They informed me they had taken the full balance for the holiday that day but we could go in a years time. I had at no point given permission to take the balance but they had kept my debit card details and took the very large balance for all 18 people from my bank (no permission and no notification).

As our holiday was now over a year away I asked for our money to be returned in the mean time. They would not return the balance. I spoke to the manager who couldn't care less that I would be out of pocket by 3,000 for a year. The year came around and we were forced to postpone another year due to Covid. Again they insisted on holding my money. We have now had a good holiday (the cottage owners were lovely) but Sykes held my money, taken without agreement, for 26 months. Untrustworthy company - never use Sykes is my advice.

Very good service booking on the phone. But having been with Sykes at least on three other occasions, I have not once been offered a voucher or discount that I have been assured I would get. My other gripe is that the booking fee has been increased to 55.00 from last years 40.00. Hard to find justification for such a rise. Obviously taking a leaf out of the energy suppliers book.

Terrible experience with this company, there is no point making complaints they simply do not care. They cannot take any responsibility for failing to deliver on the promises they make. Very poor level of bookings & always low booking values. Their pricing system is built on week stays which just isn't suitable for properties that are more suited to short stays.

They claimed it could work for promoting short stays, the reality is they failed. They are not suitable for unique properties, mass market approach just doesn't work. Never list your property with them they are fully focused on their best interests. Our property is no longer on sale with this company & we will never list with them again.

First time we have booked accommodation with Sykes Holiday Cottages. Great experience, picked our perfect house but made an error in the booking! Rang customer service straight away and without any fuss or bother the lovely lady amended the details and within a very short time everything was perfect. So helpful and efficient, thank you. Now looking forward to our holiday in August.

Great cottages (5*), booking process easy (4*) online and by phone, but beware of hidden added charges (1*) and Sykes accounting (0*). One booking has added 14% charges (admin fee+booking charge) to the rental cost. It then demanded 29 due now - without any explanation. Making a booking should involve the same work regardless of the cottage, yet booking fees differ (no explanation - booking charge this year is cheaper than 2 years ago). Sykes keep your card details, but offer no facility to see the card information which they hold.

I asked them to introduce this 2 years ago - no response (it was COVID). Is it legal to hold card details without allowing the card holder to see what is being held? It is easy to update the card for a new card - but you cannot see the old card details. You will love the cottages, but watch your Sykes account like a hawk.

All the properties we have stayed in have been very good and descriptions have been accurate. Up to my latest booking the staff have been excellent and when a house we booked withdrew from the market and we did not want the alternative offered our refund came through very quickly. However, on our latest booking I had a question. I rang Sykes and was told they would look into it and call me back.

I did not receive a call so I rang the property owner directly who willingly answered me but also told me Sykes had already contacted him. So why did Sykes not call me? Customer service in this instance was poor. My rating would otherwise have been higher

Everything from start to end of holiday was perfect lucker is situated to get to any beautiful beach easily vicarage cottage is a little piece of heaven just the peace and tranquility we needed the owner on the phone if needed and very friendly cake delicious we coming back next January

Recently booked accommodation with Sykes. We needed a property with an EV charging point. We used the chat function to double check the property had what we needed on site. Staff were so, so helpful in answering our queries, keeping us updated and ringing us back with the information. Managed to book an amazing place thanks to Vicky. Brilliant customer service!

This is our first booking with Sykes Holiday Cottages for the Peak District for a party of 4 elderly persons. Although the website was brilliant in determining our requirements, yet we needed further information on our chosen property. Having eventually found a contact number, Lisa gave us first class professional, polite and courteous customer service who took responsibility to seek our answers, phone back later at an agreed time and beautifully and clearly took us through the booking process answering any further questions. It was a delight to speak with her.

We spent five nights at this fantastic location. A great base to get out and explore lots of different attractions. New Forest on the doorstep and also close to beach locations. Property done to the highest standard, love that it was pet friendly and also housing a hot tub in the garden which was lovely to relax after a days walking or biking. Owners could not of been more accommodating and all the extra touches were very much appreciated and only added to the stay. A must visit !

Perfect. Our first experience of a shepherd's Hut and it won't be our last. Incredible views, well equipped hut, ample parking and a very friendly and helpful host. A ton of things to do close by and our 5 day getaway felt like 2 weeks, we had so much to do! If you come to this place and don't like it - you need to stop going on holidays!!! The views from the hut arre amazing and the scenery changes by the minute. Great local restaurants, walks, attractions and beaches. Can't wait to come back.

Sarah, was an absolute joy to deal with for a property at extremely short notice. Very warm, bubbly and wonderfully helpful. You have a real gem there. Thanks so much for your First Class service Sarah!

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 I hadn't lived in for five years - they had my current address on file - 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 co