“Just had to cancel my holiday due to health issues.
They change there t+c and goal posts every time you speak to someone, then say cause you have not taken out some kind of insurance your not getting nothing back.
Well here it goes I'm paid in full for a holiday in April and it's states" for a holiday for 9 or less 6 weeks before final payment = loss of deposit
That was from t+c April 2024
10/24 t+c says the same.
Now I get told wait for it.
When I booked it was 6 weeks but and offer was on meaning it went up to 10 weeks NO confirmation NO emails to say this so I lose 50% of my money.
It's ok cause I'm not finished with cottages.com aka awaze as I'm off to the ombudsman and trading standards plus my bank so let's see who will be laughing.
STAY CLEAR, RUN FOR THE HILLS AND PLZ EVERYONE DO NOT EVER USE THIS COMPANY.”
“This company are impossible to contact. The website sends you back and forwards between their old and new sites and issues are unable to be resolved.
Beware of cancelling less than 10 weeks in advance, although how that is possible when you booked only a month ago is beyond me.
I will never book with this company again.”
“I'm the owner of a cottage. I've been with the company for over 10 years. Anyway, long story short. The house was cared for by my mother who passed recently. The result was that we can't offer the cottage any further. This was at the beginning of January. Spoke and wanted to cancel my contract with them. I knew there was a charge of £500 and £75 admin fee for future booking. So, as we couldn't run the house anymore I was prepared to pay this. However, in discussions with this company I was informed that I still had to pay the company their fee for all the bookings which at this stage is near £5000 AND an offer of a payment plan. Now, I know they will have this all tied up with legal stuff and TBH given our family is grieving the loss of our money - I don't have energy or time to fight this. This is cautionary tale to potential/existing clients and customers with ethical conscience. Over 10 years and this is what you get. Sign a deal with them is like selling your soul to the devil. Beware people. It's a sad time for us saying goodbye to our mother and now the house she loved to look after - to have this is somewhat disheartening”
“En route to our holiday we had a call to say the house had burst pipes in the January freeze-up . Leah at cottages.com spent well over an hour phoning other possible venues in the area & succeeded in finding a perfect alternative. Well done, Leah.”
“Please stay away from this company and any company under the awaze vacation umbrella such as hoseasons. There are so many hidden costs and unfair terms and conditions. They charge £20 just for talking to them on the phone. Be aware of paying a low deposit and being stung with cancellation charges. I was mislead on numerous occasions about changing dates by advisors and they have little concern regarding customer service. Save yourself the hassle and book with somebody else.”
“So disappointing! We had so many issues with the property we booked for Christmas. This included mouldy food, dirty freezer drawers, dusty furniture, empty bottles all over decking and garden, and numerous other issues. Despite numerous complaints raised to Cottages.com, we received no apology for the upset caused. We were told we would receive some compensation, but despite chasing for an apology and acknowledgement of distress caused… nothing! The only good thing was that they reimbursed costs we incurred for items that should have been provided at the Dell, but were not.”
“Very disappointed with the service received following them cancelling my booking 24 hours before it was due to start. Would not book through them again.”
“Unprofessional behaviour, they have stolen my money. They tell you lies and when you complain they ask you to leave I booked for 14 nights at Horizons apartment Newquay. I have been told I will not get a refund. I was lied to about the lifts working and was out of order outside our apartment the roof was leaking. I also complained about no heating in the evening and also accused of sexual assault. This company are thieves please look at other comments. PS stated in the advert there’s a sauna which doesn’t exist. Please stay away from this company”
“Last year we used Cottages.com and had no issues with our lodging, so we decided to book another lodging this year. Unfortunately we were left disappointed by our lodging, whilst it was not as advertised, the main issue was the lack of Wi-Fi. The advert for the lodge clearly advertised Wi-Fi, and we would not have booked the lodge if it did not have Wi-Fi.
We contacted the owner about the Wi-Fi, who promptly ignored us, despite us messaging him back immediately after he had messaged us. He ignored us until 12pm the next day, where he stated he had never had any issues with the Wi-Fi before, though we looked on the reviews and this is clearly not the case. In reality, the Wi-Fi network he had given us simply did not exist, and there was no router inside the Lodge.
We need access to Wi-Fi, and as stated, we would never have booked a lodging if it did not advertise Wi-Fi. So as there was no Wi-Fi, unfortunately we had to return home. I contacted cottages webchat who advised me on how to make a complaint, which is exactly what I did.
I must add that in the next week that it took for Cottages to reply, the owner had not messaged us to advise the Wi-Fi was back up and running so we could return, this is important because according to the Cottages Complaints team, it is my fault that we didn’t give the owner enough time to resolve the issue. Which is a ridiculous statement, we could have happily returned, and even despite this, is it not the owner’s responsibility to ensure the facilities are in working order?
The entirety of the response we received back from the Cottages Complaint team was embarrassing for yourselves to say the least, there was not an ounce of thought or care that went into helping me, it was clearly biased towards the Lodge owner. The advisor also pointed out that, despite allowing their owners to advertise Wi-Fi on their listing, they don’t guarantee the Wi-Fi. So essentially, Cottages has created a system where customers can’t complain about actual issues, because they just don’t guarantee it. Which is abysmal. This is false advertisement, it is misleading.
But it gets better! After replying to the awful response, I received a follow up. In this email the Cottages Complaint team tells me that they enquired about the circumstances with the Lodge owner, but they haven’t received any response from him. So because of this they transferred a £20 voucher to me, and said now my complaint won’t be subject to further review because it is settled.
So the first part here, I genuinely do not know how a complaints team can be attempting to resolve a complaint about a Lodge without speaking to the Lodge Owner. What this tells me is that the complaints team never had any intentions of actually resolving the issue, the outcome of the complaint had already been decided. Additionally, I do not know how Cottages can continue to side with the Lodge Owner, when he won’t even reply to yourselves! This Email was sent to me no more than 3 weeks after the stay, so Cottages didn’t even bother to chase the Owner for longer than 3 weeks. They just quickly attempted to sweep my complaint under the rug with a £20 voucher, which compared to the cost of my stay is insulting.
The second part, is the assumption that the complaint is now closed because they offered me a £20 voucher. This is so insulting to your customer. The complaint should stay open until you have come to an agreement, to send your customer a voucher then throw the complaint in the bin is unbelievable.
My last email from the team literally just told me to contact ABTA, because frankly the Team can’t even be bothered to chase the Owner for a response, so why bother putting an ounce of effort into actually resolving a complaint. They even had the courage to write that “despite their best efforts they hadn’t been able to settle my complaint”, which is frankly embarrassing. Have some humility and admit that you couldn’t care less.
So the moral of the story here, is Cottages is great until you actually have to deal with Cottages, then you will speak to some of the worst customer relationship advisors I have ever come across, who have zero interest in resolving your issues.”
“The property we stayed at was wonderful and very clean little touches like tea coffee sugar provided the beds we're very comfortable and the cottage was so cosy the owners estelle and philp we're very helpful the surrounding countryside was perfect we had some lovely dog walks the cottage was called rock cottage”
“You only know how good a company is when something goes wrong. Our stay was dreadful at a bungalow in Portscatho Cornwall that cottages.com brokered. Their customer service is dreadful and would let you stay in unsafe, unhygienic properties, even with photographic evidence they were not interested in helping us. Will never use this company again and advise others to steer clear.”
“We had a couple of issues and trying to get hold of someone to speak to at cottages.com is a nightmare. Virtually impossible. I had to use the tab that was used for an owner as that was the only way I got to speak to someone. The first person I spoke to was unprofessional. Almost like someone was passing the phone when it was ringing and decided to pick up. He didn’t have a clue.
Would never use this company again.”
