Holiday Cottages Anmeldelser 

If I could I would give a Holiday Cottages NO stars! After booking, my husband became gravely ill and it would have been impossible for us to travel to the cottage. They would not refund our deposit and kept quoting their Ts and Cs. No compassion and no empathy whatsoever. I’m disgusted with their attitude and they should be utterly ashamed of themselves. DO NOT book a cottage with them. They are also part of other smaller companies so watch out!

We booked a holiday cottage through this company in Duns, Berwickshire. One of the main draws was the fact it had a hot tub. On arrival, we found the rear garden area to be in an unkempt condition, bore no resemblance to the photographs on the website and the hot tub, did not work properly, was dirty and the cover was ripped and broken in two. We complained but did not receive sufficient satisfaction from the accommodation owners. It’s quite clear, because of the condition of the outside space that holiday cottages don’t inspect the properties they advertise to ensure they are of a suitable standard. This led us to cut our holiday short and return home. Poor experience.

I booked a property with this rabble for my wife's birthday. The day before we were due to leave for the property (a Tuesday) I received a message from the owner to say there was a problem and asked if HC had been in touch. I replied No, they hadn't been in touch. I rang them to find that there was an issue with the water supply. I then found out that the owner had notified HC of the problem on the Monday. So HC had sat on the information for at least 24 hours and no-one had a sense of urgency to contact me even though our departure for the property was imminent. In fact, we had been out on the Tuesday morning to buy items we would need for our stay. Unnecessary if HC had got their finger out and informed me the booking had been cancelled. I made a formal complaint and have received the usual apologies etc, etc, but no reason as to why there was such a delay. If the owner of the property had not put me wise to the problem when would HC have got round to doing it?
Customer service was shoddy, perhaps non-existant. I won't be using them again and advise others to steer clear.

I rented a beautiful apartment in Southwold because it had a balcony overlooking the seafront. It was a treat for my sister before she went in for a cancer operation. The balcony had been removed and we were not advised. The apartment was dirty. I complained on both counts only to be emailed from the complaints dept with promise of action. One month later, nothing!! Appalling company, do not use.

Booked my cottage and paid the extra to take my dog, unfortunately my dog died shortly after booking and I mailed customer service to remove the dog from the booking, I never received any kind of response.

So once booked you are on your own, you can cancel everything or continue.

I had to leave my home in an emergency due to the discovery of damp and mould issues and being diagnosed with a life threatening illness. Yet, I needed to stay as close to home as possible to get to medical appointments.
I had my last minute booking of a week confirmed at 5 High Street, Bollington and I packed up my car and my dog to find someone else in the property who was incredibly rude and informed me they had booked the property for one night on Airbnb.
I returned to my car which was like an oven with my dog whilst I attempted to contact the owner.
No apology, no responsibility accepted, just "Sorry our guests are there until tomorrow 2pm". And I was informed that I should find somewhere else for the night.
Given the situation I had found myself in, and believe anyone would be feeling this way, I responded to the owner, Beth Jones with "how charitable of you"
The next 4 hours we're spent driving around in a very hot car trying to find somewhere else to stay.
Luckily, despite not being suitable, I managed to find a dog friendly hotel room nearby, expecting I would be checking into 5 High Street the following day. Later on that evening I received a message from Beth "so sorry for this inconvenience", when I had asked to check on earlier than 2 as I had to leave my hotel room at 11.
So imagine my surprise when the following morning, after explaining to the owner the reasoning behind my stay and why it was so inconvenient, just as I'm checking out, I receive a phone call to tell me the owner no longer is allowing me to stay due to me daring to state that her double booking and telling me to source another place for a night was far from charitable.
It remains to be seen whether the fault was that of holiday cottages or Beth Jones but I can wholeheartedly say the owner is borderline psychopathic and holiday cottages refused to take any responsibility or help

After our week's stay in Stour Mill Barn, Nr Blandford Forum, we were asked for a review by Holiday Cottages which I submitted. I believe it was fair, but they have decided not to publish it, leaving only those reviews of 4 stars and over. This gives a very false impression. I commented on the cleanliness which wasn't great. Serious cobwebs meaning lots of spiders. Also, cottage is advertised for four adults because there are two double beds. In reality, the barn is too small - only 1 x two seater settee, and 2 x small cane chairs. Not ideal in my opinion, grossly overpriced.

Property was described as dog friendly after arriving we read the rules regarding dogs and it was designed to put you off brining a dog the property was NOT dog friendly. the dog exercise area had horses in it. The bed was only 4'6 small. The Wi-Fi was only 3mgb and there was no tv aerial so tv was over wi-fi and did not work. Don't believe there write ups on a property. Will never use again. I complained but with no actable reply.

Very very disappointing that they don’t publish negative reviews to make other holiday makers aware of poorly maintained properties. Be aware if there’s big gaps in reviews as they are missing.

Complained about Hailey cottage, stayed there last September, holiday cottages didn't want to know, I wrote a review on cottage, they wouldn't even print it, and not even an acknowledgement! Shocking, goes to show they only post good reviews.

I booked a cottage in north Devon. I paid and they confirmed the booking. Less than a week before, they cancelled the booking and (rather than being helpful), sent me a list of possible alternatives and made it very clear I would have to pay the difference. They did offer a refund but would NOT guarantee that the refund would happen BEFORE the holiday start date (making it near impossible to book another venue-I am not flush with money). Disappointing response which shows little awareness/contrition/responsibility

Fern House Tansley hot tub gave us bacterial infections requiring medication.it holds 4; the house sleeps 8. Microwave situated dangerously high and complicated to use. No mirror in 2 bedrooms. Not enough electric sockets in small bedroom. House dark requiring lights on in the day. My headboard was dusty. Heating noisy at 06:30am. There was one challenging walk otherwise we had to drive to find one. One local expensive busy pub House situated on a
housing estate with young families.
I took the hot tub concerns up with the owner (worrying that other users especially children could suffer similarly) who said it was checked the day before our arrival and implied we had introduced things to it such as food. I took this up with holiday cottages who said they could liaise with the owner on my behalf so got me nowhere. The review I left on the website 2 days ago has not been added.

Took up a compliant with cottage Deagh Mhonadh
Dechmont, Edinburgh and Lothians which should not be advertised as a holiday let,
They did nothing about getting anything back saying my contact was not with them!!!!
i,paid them they didn’t take up any of my complaint
I got a small good will payment

Since writing the review below and have had contact from Leslie (complaints manager) who has been incredibly helpful, resolved the issue and is refunding all of our money - it’s a shame it was so hard to get in touch with right person but once we did she acted quickly and professionally.

We recently arrived at our accommodation in the highlands to be told holiday cottages had cancelled our reservation, we had booked in January and had had no communication about this and were left with no where to stay. HC denied all knowledge, sent some alternatives but said we would need to pay any difference ( one was £20k more!!!), since then we have been trying to talk to some one to get our £1000 refunded, but no one is coming back to us.

Booked a 4 night stay in North Devon. Very poor experience. Cottage not how it was described. Provided feedback on our return. Additional feedback on their website done twice. No one has had the courtesy, or courage to make contact. Not even sure they visit the properties for which they promote. Won't be using them again, they couldn't care less.

We stayed at Florida cottage on the Gower peninsular and although it was well equipt it needs quite a bit of work to bring it up to standard. The drive gates are not very secure and need replacing, the gutters and facia`s need cleaning and repainting they look terrible. There is a storage bin in the garden which is falling apart so should be repaired or removed for safety of children. The cottage inside requires a good dust as all of the downstairs lights had cobwebs on the and they were supposed to have been cleaned. The bathroom cabinate over the hand basin was too high for anyone under 5ft.6in. and should be replaced with a mirror. The shower riser was too low for my husband who is 6ft and struggled with it. Curtains wwould be advantagous in the bedrooms due to the early morning sun.

Do not use!!!
Paid £30 for cancellation insurance and unfortunately had to cancel.
Got told in no uncertain terms I will not get refund and was referred to Davies group to claim.
SCAM! claim was not entertained.
Crooks in cahoots.
Cancelled booking over 6 MONTHS in advance. You would expect some of your £278 deposit returned. Absolutely disgusting attitude.

Noticed that the person who followed us into the property complained about no water.
The owner said it was a surprise, funny because we had told her. Don't think that Holiday cottages check these properties!. Booked a holiday through Holiday cottages and wasn't happy with the star rating and cottage description. Emailed Holiday cottages two months ago and after several attempts they keep saying, need to wait for a property inspection for my review to be published. Don't think they like reviews that aren't positive. We were only pointing out the issues with the property to help others make a informed decision.

From a personal experience of booking a cottage directly with the owners (wherever possible) vs booking through holiday cottage company I would always recommend the former.

I very recently stayed at a cottage in Lake District (two weeks back) where I booked with the owners and I am currently in another property booked through Holiday Cottages and here are the issues:

1. Holiday cottages offer only a 3 / 4 / 7 days booking - so for a 5 night stay you have to book 7 nights. Its really a bad practice as it offers no flexibility. So you end up paying more

2. Extremely poor service. The focus is on selling more add on service instead of giving a good experience. In my previous stay, the owners met us and were able to resolve any issues throughout our stay. For the holiday cottages it always goes through an agent who are not very responsive or helpful - in any case they have to go back to the owner or claim refuge behind the unhelpful statement 'its our policy'

3. So here is a sampler of the unhelpful and not so user friendly policies of Holiday cottages
(a) The Wifi in cottage is not working - they are not able to do anything other than saying we need to go back to the owner - personally I can see the router in the cottage probably have not been upgraded in last 10 years
(b) Keys - they dont provide more than one set of keys - in this case we are staying in a cottage which can sleep 8 - still only one set of keys
(c) Accessories - not enough kitchen towels, no oven gloves, soap dispensers nearly empty - they say their self catering accommodation policy is to provide enough only for day 1 and you are supposed to sort yourselves out subsequently !!

To summarise I will never book a cottage through this company again