HolidaycottagesReviews 31

Award winning Company — what a joke!
Further to my first review I would like to add as follows:-

Their Holiday Cottages ad states believe it or not- Award Winning Company!
I would imagine that it means Award Winning for taking customers hard earned money, and when anyone needs to cancel for a valid reason ( as in covid) you get very little or none of it back!
If you do not want to get ‘ripped off' I strongly suggest that you book with another company.
Hopefully a reputable one.
You have been warned! These people are modern day pirates taking advantage of the COVID Pandemic with myriads of excuses why there is no refund.
I should make them sweat by going to court in my wheelchair and pleading my case. These robbers STILL owe us £100.00p.
Jonathan W.

My advice to anybody TRYING to book with this 'company' is - DON'T. They have just re-sold a booking I made on behalf of myself and 8 friends in October 2019 for 11th September, 2020. Despite many hours, days and weeks trying to pay the balance via the impossible to get through telephone number, Email was no better. I outlined my problem on 9th June, received an automated reply saying it would be answered - it wasn't. In desperation I 'phoned the owners who assured me my booking was secure and that I could pay them directly if the problem was not resolved. They have verbally offered a full refund and yes you've got it! - NO REFUND HAS ARRIVED! They are not to be trusted. Take a look at the many similar comments on FACEBOOK.

As others have clearly found cancelling a holiday (which it is impossible to take) is an expensive business with these people. To cut a long story short we have had to cancel and cannot re-book because the cottage we want is not available next year but nevertheless they seem to feel entitled to keep our deposit and to add insult to injury to ignore emails and phone calls (in the unlikely event you can get through) I shall start small claims court proceedings and suggest others do the same. Disgusted.

I have had a terrible time with these people. When the COVID 19 crisis first came up, I contacted them proactively to reschedule for next year. My original booking was for May 16-23. I got numerous form-letter type emails that looked like they hadn't even bothered to read what I wrote. When they finally contacted me to tell me they would rebook for next year, the price increase was £220, which is a 27% increase. This is downright extortion. I can't believe a company can stay in business this way. I felt I had no choice but to pay the additional money, or lose the money I had already paid them. Profiting from a crisis is absolutely SHAMEFUL. The increase in the price hit me very hard in the pocket book. I am a single senior citizen, and have never been treated so poorly. I will not be booking with these people again, even though I holiday in Scotland frequently. Ref: *******

My family and I arrived at Scarah Cottage at 4pm on 2nd Aug 2019, we left at 4:25pm.
As we drove up the drive to the cottage we were impressed and keen to settle in for the week - from the outside it looks magnificent.
To describe the awful condition of the inside of the cottage in words would take too long.
I have attached some of the photographs that we took, showing mould in the shower and the fridge, dirt in the bathrooms, the table in the bathroom along with the dirt in the corner of the bath, the cover hanging off the boiler and the filthy Ironing board, If you don't have time to check out all of he photographs, just look at the Bedside Lamp to understand why we decided to return home within 25 minutes of arriving at Scarah Cottage.
The cottage is described on the holidaycottages.co.uk website as 5star Luxury.
The Cottage owner states that he feels these could have been rectified at the time'
Holidaycottages.co.uk visited the cottage and stated In light of your comments our property manager Jessica has visited the property and once the issues you have raised are addressed it will still meet the criteria of a 5 star luxury property.'
5star properties should not require any rectification when the guest arrives, and NO property (irrespective of grade) should require this magnitude of rectification just to make it a clean, safe environment for families to stay.
We paid over £1900 to stay there for the week expecting it to be as it was depicted on the website, it was not.
Holidaycottages.co.uk and the Owner have refused to refund any of the cost of our holiday.