Sykes cottages finally giving actual refunds for Covid cancellations

[GiantKitten]

This applies to bookings starting from 23 March 2020, to Friday 3 July if the customer and/or accommodation is based in England, Sunday 12 July for Wales, Thursday 2 July for Scotland or Friday 26 June for Northern Ireland.

www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2020/07/sykes-cottages-reverses-coroanvirus-refund-policy-after-regulato/

[LochJessMonster]

Oh god I hope Suffolk Cottage Holidays follows. It’s been a nightmare and really upsetting trying to get nearly £1000 back from them. They are really wearing me down.

[GiantKitten]

@LochJessMonster

Oh god I hope Suffolk Cottage Holidays follows. It’s been a nightmare and really upsetting trying to get nearly £1000 back from them. They are really wearing me down.

I’m not surprised, that’s a lot of money

Have you complained about them? MSE says there have been loads of complaints about Sykes (it’s a pretty big company of course) & that’s probably helped push them along.

We reported complaints we'd had about Sykes Cottages and other firms to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), as well as to Trading Standards and the Government.

[LochJessMonster]

I’m going to report to CMA tomorrow and maybe trading standards.
Currently got a dispute open with Barclays and then my next option is small claims court.
I honestly just want back my money. I would understand if they need to keep an admin fee etc but I cannot lose £1000 and not even have a holiday to show for it!

Credit is no good as even if we did rebook in the future we won’t need such a big cottage as it was for a one off big occasion.

They are counting on bullying me out and honestly it’s nearly working, I know I’m entitled to a full refund, the t&cs state I am entitled to a full refund, a lawyer has told me I’m entitled to a full refund and yet they refuse. Disgusting behaviour.

[EnlightenedOwl]

Sykes have kept our deposit so 200 quid thankfully didn't get full amount

[starlingsintheslipstream]

Awful company. Good news for some but nowhere near enough. It doesn't help those people who were forced into rebooking for fear of losing the money already paid or those like the poster above who presumably cancelled to avoid paying the full amount for a holiday that couldn't proceed and lost their deposit as a result. Great quote from the chief exec of Sykes in that article:

"The last few months have been some of the most stressful for UK holidaymakers"

I wonder why .

[GiantKitten]

@starlingsintheslipstream

Awful company. Good news for some but nowhere near enough. It doesn't help those people who were forced into rebooking for fear of losing the money already paid or those like the poster above who presumably cancelled to avoid paying the full amount for a holiday that couldn't proceed and lost their deposit as a result. Great quote from the chief exec of Sykes in that article:

"The last few months have been some of the most stressful for UK holidaymakers"

I wonder why .

I agree, starlings

I wonder if, now this has happened, there’s any likelihood of people being able to reclaim the lost deposits as well - it might be worth complaining again to CMA/Trading Standards?

[EnlightenedOwl]

I'm trying money claims online through the court service

[WhatHoJeeves]

Totally agree with PP, good news for some but I feel Sykes will actually be refunding very few people due to their policy.

We were forced to rebook or lose our money as Sykes said no refunds were allowed. Now, they have told us that we are not eligible for a refund as we 'chose' to rebook.

So, there will be people who rearranged their dates and are perfectly happy with that. And then there will be many people - like us - who actually wanted a refund from the start, rearranged our holiday as we were given no option of a refund, and now can't have the refund as we 'are no longer affected' according to Sykes. So very few people will be getting a refund, which is great for Sykes who look as though they are complying but actually aren't!

I feel they are being incredibly underhanded about this and are causing people a lot of stress and financial difficulty unnecessarily. It is very short-sighted of them to create so much ill-will right now, particularly as bookings for UK self-catering are now booming and they could have refunded those who asked, kept their goodwill, and still rented out their cottages again with ease.

[Serin]

I hate Sykes, we stayed in one of their cottages a few years back. The washer didnt work and when we reported it they tried to blame us.
Then a couple of days later we were in the garden and a huge concrete slab fell of a sloping wall adjacent to some steps, narrowly missing one of our kids. We complained and they "fixed"it by balancing it back on the wall, ready to fall off again on the next guests.
Would never use them again.
I can highly recommend a company called Boltholes and Hideaways. Much nicer and genuinely seem to care.

[Sandygran]

So glad I moved our holiday cottage away from a traditional agency to Airnb a year ago! It's awful to hear these stories of the way so called reputable companies have treated guests. I must say Airbnb have been brilliant - all my guests who cancelled got a full immediate refund, which is how it should be when circumstances are out of your control.

[LochJessMonster]

So for 4 months Suffolk Cottage Holidays point blank refused me a refund, even when I threatened legal action and opened a dispute with my bank. They said they had consulted with ‘top London lawyers’ who said they didn’t have to give refunds.

48hours after I spammed all their social media pages saying what a disgusting lying company they were, I get the full refund into my bank account!

It’s disgusting that I went through all the proper channels, sought legal advice and requested the money back and hit wall after wall and yet a bit of bad publicity springs them into action.

[nougatsquirrel]

Westbay Cottages / Cotswolds Holidays have not paid up after 2 months even after I made them aware of the implications of not following Competition and Markets Authority guidance. So now I am reclaiming through my credit card.
I will never book again through Cotswolds Holidays.