Sykes Cottages Cancellation

[Doidontimmm]

Anyone got experience with Sykes cottages. We booked a cottage for 7 nights in December over Christmas in January. It was £20 deposit. The full amount payable in November. The t&c do say if we cancel we have to pay a third £345.

We can no longer go :( My Son has a new job with no time off at Christmas & my Gran is now unable to travel.

I feel they are being awkward as I’ve asked to change dates - they will only allow earlier dates & must be 7 days. I can only do dates next year and only 3/4 nights.

My argument is there is plenty time to resell it. It’s booked solid most of the year so doubtful it won’t be. If we cancel & they rebook they get my deposit plus the new customers full amount. If they would let me change the dates they would have 2 bookings!

Am I being unreasonable?

We have travel insurance but not covered for this.

Unless their conditions specified a limit to rebooking, then I don't see how they can object to a rebooking for next year? I would challenge this.

Yes the said the owner gets this!! I didn’t know what to say.

They have just stated I cannot change the dates to after the current booking.

Not emailed owner yet, feel bad for them but i feel Sykes are being greedy and unreasonable not even letting me rebook for next year.

All very stressful as we wanted to be in that location for Christmas as my BFs family are there, could have all been together but now will be 200 miles apart and likely £345 down!

If the owner gets it all then it’s actually the owner being greedy?

If Sykes won’t negotiate I really would just leave it until the very last minute before the deposit is due!

And I wouldn’t email the owner either.

I'd leave it till the last minute then and I'd say to Sykes that they won't get any future custom from you, plus you will warn everyone you know about their inflexibility. Seems harsh they won't let you book for any dates after the current ones. Plenty of people might not have enough leave to go away before their planned December break this year.

OP I think in your circumstances this is unfair practice. I agree you should tweet if you can, and certainly do your research. You could go to a national newspaper travel page and ask. You are cancelling well in time for a popular cottage to be rebooked and they are not offering times you can make this year. Clearly both the company and owner need to defend themselves against piss-takers but you clearly aren't.

Thanks all. I set up twitter many years ago & never used but will figure out how to activate it. Any idea what to say??