Sykes Cottages - Ex Gratia Credit

Hel1978

Hoping that someone can advise? We had a booking with Sykes cottages for the end of May. After several emails and advising that we were not able to 're book' we received a partial refund. Sykes have kept over £400 , this according to them is the amount of the commission which they were paid by the property owner for facilitating our booking. How are we able to get this back as a refund? Thanks

klclarke

Following as I have the same question. Hate the idea that they are holding money back which means you have to book through them again. My payment came from 7 of us, I've had to refund everyone and therefore had to pay them out of my own pocket due to so much being left in the sykes account.

Galloglass

How are we able to get this back as a refund?

Sue them. https://www.moneyclaim.gov.uk/web/mcol/welcome

The issue will be asking a court to decide if this was one transaction or two i.e. the booking (which was completed) and the holiday which was not. It will all turn on the terms and conditions that were agreed. There may be a few of you who could co-ordinate your cases so that a judge will select representative case as test cases. Happens a lot.

I would think that Sykes are going for the 2 contracts exemption but there may be a case to argue that it was one contract as you can't do one without the other. 

Commissions in this industry are about 28% so it is a lot of customers' money at stake and you should see if these can be coordinated as a group. 

scoobydru

Having booked with Sykes in the past, they don't state the split of the booking fee (or commission) when you book a property.  Therefore, it seems incredulous that they feel they can with hold their commission from customers who have booked through them, when the agreement on their commission will be between the property owner & Sykes, not the customer who has booked via their website.  Thus, the booking customer has no idea whether the commission is £1 on a £1,000 booking or a £999 on a £1,000 booking, in order to gauge their financial exposure.

Additionally, if the booking customer cancels due to unforeseen circumstances, there would be an enforceable penalty.  In this instance, the booking customer is disadvantaged, irrespective of which party cancels. A contract must surely be 'unfair' if it gives an advantage to one party over the other when they cancel.   I suspect they are banking on people not being prepared to take them / property owner to the small claims court.

Fortunately, I don't have a current booking with them but I empathise with everyone who has booked though them.

Galloglass

As @scoobydru points out these as hidden terms and will be either automatically unfair or held to be unfair under the Consumer Rights Act 2015

Legislation gives you a check list and would suggest you go back to Sykes pointing out all the unfair terms they are using.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/15/schedule/2/enacted

MumOf2

We were booked for a week firmly in the lockdown period, but obviously couldn't go.  After several conversations and email communications with Sykes, the owners have refused a refund.  So we completed a NatWest chargeback form but twice when we press the submit button it stalls and we receive a message that there's a system error.  Tried to  phone NatWest but they won't speak to us about it and say submit the form (which won't send...).

We will obviously try to complete and submit it again, but the next stage if we can't or if chargeback refused is to go down the legal route.  We're not litigious by nature but this is really getting to me!  This is a frustrated contract in law but they believe that the law doesn't apply to them.  It's the perceived injustice as well as the money (which isn't insignificant).  These are very wealthy people (amazing how transparent people's lives are on the web) and this is probably a drop in the ocean for them.

MumOf2 x

manetti

Take a look at the Coronoavirus Travel forum - there are a number of threads on there discussing Sykes Cottages and the difficulties people are having obtaining refunds.

sharpe106

With the attitude of Sykes I would not be surprised if they go out of business. People won't forget. Companies like easyjet that have appalling service get away with it as they are cheap compared to other companies. So people book anyway. Sykes are no cheaper then anybody else so people just won't book with them. 

a_fierce_bad_rabbit

I live nestled amongst a few Sykes cottages, I’m waiting for them all to implode 😁

sharpe106

a_fierce_bad_rabbit said:

I live nestled amongst a few Sykes cottages, I’m waiting for them all to implode 😁

I was under the impression that Sykes was a bit like booking.com for cottages, just the middle man did not actual own the cottages themselves. 

a_fierce_bad_rabbit

sharpe106 said:

a_fierce_bad_rabbit said:

I live nestled amongst a few Sykes cottages, I’m waiting for them all to implode 😁

I was under the impression that Sykes was a bit like booking.com for cottages, just the middle man did not actual own the cottages themselves. 

Yes that’s true. Although they do ‘manage’ many of them, sort of ..... caretakers.
im more familiar with ‘Cumbrian cottages’ - there’s a mixed approach to managing the properties, some owners leave it all to the agent, some want more control (doing own repairs, using cottage for themselves whenever they need to). 
Presuming Sykes is similar. I do know they’re often pricier than CC.

Used to stay at a holiday let years ago and the owner was always at odds with the agent. Eventually she cut most ties with them and only used them to find bookings. 

Others are more or less fully run and maintained by agent.