The Holiday Cottages

OTA = Online Travel Agency, which means those sites that sell the booking and take the payment for you.
Jemima Copping
Posts: 176
Joined: Fri Jun 21, 2013 5:22 pm
Location: Scotland
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The Holiday Cottages

Post by Jemima Copping »

Does anyone know anything about http://www.theholidaycottages.co.uk/?
I have had a couple of calls from them with an offer of reduced price to advertise with them. I have not heard of them before, although they claim to have been in business for 16 years.
Better to be mutton dressed as lamb than mutton dressed as mutton!
rosebud
Posts: 625
Joined: Wed Mar 14, 2012 5:24 pm
Location: Steyning, West Sussex

Post by rosebud »

I would be very interested to hear of others experience too...

They don't seem to come up when I type in a few search terms.
zebedee
Posts: 1270
Joined: Fri Sep 12, 2014 2:57 pm
Location: yorkshire dales

Post by zebedee »

Yes, I’ve listed with them.
On the plus side you get emails periodically asking for your late availability over the coming months. They are good about listing this which must be a nightmare to input.
I have had a few enquiries. I think even a booking or two (I signed up for a 3 year deal. )
I’ve just looked and many of my local competitors are also listed. They should not be confused with another company with an almost identical name.

I can’t say I would recommend them, but I wouldn’t put anyone off listing either.
(I’ll climb down off the fence now).
:D
Joanna
Posts: 1091
Joined: Thu Aug 23, 2007 3:12 pm
Location: Chester, North West England & Sidmouth, East Devon
Contact:

Post by Joanna »

We had the 3 year deal and had no enquiries that could be traced back to them. Our website stats showed hardly any click throughs - so few that they could just have been me checking the links were working. When renewal time came they sent me reminder emails claiming over a thousand click throughs for each property. That blatant lie sealed their fate for me and needless to say we didn't renew.

To put it in perspective I got more views on one of the cottages Facebook page from a £10 post boost than I got click throughs in 3 years on The Holiday Cottages.
Jo

Joint owner of Baker's Cottage in Chester & Chandler's Cottage in Sidmouth
rosebud
Posts: 625
Joined: Wed Mar 14, 2012 5:24 pm
Location: Steyning, West Sussex

Post by rosebud »

Thanks Joanna.. Pretty useless then!
Joanna
Posts: 1091
Joined: Thu Aug 23, 2007 3:12 pm
Location: Chester, North West England & Sidmouth, East Devon
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Post by Joanna »

In my experience not only useless at getting enquiries but rubbish at covering it up too. We have 2 cottages, one in Devon and one in Chester so very different markets. The stats they sent me at renewal time showed a different number of page views for each, as you would expect, but the exact same number of click throughs - 1298. Spooky coincidence? Don't think so.
Jo

Joint owner of Baker's Cottage in Chester & Chandler's Cottage in Sidmouth
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Cymraes
Posts: 519
Joined: Tue Jul 07, 2015 3:31 pm
Location: North Wales

Post by Cymraes »

They are annoyingly persistent.

I had to throw a bit of a hissy fit to get them to stop pestering me after I'd said no for the umpteenth time on the phone and tried unsuccessfully to unsub from their email barrage. In the end I blocked their number and consigned their email address to my spam filter.

They've now started following me on twitter....
Jonathan
Posts: 122
Joined: Thu Aug 14, 2014 10:17 am
Location: Warwickshire
Contact:

Post by Jonathan »

zebedee wrote:Yes, I’ve listed with them.
On the plus side you get emails periodically asking for your late availability over the coming months. They are good about listing this which must be a nightmare to input.
I have had a few enquiries. I think even a booking or two (I signed up for a 3 year deal. )
I’ve just looked and many of my local competitors are also listed. They should not be confused with another company with an almost identical name.

I can’t say I would recommend them, but I wouldn’t put anyone off listing either.
(I’ll climb down off the fence now).
:D
+1

Jonathan
Sandra J
Posts: 66
Joined: Sun Aug 30, 2015 3:54 pm
Location: North Yorkshire

Post by Sandra J »

My advert is up for renewal....... supposed to have had 5337 page views and 440 website referrals yet not a single booking I can attribute to them. Like others have said I do not believe the statistics are accurate. Only signed up for a year and won’t be renewing. I also did two test enquires from my page and they didnt email through. After my renewal phone call today I did another one and it did email through. Their website is not user friendly from a guests point of view either. Late availability has to be emailed to them and can’t be don’t by ourselves which is another negative from me.
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GRL
Posts: 821
Joined: Fri Sep 12, 2014 4:31 pm

Post by GRL »

Much as I dislike the fact that ABB etc have websites that all look similar this one looks so archaic and the images are tiny. Also on their FB page you can neither add visitor posts or review/recommend them. That always rings alarm bells for me and they have less interaction on Instagram than my account :roll:
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