Canopy & Stars Avis 

Utterly disgusted. Booked on Sat, canx next working day-Mon as suspected covid, refuse to refd as not cancelled before 10 weeks-we did not have 10 weeks as only booked on the Sat and due to travel on the wed! No budge at all even when we emailed proof a covid test was ordered through NHS. Absolute rip off merchants not adhering to government guidelines or showing any compassion. Lost a lot of money, will never recommend or use again

Very frustrating search engine, the prices reflected in initial listing are always at leat x3 the price when you go onto the page. It very much feels like you're being deceived, this even happens when entering in the date you would like to go before searching. Their main competitor Air'b'n'b is much more transparent in their pricing and I will be using them in the future.

My Dad sadly passed away,so I had to fly to Poland then come back and quarantine for 10 days. Unfortunately we had to cancel our holiday 8 days before arriving!
We couldn't amend our dates for staying, our holiday didn't resold. So basically they take our 290£ for nothing. I think this company is owned by robots without any empathy or sympathy for people. We will never book with them again, or Hinterlandes.
Enjoy your free money!!

In May 2021, we stayed two nights in an awful pod in North Norfolk whose owners didn't have a clue what hospitality means (or were not interested in that part of their business). We had paid £120 per night when we reserved our booking for October last year. Due to Covid, we could change that (after a lot of hassle) to May. Current price per night is £105 so we would have expected at least some correction. Nothing was mentioned. It's only £30 but it is the principle.
The quality and cleanliness of the pod was so poor - we didn't even find any proof of it having been disinfected - that we wrote a long letter with all our complaints to Canopy and Stars (via the feedback email system on their website). We did not receive any response from them. We wrote another letter a few weeks later asking them if they had received the letter and, if they had, to confirm how they were going to follow up our serious complaints and comments. After a week, still no response.
Let's take just two of the self-promoting statements C&S make on their site :
1. Our friendly Guest Experience Team have one of the best customer service scores in travel
2. We have social skills.
They also claim to visit every place they offer on their site. That obviously doesn't mean anything when you don't know their criteria.
C&S are at the bottom of hospitality industry. All empty, wonderful words. Thinking about using them? We suggest that you re-read our review before you decide.
The pod we stayed in was way below the minimum standards we expect.
It's always disappointing when you cannot give zero stars for an organisation, the owners and their accommodation.
We've been ripped off big time. Hugely overpriced even if the quality had been slightly better.
Don't be fooled by their Eco jargon. That's for the gullible amongst us. The real Eco warriors would have been shocked. We're not gullible and felt conned.

Our cancelled trip due to our car breaking down on the way to accommodation. Head office and property both able to accommodate us another date. Disappointedly we won’t return to planned property or book through canopy again. Canopy are just another travel agency - unhelpful middlemen.

DON’T BOOK UNTIL YOU HAVE READ THE T&C which are unethical and immoral to lose full payment if your circumstance changes within 10 weeks is just wrong. I think you’ll find when a company has 50% of its reviews on the lowest score and 70% below average you have to question the competence and if they have an agender.

We booked a 2 day stay for 2 for our anniversary, 2 days later our child care advised us of a muddle and they couldn’t make the dates. we advised asap the next day and asked to change the dates as most of June was still free and July, august etc
We were told that its inside 10 weeks and that any changes were not possible but as a good will gesture they will allow me to rebook for £50 as long as they re-sold my original dates and if not I could rebook for £50 they later apologised for not being clear this was for the same dates that we had to change.
They advised me the process was to cancel to make the days available again, which they did and they would get the media team to push this property out. 3-4 weeks later I checked to see the dates had been resold only to find out they never released them to be sold on. They blamed a computer error which they conveniently advised they couldn’t be held responsible for in their initial mail of advice (you have to ask why they would specify this) I think I now know!!! Nor did they generate a single social media post adverting the property. It would appear they had no intention in trying to resell my dates and why should they if they are guaranteed the money.
We only had 2 weeks left and subsequently they were not sold. I was offered no alternative other than to lose the entire booking and there was nothing they could do as I cancelled my booking (that they advised me to do).
The way they word emails leaves everything open so they can chose what they do but in the long run they are only interested in getting the money and not helping the customer. They also have dodged questions and refuse to answer them as it would be admitting the poor service.

They lied on a few issues which was simply addressed as a misunderstanding (or cute wording more like) and they even changed the T&C’s after I pointed this out.

Just save your yourself from all the aggravation and use a proper outlet for you trip.

I expect them to reply with more dishonest trail of events, if only I could post all of the emails.

How they sleep at night taking people’s money hiding behind outrageous T&C’s is shocking.

I had booked a surprise birthday trip for my boyfriend to stay in the lost meadow treepod in Cornwall the weekend of 21st May 21. I booked the trip way back in October 2020 and had read the terms and conditions regarding covid so was happy that if there were to be another lockdown I would get my money back.

Cue 5 weeks before we are due to go (now knowing it was fine to go ahead as restrictions being lifted on 17th May) O get an email out of the blue from Canopy and Stars saying the booking had been cancelled because the owners 'are exchanging properties that weekend and can no longer accommodate us'.

I was beyond upset as I had had to take time off, so had my boyfriend, he was so excited for the surprise trip and obviously with everything going on with the pandemic we were thrilled to be able to go away.

Now I have several issues
1. Why were we only informed 5 weeks beforehand? We had absolutely no chance of being able to book anywhere else for that weekend because it's the first weekend of lifted restrictions. Also house sales in the UK take months and months. Given I booked this over 6 months in advance why wasn't I informed earlier?

2. It was a location in the middle of woodlands on the owners property a minimum 5 minute walk to the shower facility. We had instructions to take our own WATER to the site as well as food and provisions. The owners would not have had to provide anything for us, we would have been out of the way and the only thing I could see that would need doing is a clean of the shower - so hire a cleaner for the day. I, and everyone I have told about this, thinks it's an incredibly poor excuse to cancel so last minute and especially at this time during the easing of restrictions so we had no chance of booking anywhere last minute. I cannot believe canopy and stars allowed the owners to do this or this has been agreed in their cancellation policy.

3. I actually think this was prompted because I had emailed the owner a question the week prior to the cancellation and I had heard nothing from them. They had clearly forgotten about our booking and instead of honouring it just cancelled it instead. It makes me wonder what would have happy had we not tried/needed to contact them and had turned up at the site on the 21st?

There was no discussion to be had with canopy and stars or the owners and I was just issued a refund.
I am extremely disappointed with this company and their obvious lack of customer service and ensuring owners honour their bookings. I doubt the owners will have any reprieve from this and it will be the customers who continue to suffer in future.

I am sure if it had been the other way round and I had cancelled last minute I would have lost my money....

They cancelled our trip without notifying us.
Only when I reached out wondering why we had received no information on how to access the property, did they acknowledge their mistake and issue us a refund. My partner and I had booked off work for this trip and were completely let down by this company.

Re-booked after our holiday after it had to be moved due to COVID restrictions. After no contact from the company, we got in touch asking for details. They replied saying our trip had been cancelled due to a 'human error' and offered to move up to a tent (rather than a lodge) 250 miles away from where we had booked worth £200 less than our original booking.

I cannot stress enough, please avoid this company at all costs. If only we had seen similar reviews before booking we would have stayed far away.

We booked a 2 night stay with Canopy and Stars at a woodland gypsy hut for my partner's 30th. We had to make the decision to ask to amend the booking last minute due to my partner incurring a knee injury which made it hard for him to walk and some additional distressing family issues which required us to stay home. It all fell unfortunately and unpredictably on the time we'd booked to go away on this trip.

We emailed the owners initially, who passed us back to Canopy & Stars, who then said that because it's within 10 weeks of the stay and there's no time for them to resell the booking, they wouldn't offer any amendment. Their terms and conditions are very unclear on this front and suggest it is possible to amend bookings:

"2.4.2 In the event of cancellation within 10 weeks of check in the total cost of the accommodation including the deposit is non-refundable. In some circumstances it may be possible to swap the stay to another date"

The T's&C's suggest a £50 admin fee to amend which seemed fair enough, but it turns out that amendments are conditional on reselling the booking OR on the owner's goodwill - luck of the draw. Lack of clarity in the T's&C's mean you don't learn this until it becomes an issue for you - at which point the customer service team unhelpfully refer you back to the T's&C's as if it was obvious.

They've suggested that the last minuteness was the issue, however, I've seen on here someone else had this issue 5 weeks in advance. You could actually run into this issue 10 weeks in advance. We only booked after the 10 week mark due to the pandemic, so had we needed to amend the next day, the same issue would have arisen - pending resale or goodwill.

The customer service representative unhelpfully responded with: "We are simply trying to balance the needs of both owners and guests and unfortunately with this, sometimes comes compromise and disappointment." There has been no compromise.

If I'd have read these reviews beforehand, I'd have never made the booking. We won't be booking with Canopy & Stars again because of this, unless they change their T's&C's and support customers, not just owners. Plenty of other accommodation have much better, clearer, fairer amendment and cancellation policies.

We appreciate the need for small business owners not to lose revenue, however, we also had to cancel a cattery booking at the same time, a small business, who kindly waived the fee and let us making a rebooking. So this evidences that small businesses who have lost out during the pandemic can be kind and supportive and then retain customer loyalty. We'll always use that cattery.

Since writing this review, Canopy & Stars have said in an email that they've removed "In some circumstances it may be possible to swap the stay to another date" from their T's&C's. It doesn't make it right and means perhaps they already knew they didn't honour this statement. They seemed to think it should be obvious which circumstances, but it wasn't clearly stated and was very ambiguous. Removing it was acknowledgement that it was ambiguous and could mislead customers into thinking amendments are possible when they aren't, or only are if the booking can be resold from the 10 week mark.

There's also no clear complaints procedure on the website.

Lovely weekend at furnace brooke lodge in east Sussex. The lodge itself was spotlessly clean and in wonderful location overlooking a lake.great walks around the lake and with the bluebells out in the woods made it extra special. All amenities close by (pub) made everything that much easier.
Will go again and reccomend to friends and family.

Site displays dates that are unavailable. This has happened twice.

Christmas 2019 I bought a Canopy & Stars £150 gift voucher for my brother and part of their Marketing / Promotional deal they run each year was for every £150 voucher you got a separate £50 voucher as a gift. I assumed that with Covid wiping out 2020 Canopy and Stars would honour these gift vouchers for longer term but apparently not... disgusted with Canopy&Star's Customer Care having been a loyal and loving customer of theirs for years. Won't be using again - now fighting for my gift vouchers to be valid so i can book some trips out of lockdown!!

I’m surprised at the reviews as my experience with their customer service was excellent. I booked back in 2019 for a stay in 2020. That was cancelled due to lockdown 1. It was rebooked for 2021 which was cancelled due to lockdown 3. A refund was requested.

It’s almost impossible to get hold of them by phone as they are all working remotely due the pandemic so all contact was by email. As long as you are patient they get back to you (unlike some other companies I have dealt with), I fully appreciate these are unprecedented times and we have to allow for that.

They replied to my request to refund and asked for a good time to call, they called later that day and processed the refund immediately.

I will certainly use them again.

I wish I had read the reviews before booking with this company. There are a couple of reviews re: the level of customer service and the department being sarcastic.. I completely agree with this, they have a very odd tone to their emails which almost feels like they just want you to go away. I booked back the summer of 2020 to arrive for Feb 2021 as I wanted some things to look forward to for my 30th birthday. When it came to Jan 2021 we obviously realised that this booking would not go ahead and the booking was cancelled by C&S and we was asked to either cancel or rebook. We wanted to rebook and we was asked to email them with new dates we would be available and how many nights we was originally booked for. We had originally 2 nights booked and we offered a list of dates but advised we would be free for most weekends left for 2021. They came back to us and said it was preferred that we have a 3 night break now, which was not what we booked the reason for this is: that was the hosts preference for this time of year. I emailed them explaining we was happy to come in Feb 2021 however, we would be breaking the law, so it's not something we WANT, but more we had no choice but to do. I accept that they don't want to be closed either, but you don't need to take it out on people who are looking forward to enjoying a break at your facility. We was also told we would have to pay the extra on top as we wanted to move to a peak booking, I was happy to do this, but I wanted to know how much this was before agreeing to it. They did not take into account the financial impact of having to have another day off work for self employed people who had already had it bad this year. I wrote back to them advising they could not force us to extend the trip and they said they would ask the 'host' or told us to take a refund. There was a lot of back and forth, which was pointless due to the fact that we was waiting for the host to reply and advise if we could have the two nights and confirm what the price increase would be! The host did actually come back and accept the two nights and we paid the price increase, which shows that the back and forth was pointless. Since then I emailed them again, as I hadn't realised that this actually clashes with another event of mine, their emails are so confrontational and rude. He came back and stated that as there was no availability until November, I would have to cancel and forfeit my deposit. No consideration that I might be happy to move to November? I just find the whole experience rude, unprofessional and confrontational. I really feel like they just want the past bookings to cancel, and book new bookings. I wish I had cancelled in Jan..

Just awful service. I had a tech issue on their website where I got a confirmation saying you are going on holiday but I never received a confirmation email. Tech issue happen which I totally understand. I tried calling and calling. No one picked up. I tried their chat box. I tried emailing and messaging on Instagram and Facebook. Eventually I was informed that I did not in fact have a booking and someone had booked over the dates I needed. If I had not chased I would have turned up at the venue. They should NOT have a phone number or a chat box option if no one picks up the phone or the voicemails. It just frustrating!

On the email they even offered to call me and when I gave them my number they didn’t even call!

Awful. Canopy and Stars cancelled our booking without notice. Took 1 week to reply to an urgent email.
Really awful - AVOID!

Was really looking forward to this little break but due to lockdown my original booking had to be moved. This was done with no problems. It come to my second booking,which again had to be moved, and I was told I had to pick new dates from the online calendar, the only dates left seemed to be at the very end of the year. Selected some dates only to be told that these were unavailable. This happened on several occasions, causing a lot of going back and forth and I started to get the impression that rather than prioritises the customers who already have bookings, they were allowing new bookings to be placed meaning the rest of us were having to wait until next year. Taking new bookings is understandable as I know money needs to be made up from all the lost time caused by lockdown but it didn’t help that the customer service girl come across unhelpful. She also come across very sarcastic when I requested a refund. Maybe going forward a selection of dates should be provided for current customers to chose from as either your calendar doesn’t work or in the time it’s taking for you to respond to emails the dates are being taken by new bookings. Won’t be booking with here again. A work colleague has also told me of a similar situation they’ve had too.

I had a horrific staycation with Canopy and Stars. I booked a cabin in Cornwall for 4 nights, long story cut short - the experience was badly advertised... The stay was not what we expected so I left a review on their website, they then contacted me to "investigate further" for which I told them I wasn't bothered about carrying it on any further but they insisted they would find out more.

They then contacted me back to DEFEND the host and say that we were at fault for the experience that we had... I was baffled, I asked them not to pursue it in the first place as it was as simple as bad stay, bad review.

I will never book anything here again, I'll preference Air B n B for which I've had much nicer service.

I don't recommend C & S to anyone - especially if you have any issues with your stay.

Refunded my money pretty much straight away when national Tier 4 was introduced in December 2020. I just emailed to say I didn’t want a voucher, and it as no problem.