Frustrating and highly debt-inducing

<p>Re: Mismanagement of booking of tickets and documents.</p> <p>I would like to relay the circumstances of the booking of flights to Australia and the documents relating to these flights as I feel the situation was handled completely incorrectly and unprofessionally and I need it sorted.</p> <p>I am incorporating a whole lot of people on this matter as I feel my requests were brushed off by the people I dealt with.</p> <p>My sister needed to immigrate back to Australia with her daughter. After she received her visa she went to Flight Centre to book her flights. She emailed the documents to Cathryn McEwan at Walmer Park Shopping centre as she was asked to do. She asked in the email whether the documents are in order and if Cathryn needed anything else she must just ask.</p> <p>I went to pay a day or two later and I also asked whether all documents are in order before I paid and signed the documents. Firstly I did not organise the flights, I merely went to pay for them. Secondly, it is not my job to know which documents are needed by Flight Centre it is the travel agent’s job. Otherwise I could have done everything online. I trusted that the travel agent knew her job and has done her job by actually looking at the documents and so when I was told all was in order, I believed it and took it as the truth.</p> <p>Cathryn was never in the office and I dealt with Erika Botha at Walmer Park Shopping Centre for payment and everything after that. Erika was very friendly and helpful and I take it she went according to Cathryn’s checkings of documents etc.</p> <p>The day of the flight we arrived at the airport to depart for Australia we were told that my niece’s birth certificate is not valid and has to be changed to a different certificate. Now, my sister did sent the birth certificate to Cathryn. If Cathryn had actually looked at the documents she would have seen that it was the wrong one. The people at the airline said that it was a basic thing that travel agent’s should know and check. </p> <p>We had to cancel those tickets and buy completely new tickets. I had to not only miss two days of work, which means I miss out on two days of salary as I don’t get paid when I don’t work. I also had to somewhere get another R20 000 . I was already in R20 000 debt from previous tickets. I am a single mother who works non stop just to make basic ends meet and being R40 000 in debt is no joke. In fact its super stressful. ESPECIALLY as the extra debt was incurred due to fault of someone not doing their job.</p> <p>I am now told that I will only receive back an amount of just over R8000 because that is what the airline pays back. I don’t care what the airline pays back the fault was not theirs it was Cathryn McEwan at flight centre who did not do her job correctly. I will be filling out the forms to claim the amount in the interim as I desperately need to pay the debt back BUT BY NO MEANS DO I ABSOLVE FLIGHT CENTRE FROM THE FACT THAT I EXPECT THE REST OF THE MONEY BACK FROM THEM.</p> <p>It is a dishonest means of receiving commission. I know the travel agents work on commission which means she earned commission twice on tickets that should not have been needed to buy again. Besides all this the service was pathetic as I never heard from Flight Centre unless I specifically went in to speak to them.</p> <p>I feel this needs to be sorted out immediately and would appreciate help in this matter.</p> <p>Thank you kindly</p> <p>Tharene Windsor</p>