Terrible Service and Experience

We dealt with Pavilion (Durban) Flight Centre

My terrible experience with FC is ongoing for the past 7 months, since February 2017.

We booked return economy flights for our family of 8 people for December'17/January'18. We were under the impression that since its peak season, the earlier we book would allow us the best available pricing.

We were very wrong.

Our first problem started when we had a discrepency with a booking and service fee that we were charged which I feel was not made clear to us. However FC stated to us that we signed the contract and it's available online therefore we cannot dispute it. They are apparently allowed to charge 5% - 15% more than the airline at their discretion and it's in their Terms/Conditions.

I decided to let that go in approximately April this year when we decided to upgrade our return leg of our ticket to business class. As I didn't want to deal with FC, I contacted the airline (Etihad) who did not allow me to liaise with them as I had booked with an agent - it's their rules. I therefore had no choice but to liaise with the Pavilion branch again (you cannot even liaise with another FC branch once you make your booking). We were quoted an estimate of R22000 per person to upgrade the return leg. As I felt that price was excessive, I got another travel agent to quote on our trip and for a new ticket booked 3 months later (approx May'17) the cost pp was in total was less for the exact same routing/airline/dates. The new travel agent was quoting approximately R30000 pp where we would have paid R34000-R35000 pp with FC.

FC refused to match the price and insisted we were being offered the best price possible.

FC also refused to allow the new travel agent to take over the booking stating that the airline would not allow it.

During this period, we liaised with the branch manager as well as customer service centre who all used their opening statement as "you signed the terms and conditions," instead of trying to help solve my problem of being overcharged.

After being so disillusioned with the terrible level service at FC and also by feeling battered with the rule book being thrown at me so many times, I decided to cancel the entire booking and rebook with another agent at the better price.

We were told that we would have to pay a cancellation fee which we knew was coming(noting once again we are still using the same airline/date/route/aircraft). We requested that FC help us to speak to Etihad on our behalf (as Etihad will not speak directly to a customer if they booked via an agent) to advise them that we are rebooking the flights on the same date/time/route. No empathy was offered by FC and they clearly refused to assist with this.

We rebooked and paid the flight booking at a lower price and are confirmed with the new agent.

The biggest challenge I'm currently having is our refund.

We had no choice but to accept their cancellation penalty which they will deduct from the total amount we paid them. We are awaiting approximately R68000.00 from them since June'17. My confusion is that I entered into an agreement with Flight Centre and paid FC. Why must they make us wait for 6-8 weeks at minimum to get our money back? Their reason is that the airline has not paid them as yet. I find that quite unacceptable!

If I buy a product in a retail store that has a problem, I receive a refund from the retailer immediately. I don't have to wait for them to return the product to return it to China or Taiwan for approval.

I would like to warn people to rather book directly with airlines instead of using people like FC who instead of helping, actually make things worse. Perhaps FC Pavilion is at fault - I've heard a number of people using other branches and they were happy.

I have complained repeatedly to FC and they now came back last week stating that just one portion of the refund is available and we have to wait indefinitely for the balance.

Again unacceptable ....

HelloPeter community please be aware. I never thought something like would happen to me as I consider myself quite 'on the ball' with these matters. I also refrained for many months from posting as I didn't believe this was the best route. I am now at my wits end about this and having to incur huge interest on my credit card, which obviously no one will recover for me.