Travel Consultants Don't really Help

<p>Around the 20th of September I booked a 6 night stay in Zanzibar for my wife and I for R25600 (all inclusive, flights and accommodation) from the 5th till the 11th of December. During the first week of November I was contacted by the travel consultant who informed me that the airline with which my flights were booked (Fastjet) had cancelled all their flights to Zanzibar. I was then given the following options by the travel consultant:</p> <p>1) Pay R8916 extra and fly with Mango. Included in the R8916 extra would be the cost for an extra night as Mango only flew on a 7-day schedule to and from Zanzibar.</p> <p>2) Pay R4945 extra and fly with Ethiopian airlines. This travel option would involve 15-hour travel times as it included stop-overs in excess of 8 hours for both travel legs.</p> <p>I then asked the travel consultant if I could get a refund to which she responded that I would not be able to get a full refund as the hotel would withhold the booking deposit. Basically, I was forced to either pay R8916 extra and have a decent holiday, or lose part of my initial payment and not have a holiday at all (15 hour travel times for a 3 hour journey is so ridiculous that I refuse to even consider it). While I do understand that an airline cancelling a route is no fault of the consultant I am extremely unhappy for the following reasons:</p> <p>1) Why is a supposedly reputable travel agent like Flight Centre dealing with unreliable airlines such as Fastjet? A quick google search on complaints related to Fastjet will reveal numerous complaints from flights cancelled at the last minute to missing baggage and pathetic customer service from the airline. </p> <p>2) How is it that a full refund was not possible when the trip was supposed to be cancelled one month in advance for circumstances beyond my control? The average client like myself would expect an established brand like Flight Centre to have good working relationships with all their service providers which would enable refunds in situations like these.</p> <p>3) Why was I not offered flights from Mango initially? All initial offers from the consultant only contained flight options from Fastjet and I have the emails to prove this. Had I been offered flights on Mango I would have definitely opted for them as I have flown with Mango numerous times and never had an issue while I had simply never heard of Fastjet prior to this putrid experience. </p> <p>The consultant never made me aware of the risks associated with booking with Fastjet which I feel she should have stated upfront, surely a travel consultant is aware of the shortcomings of service providers?</p> <p>Seems like Flight Centre can't offer proper travel advice upfront. I will never use them again and right now I'm hoping that this holiday goes smoothly because I'll be really upset if, after paying an extra R8916, I still have issues.</p> <p> </p> <p> </p>