#TravelHater - Kulula and their "affordable" holidays

Slogans like "dont be a travel hater with affordable holidays" have always been catchy. Dont get me wrong i am a huge fan of Kulula and up until my last experience, have only traveled domestically with Kulula. And oh, how do i regret this now...

I booked return tickets from OR Tambo to ELS departure 6th Aug and return 10 Aug for myself and my partner. However, due to misfortunes we were unable to make the departure flights. To move out our tickets (Departure) would cost more than double the costs per person (business... i wont argue this), we managed to purchase departure tickets for the afternoon.

And would have caught our return tickets home (you would think, because we have paid for our seats, we would be able to fly home).

When trying to do our online check-ins found the system was offline - we tried calling Kulula, OR Tambo (who transferred us to Kulula) however, getting someone on the phone seemed mere impossible.

So, as you guessed it, early Saturday morning we managed to get ahold of one of the Kulula ladies to assist and were told our flights were cancelled..... and to reinstate them would cost R5,5k for the two of us.

What I cannot fathom is - buying return tickets has no benefits whatsoever (no discounts etc.), if you purchase 2 separate tickets, you miss one flight - you dont lose your seat, how is this possible with a return purchase? Also, Kulula is very communicative - they have our email addresses and phone numbers (we receive all the notifications) however, they cannot advise the ticket will be lost or send any communication to find out whether or not you will be using the tickets. Seems like a good business plan - 2 x tickets purchased, 2 x tickets cancelled (by supplier), 2 x tickets sold again to someone else or reinstated at a significantly higher cost...

Our "affordable" holiday, which initially would've cost us R2,5k ended up costing R6,8k. And, I am still waiting for feedback from Kulula on this... then you wonder why you are unable to get ahold of them to ensure we still have active tickets.....