NEVER AGAIN will I fly SAA!

<p>I am absolutely appalled by the shocking service our national airline has provided us with. In an effort to get a great deal on international fares my partner and I attempted to book a flight from South Africa to the United Kingdom 3 months before our departure date. We went online and completed the booking, including the payment details and were sent a booking confirmation for both passengers. Several days later my partner noticed that his credit card had only been debited the amount for a single ticket. It took several calls (not to mention hours of wasted time) to finally get the booking confirmed telephonically with your customer service department and we paid an additional fee to have 2 seats reserved next to one another. We were sent the e-tickets immediately, however, weeks later there was still no deduction for the second seat from our credit card. This took several more calls/emails and considerable amount of patience to finally get confirmation that both tickets had been paid for in full. </p> <p> </p> <p>24 hours before the flight, despite having our e-tickets and allocated seats already confirmed, I made a call to the airline to see if we could secure emergency exit seats as my partner is unusually tall and I was advised upon booking the tickets that we could not reserve emergency exit seats until the day prior. It was at this stage that I was informed that the flight date and times had changed (instead of departing on the 1st September at 19h00 to arrive in London at 06h30 on Friday 2nd September, we would not only be departing at 06h30 on the 2nd September, to arrive in London at 17h00). This caused major issues with our arrival pans in the UK and we had to make changes to our travel plans - not to mention losing an entire day of our holiday. On top of this, we were not even aware of these changes until I made the call to secure emergency exit seats.</p> <p> </p> <p>Nevertheless, I accepted our fate and proceeded to secure the seats on the delayed flight, only to be told that we would incur further charges to do so. DISGUSTING!!!! Not only have you inconvenienced us and a couple 100 other passengers confirmed for the original flight, but you now have the audacity to try and charge us extra to secure the seats on the new flight.....that, and all we got from SAA was a meagre "Sorry".</p> <p> </p> <p>I would like a sincere apology for the inconvenience you have caused us as well as a suggested manner in which to compensate us for our troubles. I NEVER FLY SAA FOR THIS EXACT REASON! My partner, however, is a devout SAA flyer and a member of your Voyager club. I will be doing my utmost to convince him to move to a more reliable and professional airline (such as Virgin or BA, which I personally make frequent use of and have never encountered such issues with) and will continue to spread word of mouth about your poor service until you find a suitable means to make up for this, quite frankly SHODDY customer service!!</p> <p> </p> <p>I look forward to hearing from you.</p> <p> </p> <p>Yours under extreme duress,</p> <p> </p> <p>Nicole</p>