Book your own trip, STA Travel is a waste of your money and time

My partner, a friend and I booked the tour, "Vietnam on a Shoestring" from STA Travel's Cape Town Rondebosch branch in mid-2018. We were assigned Trystan Magson as a travel agent, but he repeatedly failed to assist us in booking our trip. Initially, he booked our trip incorrectly. He booked our flights which would fly us into Hanoi (from Cape Town) and and out of Ho Chi Min (back to Cape Town) which is the opposite direction in which the way the Vietnam on a Shoestring tour was designed. Mr. Magson failed to pick up on this error and had it not been picked up by one of my travel companions, we would not have been able to go on the tour of the country.

Furthermore, he failed to notify any of us about the fact that total payment for the trip needed to be paid 60 days before departure. He had informed us that it was only due 30 days before departure. This caused much inconvience for all three of us as we had to scramble to ensure we could make the payment on the 14th of November which is when my partner called to clarify after noticing it on the fine print. Had we not been able to make payment on that day, we would have forfeited our deposit and not been able to make this trip. Since then, we have had to remind him to provide us with our international student identity cards, 2 out of 3 which had errors on them (my partner's name spelled incorrectly, and my friend's card had the incorrect birthdate). In fact, my friend only went to go and fetch hers on the day of our departure once my partner and I had told her that we required one indicating that Mr. Magson failed to notify my friend to collect hers. Mr. Magson also failed to inform us that information was outstanding for our G Adventures profile and that we were supposed to have vouchers for the trip, in order to get the information we needed we have to circumnavigate him entirely to deal with G Adventures directly.

Most recently, Mr. Magson failed to order the correct meals for my friend and myself who are both vegetarians. I contacted Mr. Magson on the 7th of January to enquire about the meal plans for vegetarians and phoned on the morning of the 14th to confirm that our meals had been arranged. Mr. Magson confirmed that the lacto-ovo meals had been arranged. This was not the case however as on our flight, EK0779 (from Cape Town to Dubai), we were notified that no vegetarian meals had been arranged for us. Thus meaning, my friend and I had to eat the sides of the meat meals which is unacceptable. We have since then been in direct contact with Emirates to arrange our specific meals ourselves. Emirates have been super helpful and made arrangements to the best of their ability to provide us with vegetarian meals and even organised vegetarian meals for our return flights to Cape Town.

I find it highly concerning that no other staff at Rondebosch Sta Travel and later St. George's Mall Sta Travel (where Trystan moved to) picked up on his numerous errors where he has not only wasted people's time but potentially money as well.

I would like to highly recommend that Mr. Magson face a disciplinary hearing as he has failed in every instance of his job, and I would like to further suggest that he find employment in another sector as he is unable to learn from his mistakes despite the many chances we have given him. I am very disappointed with the service I have received from Sta Travel and do not intend to use this service again.