Girlfriends Getaway Rip-off

<p>It started 7 months ago, nearly to the day... </p> <p>On the 29th of June last year, my friends and I decided to go to see Me Before You at the Girlfriends Getaway - this was the email I sent Ster Kinekor that night when I got home:</p> <p>"</p> <p>Good evening</p> <p>I have just been to the Girlfriends Getaway night at Cavendish. What a disappointing experience!</p> <p>I have heard rave reviews from people in the past and from friends who have been involved in the organising before about the fun, the atmosphere, the goodie bags, etc.. Well, my friends and I decided tonight was the night to try. After having many failed attempts at booking on your website due to an "error" occurring after going through the whole booking process with payments, a very unhelpful phone call to Ster Kinekor on Friday last week, I eventually went to the Cavendish branch on Saturday to book. I was quite happy to pay extra for this considering the expectation of a night of spoils that we would be receiving. We arrived at the cinema tonight only to stand in a long queue which ended up being a piece of paper an ting our contact information. After filling this in I then asked the lady what we were meant to do next as many of the ladies around us seemed to have popcorn and a drink from the table at the kiosk. She tore off the part of the ticket she needed and showed us which cinema we would be going into. It as only when my friend asked about the popcorn and drink that she then said we could go and get those (which we did despite the fact that we were full from the dinner we had just had because we were not aware we would be getting food and drink at the cinema and we don't usually do the whole popcorn thing as it's so expensive). We then proceeded into the cinema and sat waiting for the next half and hour for the adverts and then twenty minutes later, the movie eventually was shown. Was that it? Was that what the extra price of the ticket was for?? A tiny bowl of popcorn and a coke which probably cost the cinema a tenth of the extra we were charged??? How is that okay?!</p> <p>If I want to see a movie in the future I will be going for a regular show bis cause at least it's less of a ******* and I'm not surrounded by a theatre full of women who make it impossible to hear the next line of the movie after laughing at the previous one because for some reason this movie was shown at a softer volume than any other movie I've ever experienced at a cinema.</p> <p>Will I be back? No.<br />Will I be recommending it to friends? Definitely not.<br />Will I be telling everyone I know about this awful experience? Oh yes!<br />Can this be fixed by your management? I sure hope so otherwise you can take away the Girlfriends Getaway experience altogether. I'm thinking that the drop in advanced bookings since this began has got to be a clue...</p> <p>I await a response, but I guess some compensation is too much to ask for."</p> <p>After receiving their automatic response that my query would be dealt with within 48 hours, I waited. And waited. </p> <p>After emailing again, I finally received an acknowledgement from a person on the 7th of July. Leago Maruma emailed me to say that they were reviewing the girlfriends getaway, but were offering me 4 free movie tickets as compensation. I was thrilled because my friends and I paid way above the normal price for what was a very normal cinema experience. After promising to update me on what would be happening with the girlfriends getaway as well as obtaining my address, nothing happened. For months.</p> <p>I followed up with emails to Leago on 14 October and 18 November, each time to received an "out-of-office" reply from her.</p> <p>I then emailed the generic Ster Kinekor site again complaining about this. I was then told that Leago no longer works for Ster kinekor (so why the email address was still active was anyone's guess). I was also told I would be contacted "soon".</p> <p>I then got an email from Keamogetswe Mathuloe on 30 November (12 days later), first to give me codes to 2 free movie tickets (not the 4 I was promised), then to recind that email and state that it was "sent to me in error". Donna Cooper and Lynette Van Coller were both CC'd on these emails. </p> <p>That was the final communication I have received. </p> <p>I followed up with an email on 18 January to find out what happened and whether new codes would be sent to me only to receive no response except for one out-of-office reply from Donna Cooper to say she was out of the office for the day. THE DAY. </p> <p>Now it's the 31st of January and I'm sick of dealing with people at Ster Kinekor. However, I still want my free tickets - now out of principle more than money.</p>