Bad customer relationship building exercise.

My gripe with them is not about the R400.00 odd charge from the airline to change my ticket, but for them (After paying the original amount of around R650.00) to charge me another R580.00 on top of what the airline charges me (per person). SO I bought 2 tickets for R1700.00 from another airline and another travel agent. I include their email and my reply. The email as copied:

Haha, that’s funny. Are you stupid, or do you just like ****ing of (soon to be ex) customers? Can you not see that changing a ticket is actually more expensive than buying another ticket (from another agent and another airline).

What you should have done is to explain that (your internal) the process to change a ticket is actually so ******** that you rather propose I buy another ticket. This way you would have kept a customer (actually all 4 of us), and maybe some good word of mouth as well. Now you just have a ****ed off ex customer with loads of traveling friends (also soon to be ex customers).

I’ll use only the return tickets, and fly with BA on the 25th of September for R1600.00 (for both persons,your total price about R3600.00). In actual fact, if you add up all the times I will be flying, not with Travelstart naturally, you seem to be set to loose way more than just the R3600.

Regards

Your ex-customer

From: Celia Calitz <***>

Sent: Friday, 02 August 2019 11:08 pm To: Laubscher Calitz <***> Subject: Fwd: Regarding your amendment query – booking reference (ZA***1)

---------- Forwarded message --------- From:Travelstart <***> Date: Fri, 02 Aug 2019, 11:06 PM Subject: Regarding your amendment query – booking reference (ZA***1) To: <***>

Flights Hotels Cars

Hi there,

Regarding your booking ZA***1

Thank you for your inquiry about the date change for the following passenger(s):-

1.CALITZ/ALBERTUS MR 2.CALITZ/CECILIA MS

The following flight is available at the time requested:

MN 475 D 25SEP HLA (Lanseria) - CPT 20h00 22h05

The cost for the changes are as follows: Airline Penalty Fee: R402.50 Airline Fare Difference: R380.00 Airline Tax Difference: R57.00 Travelstart Handling Fee: R598.00 Total: R1189.50 per person per change (additional)

NOTE: All changes have to be completed 24 hours before scheduled flight departure to avoid forfeiture. Payment needs to be completed on the same day the flight has been changed. If no payment has been received, the airline will cancel the ticket and changes will no longer be permitted.

Please note that the above quote is subject to confirmation by the airline's availability, at the time of changing and that we are not holding any confirmed seats. We recommend you reply as soon as possible to the above quotation to confirm it as changes will be made when confirmation is received in writing. Confirmation, in writing for the applicable change needs to be received by 08h00 SA time 03Aug19. Please be advised that once a change of reservation has been made we cannot change it back the original flight without any booking penalties.

Once we have received the above-mentioned confirmation to change the booking, we will create an invoice for the change which we will email to you. Please adhere to the time limit stipulated for payment when you receive your confirmation and invoice.

You will receive your new tickets via email within 24 hours of receipt of payment.

Please reply to the email if you would like to confirm.

Looking forward to hearing from you soon.

Thanks and kind regards

Travelstart Amendments Team