BOOKING CANCELLED AND BAD SERVICE

<p>Good Morning</p> <p> </p> <p>I would like to lay an official complaint with Travelstart.</p> <p> </p> <p>Here is a timeline of events:</p> <p>· I booked a flight around 7.19pm (20th April 2017), of which I tried effecting payment with my card.</p> <p>· At 7.36pm I sent an email to ********** to notify them that the payment was not going through after numerous attempts to call them.</p> <p>· At 8.40pm I get an email saying my payment was unsuccessful and a link was included on the email. Obviously I could not do it as I was on the road.</p> <p>· I re-submitted the payment using the same link included in the email and I got an SMS confirmation at 11.22pm that R287.00 was debited instead of the full R1,238.00 I then sent another email to ********** to tell them they did not debit the full amount, Obviously this is after me trying to call Travelstart’s urgent number.</p> <p>· Stacey Koetie responds to my email at 1.48am this morning (21st April 2017), mind you she is only responding to the email I sent at 7.36pm the night before. Her response and I quote “Thank you for your email. I am sorry to let you know that your payment and as a result your booking was cancelled. Feel free to go ahead and re book online www.travelstart.com. Please be advised that we can only guarantee the same fare until 23:59 on the day the booking was made. Should we not receive payment by then your reservation will be subject to cancellations and fare increase. It’s been a pleasure to be of service. Have a lovely day.”</p> <p>· I responded to her email at 6.00am this morning.</p> <p>· At 8.32am I get an email saying my booking is cancelled.</p> <p> </p> <p>My complaint:</p> <p>· Travel start only debited R287.00 of the Full amount</p> <p>· They took forever to respond to my email after contacting travelstart on two occasions on their supposedly “Urgent” email address</p> <p>· Now, I spoke to Nikita (called the urgent number ********** 115 at 8.27am) who answered the call within 20 seconds of calling… which surprised me.</p> <p>· When I try and re-book the flight, The flight now cost R560.00 more than my original booking.</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p>The recourse for my complaint:</p> <p>· I feel that I should not be liable for this extra cost as I had tried to contact Travelstart to resolve this issue, and I could foresee this happening.</p> <p>· I want Travelstart to get me a similar booking (ZA ********** 4) and I do not want to be liable for this extra cost because It was not my fault that the booking was cancelled.</p>