Shockingly poor communication and client services incurring costs and distress

On 13 March 2022 I booked a return flight (13-15 May 2022) between Cape Town and Durban. An email confirming my booking (with a reference number) was sent to me. The price for these tickets was R4528.

The evening before the scheduled flight, I still haven't received my e-ticket. On the Travelstart website I noticed that the tickets were "pending". I did not receive any notification about the payment not having been processed.

On the morning of the 13th of May, less than 12 hours before our flight was due, I tried to get hold of a Travelstart agent (using the WhatsApp line and then calling *** as suggested on their website). Over a period of more than 2 hours I made 7 calls to this number and held on for an operator for a total of 135 minutes!

Eventually I got through and was assisted by a seemingly helpful lady who said she would investigate the matter. After 35 minutes of receiving no feedback from the operator, at around 8:20, she ended the call without speaking to me again. I then noticed an email in my inbox (time stamp 8:12) stating that my booking was cancelled without any explanation provided. The lady at Travelstart did not have the courage to break this news to me and decided to rather cut off the call and only send me this email!

I had to book new tickets urgently. The new set of tickets cost me R3379 more than the original tickets (total R 7907).

Due to Travelstart's incompetence and mistake (of not informing me in advance that the payment was never processed) I had to pay R3379 more than I budgeted for.

I have complained to Travelstart using the only email address they provide for complaints (***), but had no reply from them in 2 weeks.

With such poor service delivery, I don't know how Travelstart could survive in a competitive travel industry.

I won't use Travelstart ever again and I suggest you use a different platform to spare yourself the frustration in dealing with such incompetence and pathetic client service.