Travelstart and Bryte Insurance

I have booked 2 overseas trips, one stating tomorrow and one in June . Both have been cancelled by the airlines and our country's lockdown. However, trying to email them and get an educated response has been very frustrating. We keep getting generic resonse with a no-reply email. I started this process 6 weeks ago.

I finally received a ludicrous response of an offer of refund on the one and then much later the other. WE did not fault or cancel the flights.

Trip to Altanta : ticket cost: R17 377,93 plus their service fee: R1047,93 Amount of refund offered: R2 141,93 after numerous deductions

Trip to Athens: R9192,23 plus R919,68 service fee Amount offered as refund :R998,93

On reply, I asked for travel vouchers and am still waiting. You can imagine the stress as we were due to fly tomorrow. 13/5/20. The airline will not help us as they say that we must go through our travel agent. If you do nothing by tomorrow, you lose your tickets! I am waiting for a reply re travel vouchers.

I took out travel insurance with Nedbank and Bryte Travel as I booked the tickets in January. They first told me when I started the process that they only pay back if it is a pandemic. The very next day it was declared a World pandemic by the World Health Organisation. I then sent all sorts of documents to the insurance as requested. I have has very little joy from them either. What on earth is travel insurance for if they don't refund. I will never use either Travelsatrt or Bryte. Lesson learned. Don't book on line. Use a reccommended travel agent. Let them sweat all this stress. It may be a huge financial loss if I do not receive travel vouchers.

However, I have not given up and will keep at it until I get some resolve.