Travelstart - ****************

I have experienced the worst service and assistance the last 3 days.

Travelstart sold me 2x air tickets to Johannesburg from Cape Town for this coming Saturday morning 5.50am, knowing that Kulula was grounded. I tried contacting them via email and telephone.

Just received useless emails from a "noreply" address, and on their only contact number I spent over 3 hours listening to music without any success of assistance.

I have requested to speak to a agent to refund my money, as I made alternative arrangements to get to Johannesburg in time for Saturdays appointment, but 3 days later still no useful reply, guidance or assistance.

Received one email stating that Kulula flights are not refundable and that I should change my booking. They only reroute me to Kulula's page with a reference number, but Kulula asks me another R1500.00 to change a booking that I dont even have any use for anymore.

I just thought that a 'reputable' company like Travelstart - which I use very often - would have made some effort to assist us in the situation that they caused.

I have sent roughly 12 emails to various Travelstart email addresses, requesting that someone calls me asap and yet no communication from anybody.

I guess we should just have get used to this type of service in South Africa, as Travelstart is quickly busy picking up on the downwards norm with regards to service.

I see this as a typical ***** case, where one party sells you tickets, knowing that the airline is indefinitely grounded, and then just refuse to refund you, being their fault. But now Kulula suddenly started operating again today, and I guess our tickets are valid, but unfortunately I'm in Johannesburg already as I had to make other arrangements and I couldn't wait on them to respond one day, telling me that I missed my flight.

This is very bad, I hope someone will take responsibility and try to assist me through this process of getting my refund on the tickets.