TRAVELSTART NON RESPONSIVE

HI Melissa, how are you? Yes I was partially assisted 4 days after my request for assistance. Why I say partially? Because I was assisted by a Melissa, not sure if it was you but after I gave Melissa our new dates of travel, the first rebooking quote I received not long after that was incorrect. I discussed then the fact that the flights are now R3 to R5 thousand cheaper and asked if I would get a refund since the flights I will be on are cheaper than the ones I paid for that were cancelled due to the ban. Not of my doing, but due to a global pandemic. I was told that I wont be getting refunded the difference because we cannot downgrade a flight, something I was not attempting to do to begin with. Instead, when the correct rebooking quote was emailed, we had to pay almost R600 MORE per person. I asked Melissa which way would work out cheaper for me, the consumer and she said that she has asked the refunds department to send me a quote. So I must then compare the rebooking quote and refund quote and see which way would work out best for me. I agreed. The next morning I received the corrected rebooking quote but still no refund quote. As soon as 9am came around, I whatsapped and emailed continuously requesting the refund quote so I could make an informed decision but to this day, I have not received that refund quote. To top it all off, the rebooking quote stated that I had until 10am that morning to confirm, which gave me about 2 hours. That amazed me because there is no timeline to which Travelstart works in getting back to its customers timeously. Without the refund quote, I then had no choice but to accept the rebooking quote so I did not miss the deadline or flights. In all of that chaos, I accepted an incorrect return date, by one day later than I requested. That will be an additional cost for me far as an unpaid leave day at my job where I needed to be back on the Sunday and not the Monday. I pray that all goes well from here on out but I will never use Travelstart again until they reinstate their telephone lines and me as a customer can call and speak to someone when I need assistance. Not when customer services decides they have let enough days go by before replying a whatsapp query. With all of the uncer*****y already existing due to Covid and travel, it would have been nice if that uncer*****y wasn't a part of dealing with Travelstart as well. While I understand that you guys must be under alot of pressure with all the palava surrounding cancelled flights and travel bans, etc, please rememeber that our money is tied up in all of this and it is a very stressful process dealing with Travelstart because of the level of customer service it now offers since Covid. Our company only used Travelstart to book flights....but it's a risk now. We opt now to go to a travel agent that we can literally speak to. Open your telephone lines again please. Whatsapp communication works only if it is efficient. Travelstarts Whatsapp communication is not. To prove that I am not simply complaining for the sake of complaining, I was feverishly whatsapping to get that refund quote on the morning of 18.01.2022, nobody has responded and its 25.01.2022 today. Every "call" and every customer is important whether they are flying in 24 hours or 240 hours time and Travelstart should treat them that way. I was disappointed because I probably lost out on an opportunity to save some money had I gotten the refund quote in time and then app**** for the refund and rebooked the cheaper flights that I saw on the website but I guess I will never know.

Still though, thank you for the assistance in rebooking the flights, at least.

I hope that you guys take this review as an opportunity to improve your customer service to grow towards what it used to be.

Have a great day.