1 reviews | Active since May 2012
Unfortunate loss of money
We booked a flight in Feb to leave Joburg for Geneva in late April, this cost us around R15'000. Due to personal circumstances, we had to make date changes and postpone the trip to August. The changes were made in late March/early April and cost an additional R13'000. A day or two later, we were told that there was no availability on our return leg and could we change it by one day. Which we did and we were told again that there is an additional cost of R7'000!!! Because I had now had enough of all these additional additional additional charges, I instructed Travelstart to cancel my booking and process a refund. They were more than happy to cancel the booking, and advised me that my refund is less than R2000!!! <br> <br> Having paid nearly R30'000 - I cannot understand why my refund is only R2'000!!!!! Is it standard industry practice to charge such exorbitant amounts every time a small change is made to a booking - even when it's not my fault!!!???!!!!!!!!!!?????? In my experience with travel agencies, you only get charged their admin fees for cancellations<br> <br> I will NEVER EVER use Travelstart again
Thank you for sharing your concerns with us via this forum.
I have had a look at the booking and note that although change quotes were sent, the first time that funds for a change was received was on 22 April. These funds only reflected in our account after you had requested the cancellation of the booking. As the funds - R13960.00 - was not utilised it will be refunded back to your bank account.
The changes quoted was so high due to the same price not being available, therefore the tickets needed to be upgraded to the available price. However, as mentioned, the changes was not made as you decided to cancel before it was done.
The refund quoted was on the original ticket price for the two passengers. The fare purchased was an extremely low fare with a non-refundable restriction. In such cases, the airline refunds certain taxes, despite the non-refundable clause.
Travelstart did not charge our refund admin fee in this case as the refundable amount is so low.
Kind regards,
Nazley de Vos
Customer Relations Specialist
Thank you for sharing your concerns with us via this forum.
I have had a look at the booking and note that although change quotes were sent, the first time that funds for a change was received was on 22 April. These funds only reflected in our account after you had requested the cancellation of the booking. As the funds - R13960.00 - was not utilised it will be refunded back to your bank account.
The changes quoted was so high due to the same price not being available, therefore the tickets needed to be upgraded to the available price. However, as mentioned, the changes was not made as you decided to cancel before it was done.
The refund quoted was on the original ticket price for the two passengers. The fare purchased was an extremely low fare with a non-refundable restriction. In such cases, the airline refunds certain taxes, despite the non-refundable clause.
Travelstart did not charge our refund admin fee in this case as the refundable amount is so low.
Kind regards,
Nazley de Vos
Customer Relations Specialist