Worst Ticket agents ever

Travelstart South Africa , The service that we have experienced from them so far is, without a doubt, one of the most horrifying encounters we have had the displeasure of being a part of. On 7 March 2022, we booked return tickets for our climbing athletes, who are going to compete at their national event (26 and 27 March), to travel back from Cape Town. The transaction went through immediately and the money was deducted from our bank account. The next day we received an email from Travelstart to say that we must still pay the booking. After, what felt like, 3 million contact forms on email, web and Whatsapp they answered and said the payment was unsuccessful. We sent them the screenshot from our FNB app but the agent said this wasn't sufficient as we could have created a future-dated payment with the same reference 😡 So, another day passed. We went to an FNB branch that confirmed that the amount was deducted and was lying under pending transactions because Travelstart must still process the transaction from their side. We sent the proof of the transaction to Travelstart, no response!!! We obtained escalation numbers, still no response. Now, 10 March, Travelstart sent us an email to say that the flight booking has been canceled.

Most of the money used to book these tickets come from fundraisers and donations.

FNB says they can't reverse the transaction and Travelstart simply don't respond to anything.

The money is out of our account and we don't have the tickets for the athletes.

Everyday that this drags on the plane tickets become more expensive.

"Thank you" Travelstart South Africa for playing with the future of young athletes.