Travelstart Arvostelua 769

The recent Middle East conflict at the end of June resulted in airport closures and delays for all flights on Qatar airways, and other airlines. My flight was scheduled for Tuesday, 24 June, and I made a call to not get on the flight due to the significant delays at the Doha airport, as seen on many social media platforms. I have 3 young children, and was not willing to be stuck at the airport indefinitely as had happened to many others. This was a late evening flight, and of course, since Travelstart does not have any after hours service offering, I had to wait until Wed, 25 June to contact your call centre and try and amend the booking. While I understand the pressure on travel agencies in such an unfortunate event, and the waiting periods, I found your staff unhelpful and inconsistent with information provided. I spoke with 2 different agents after not getting any feedback as promised after an hour, and was given different information. When I asked to speak to a team supervisor, I was told this request had to be logged on the system and someone would call back! Are you kidding! You surely cannot expect customers to accept that as a valid answer in a service industry!

I eventually had to help myself by calling Qatar Airways airline directly! For an online travel agency, this is pathetic service! You should benchmark yourself against others e.g. edreams, who actually have after-hours service available, quick turnaround times and staff who don't give you the run-a-round when there are changes required. You clearly don’t have the skills or competence to dela with complex situations which are outside of the normal operating conditions!

I will never use Travelstart again!

Avoid at all costs – no support, no responsibility, no accountability.

I booked a British Airways flight (BA327 from Paris to Cape Town) via Travelstart for 28 May 2025. On 17 December 2024, I received an email from them regarding “schedule changes.” In the message, it clearly stated that “only flights highlighted in bold are affected.”

In that email, only flight BA323 was in bold — not my flight BA327. As a result, I logically assumed my flight was not impacted, and I received no further warning closer to the travel date.

I went to the airport on 28 May and discovered that my flight had in fact been cancelled. Travelstart had failed to properly inform me, and I was left stranded without help or solution.

I had to pay out of pocket for a new ticket, two round-trip Ubers, and a private transfer. I contacted Travelstart several times with all supporting documents. They simply blamed the airline and refused to take any responsibility, even though they sent the misleading email.

➤ Terrible customer service, misleading communication, no accountability, no refund, and zero support.

Once they have your money, they completely disappear.
Never again. I strongly advise you to book directly with the airline or through a serious agency.

⚠️ UPDATE after Travelstart's response:
I received the usual automated message asking me to email my booking reference and documents — again!
Let me be clear: I have already sent
everything multiple times by return email to customer service including full proof of the misleading email they sent in December, my payment confirmation (EFT), the cancelled ticket, Uber receipts and more.

Travelstart is pretending to “investigate”, but in reality, they have already closed the case and denied responsibility.
Their payment system failed when I booked (my Mastercard didn't work), so I had no choice but to pay by EFT — and now I have no way to dispute the payment or get any help.

This is just dishonest damage control. Once they have your money, you're on your own.
Do not trust this agency. Avoid Travelstart.😡😡😡😡🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬

Travelstart is the most useless travel agency. They don’t answer calls and basically have a trash customer service team. I repeat, DON’T BOOK YOUR FLIGHT WITH TRAVELSTART!!
They are a scam!!

Edit: Strangely Travelstart monitors these forums and i got a faster response to my post on this forum than i did to my request for the flight to be changed. I followed Travelstart's instructions so that they could "follow up", but there as well i recieved a message that this would take 24 hours to get a response, completely useless for an immediate airline flight.

So what lead to this?

SAA cancelled their flight that i had booked, forcing me to rebook 2 flights, and re-buy a ticket for a third flight. Nightmare.

I had previously bought the travelstart premium package in that hope that it would improve my traveling experience. It is about R2000 per annum and they do offer some good discounts with this package. However, when SAA cancelled my flight, it took 50 hours, 4 international phonecalls all longer than 10 mins to south africa, 2 emails and 3 whatsapp chats, for my flights to be moved 1 day forward as i requested.

A airline ticket is not a building application. I expect that this issue should be resolved within 24 hours MAXIMUM or, on the next business day. Preferably these changes should be possible online, but at worst one phonecall should resolve everything. I first submitted the request to Travelstart Saturday lunchtime. Travelstart came back to me on sunday lunchtime, but i didnt see the email until that night. I confirmed the flight details Sunday night at 9.30pm. I received my ticket on Tuesday night 11pm. My wife and baby were on the flight and my wife was understandably distressed to think she might be flying alone across the world with a baby.
To put in context how useless travelstarts handling of this matter was, my wife, who booked thru SAA, which, lets face it, are one of the worlds more useless companies, resolved her boooking on saturday in 10 mins on one phone call.

Shout out to Asonelle from Travelstart who finally manged to get the ticket booked as promised within 3 hours late on tuesday night my time.

I still stand by my view that Travelstart's process for airline flights is not functional. i dont know if this was an execption-- but i doubt it. DO NOT work with this company under any circumstances, unless you enjoy this kind of shit. You can only change your booking through an agent. There whatsapp line never works. The emails are all no- reply so you cannot get hold of anyone. If you phone, the person you are talking to cannot action the booking-- they have to send an email to a faceless colleage in the back somewhere, who basically wipes their ass with your request. It is an ongoing administrative nightmare.

I feel bad for Travelstart. I dont know what is involved in the process of changing a flight. I would like to support a local business but they need to jack up their processes if they want to offer these kind of services.

On a side note, I had a similar issue (flight needed to be cancelled, new one booked-- due to this above debacle) with BOOKING.COM. VERY GOOD. resolved in 5 mins with online chat. refund issued. Good ticket prices. I am looking for a company to handle my travel arrangements going forward. Not sure who this will be, there must be loads of competition out there, but as i say, booking.com looks good so far. Pity its a multinational siphoning funds out of SA, but my interest in protecting sub-par SA businesses is rapidly declining

booked a flight with travelstart, when I tried to cancel the same day, all phones were not answering, nor emails, and WhatsApp. the next day, when I tried, everyone was answering but now refused to help me and said it's the next day. I dont qualify for a refund. I've been trying for 3 days to resolve with no help from their end. I even contacted the airline and they said i should get a parcial refund although travelstart is refusing. I will no longer be using travel start, they're a scam I will ensure that no family or friends use this company, they deserve a -5* rating !!!

I had the fortunate experience to have Dudu help me with my emergency. She was a asset to Travelstart.
Thank you Dudu for your going the extra mile.

The worst booking experience. Not willing to assist or give valuable real information. Happy to take your money but if any complications arises their unable to ever assist..real waste of time. Been struggling with the since January, it's now May 2025

Nie wieder!!
Falsche Abflugzeiten angegeben, dadurch den Flug verpasst, und am Telefon „von unserer Seite kein Problem“ zu hören.
Wenn man ******* baut, steht doch wenigsten dafür gerade. Wir haben alles schwarz auf weiß und haben uns auf einen Urlaub gefreut.
Anzeige ist raus und ignoriert worden. Der nächste Schritt wäre vor Gericht zu gehen.

They have the shittiest customer service ever! How do you close at 5pm and your lines are off at 4pm?? You have international passengers dealing with time difference and trying to reach you. You don’t even resume at 8am, you still resume at 9am. 5pm-9am offline for a travel company with international passengers trying to reach someone? Stranded at the airport?! Terrible! And then they finally pick and sound so lackadaisical and unwilling to actually assuaged your anger and proffer solutions. Just “sorry” in a monotone carefree way like pls go away. Millions lost. Just like that. I’d go to the ends of the earth leaving a bad review everywhere and making sure everyone makes an informed decision if they chose to use you. Train your Nigerian customer service staff!!!

I tried to purchase a flight ticket via travelstart on the 13th of April and they successfully debited my card. Hours later while I was waiting for my flight, I received an email that they weren't able to get the ticket for me. Usually on other platforms you get the ticket issued automatically immediately after payment. Now I am seeking a refund because I am stranded but for almost 2 weeks, i have received no refund. At first they said their is a high volume of on-ging refund which is disturbing because this shows they don't really sell flight tickets. Now I am trying to take legal actions against them for damages and to recover my money. Unfortunately it's impossible to give them -5 stars.

What a substandard company.Does not have any customer service.My flight was cancelled and they have not sorted out any options or informed me.The parent airline ,Air Botswana informed me.Spent over 12 hours cumulativley on phone calls and whatsapp and contact forms.No action and silence.I have now asked for my ticket to be cancelled and expect silence.seems like looking the other way makes the problem go away.I will update what happens regd my request for cancellation and refund.I think we all know where this is headed.I have now booked new flights through another company.Avoid travel start.

Travelstart has no customer service. It was not possible to make changes to flight tickets despite having purchased tickets with the option to make changes.

Please Travelstart Bring back my money l was making booking payments when your system says error all of a sudden and my money was deducted from my account l didnt receive any booking details nothing until now your customer service l called them first time they answered and they told me to hold for refund all of a sudden they cut the phone until now my calls don't go through your emails doesn't work My name is Primrose Jameson please refund back my money

Agree with the 92% of other reviews - this company is terrible....... no transparency and awful customer cut and paste service !!

I booked 2 return flights to Seoul from CPH and wanted to add 2 pieces of luggage, as cabin bags are max 7kg.... when it came to adding bags the message came up that they could not do this, simply click the link after and bags can be added directly with the airline...... Ok Ive done that before.... so proceeded with the booking. Then when it comes to the 2 bags, as they are being added the price is 4228kr !!! (approx €575)....... had I used the airline direct which had a fare 300kr more expensive BUT enabled you to add a bag for 162kr per person rtn..... so in all over 3000kr (€400) more by using this poorly run company....... So I complain, saying that we should be able to add the luggage at the same price, but they are totally un interested..... I have written 8 or 9 times and get the same copy paste answer with a few sweetning attempt words added.

The irony of this complaint will be that I see all below have a response saying thank you for your review, please write to us, which I have already done numerous times, to be given the same answer.

There should be rules/laws to stop this behavior...... maybe a watchdog or tv consumer programme will investigate them.......

I want to complain about the blatant robbery that Travelstart is committing.

I booked on Black Friday and have paid over R21 000 through 3 payflex instalments ,with 1 more instalment of R7000 due 10/01 and a further R17 000 for my first booking change.

Now again due to VISA processing delays I have to postpone my trip till the next school holidays.

I received a change quote requesting payment of R8767.

To say that R54 000 for a return trip Durban to Christchurch in April ie.booking 4 months in advance is daylight robbery is an understatement!

I now want to cancel my entire booking and will seek legal advice on the way forward.The penalty will be R9186(gasp!) and can take 6-12 weeks to finalize.

I thank them for disappointing a South African who was willing to support this CPT based company.

I will be taking up this matter with all relevant authorities etc. so be WARNED all potential passengers from ever engaging with this organization in future

Flight changed. Phoned travelstart - got thru to India, "sorry offline, can't help, try again in an hour".
Subsequent flight changes from airline (no details) said "contact booking agent" ie travelstart, who didn't send any info.
All subsequent info ie boarding times were sent after they happened.
Absolutely useless. No point in using them, rather go direct to the airline - more efficient & cheaper.
Total waste of time.

Extremely Disappointing Experience with Travelstart – Avoid at All Costs

I had a truly Terrible experience with Travelstart, and I feel compelled to share my experience to warn others. My ordeal began when I booked a flight through Travelstart and, due to unforeseen circumstances, I had to cancel it. This led to an even worse situation: a delayed and unresolved refund process that has now dragged on for nearly a month.

After canceling my flight, I was issued a refund voucher by Qatar Airways for the unutilized ticket value of ZAR 16,223.74. The instructions I received from Qatar Airways clearly stated that I needed to contact Travelstart to process the refund. However, this is where the problems began. Despite reaching out to Travelstart multiple times and following up consistently, I have received no assistance or resolution regarding the refund. It’s incredibly frustrating to be stuck in this endless loop with no end in sight.

To make matters worse, I’ve received no acknowledgment of the serious issues at hand. I’ve filed a formal complaint and provided all necessary documentation, including the refund voucher, but Travelstart has completely ignored my requests. It feels as though my money has simply vanished, with no clear explanation or apology from the company.

The complete lack of customer service is astounding. Travelstart’s team is unresponsive and unhelpful, leaving customers stranded with unresolved issues and no recourse. This is not only highly inconvenient but also feels like a breach of trust. As a customer, I expect a certain level of professionalism and promptness when dealing with financial matters, yet I’ve been met with nothing but silence and frustration.

This experience has been an absolute nightmare, and I will never be booking through Travelstart again. Their lack of transparency, failure to fulfill their obligations, and overall poor customer support have destroyed any trust I had in them. I would strongly advise anyone considering Travelstart to look elsewhere for their travel needs, as this company has proven to be unreliable and unprofessional.
Terrible trust me and in response to this review you will probably hear excuses and blame-shifting.
I will now look at other options at my disposal, such as Consumer help travel and tourism and the Consumer Protection Act. Over a month and still no refund makes you start to wonder what is actually going on?

Update: Only after posting my initial one star review did I actually get any real help from travelstart. From initially claiming that it would cost me EUR240 to change the flight on a weekend the price dropped to EUR30 as if by magic. They also tried to explain why I was booked as a Mrs. Apparently they overrode my booking info that I had entered with info that was already saved on their system from a past booking and that was apparently as Mrs. OK, fair enough but why override the data I entered for this booking. In the end, I ended up calling the airline myself and confirming that the salutation does not matter. I flew as Mrs and it was all good. Updated to 3 stars because they actually tried to do something about it after I posted this review.

Beware. Booked a flight where they messed up the gender on my ticket. Had me as Mrs instead of Mr. Discovered it a two days before the flight. Said they could not change it and made me book a new ticket at full cancellation costs. Their internal error was my cost. Completely unwilling to help and just told me that the airline will not respond to them. I called the airline and the airline told me that is nonsense and travelstart can change the gender directly on their system...go figure.

I booked my ticket and ensured that all the details are correct. When the ticket was confirmed, it showed my initials as my first name. I am told that I have to pay close to R2000 to have my tickets rectified and yet I put in the correct information. I am totally unhappy with this!!!!

It is better to hire a robot than those folks as customer service, they are not able to understand human language