Travelstart South Africa - Travel Agency Reviews 

I have used them for years, affordable flights, easy process for changind dates and cancelling flights. I can highly recommend them.

Paid for flight for Elderly retired mum so she would not stress. Ha what a joke! Re scheduled said flight 24hrs before departure as per rules, plus the now extra fees as per rules, got confirmation, new ticket issued including invoice via email, spoke to actual person in South Africa next day who confirmed all is well and that all fees and ticket good to go(As travelstart having issues with their banking apps not working) Then 4 days later Mum gets email demanding an extra R1350 as fares gone up again and she will lose her ticket if this is not paid within 24 hrs. Please note: this email was only sent after my mum called 4 days after said ticket was changed and paid up in full, to make sure all was still well with her ticket. What?How is this possible? Called many times, emailed, sent message on facebook, used online chat. Same response we will get back to you as soon as we can...still waiting. In the meantime my mum is beside herself, anxious, super stressed and worried she wont get her money back that she'd been saving for the last 3 years to come see us..so she pays the extra! Seems like extortion to me and how many more times will said price of ticket suddenly go up again before her flight next week?? How many more people must this happen to before something is done?
PLEASE DO YOURSELF A GREAT SERVICE AND AVOID THIS COMPANY LIKE THE PLAGUE. YOU WILL SAVE MONEY, TIME AND SANITY. UNETHICAL COMPANIES LIKE THIS SHOULD BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE, SHAME ON YOU! ANY AIRLINE AFFILIATED TO YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED DOING BUSINESS WITH YOU!!!

Dear Sirs,
I booked through Travelstart 2 Pax to Cape Town from Lanseria/JHB on 13.02.2022 at 14.35 and return at 17.35. FIRST: Hans-Jurgen Neumann, incl. Baggage,Medical Aid. etc. R 2442,90 paid via Capitec Bank, Capitac Notification 178446
SECOND: Anita Kleinhans excll. Baggage, Medical R 2049.oo. Capitec No.557394
Instead: I send them a Copy of my Statement where both Transaction are stated, plus Copies of both payment. WHAT HAPPEND: They booked the R2442,90 against Anita Kleinhans and send her the
e-ticket with return on 20.02.2022 at 6.oo am !!!!
My ticket and Booking they can not find.
Due to their mess I canceled everying and ask for a refund. They said I never booked but they have the
Money and refuse to release it. I have the Booking
Confirmation, yet no ticket, wrong Return flight time and Mrs. Anita does not fly alone.
Please help me, if you can.
Most grateful
JURGEN NEUMANN

Uncontactable! My flight was cancelled and I requested a refund. I have received no communication from Travelstart. Their call center does not allow you to speak to an agent, and directs you to send a whatsapp message. They do not answer on whatsapp, so there is no way to contact them!

Shocking customer service. Have been trying to change a flight for days. No phone number.
Won’t book with them again, the money you save is not worth it, when flights need to be changed it’s a nightmare.

Suspected SCAM - STAY AWAY!

This website, which came up as a booking option on GOOGLE FLIGHTS as the cheapest option, did no more than a secure card check during booking, which seemed to be through the legitimate 3d secure payment system. HOWEVER, they then sent an email wherein, to confirm booking, they request you to send a PHOTO of the FRONT and BACK of your payment card, showing the written signature, as well as ID, in order to complete the booking, and to do so WITHIN 2 hours. There is NO WAY I am going to complete a booking request such as that. This reeks of scamming. I forked out the extra £40 and bought directly on Qantas website directly. If it looks too good to be true, it probably ain't...

No customer service, once they took your money they ignore you

I have received truly horrible customer service from this company. My family and I had flights booked with Qantas via Travelstart for June 2020 to New Zealand, we had to cancel because of the Covid-19 pandemic. I am a health care worker, working on the front lines during this pandemic and how was I repayed? By losing R20000. I requested a cancelation qoute in March 2020, they indicated that we can choose between a full refund or a ticket suspension. In this email and in several subsequent emails they indicated that it will be a FULL refund, based on this we opted for the refund as we were all fearful of losing our jobs during the lockdown. After 7 months of waiting we finally got our refund, with a HUGE cancelation penalty deducted. Now Travelstart blames the airline saying they deducted the fee because the policy changed, why was I not informed? I trusted Travelstart to keep me well appraised of the situation. The pandemic has taken a financial toll on my family and this was the last thing we needed. I am really disappointed in Travelstart and will not be making use of them again.

I have booked flights with Travelstart several times for my domestic flights and have had pleasant experiences. However, based on my most recent encounter, I will never do my bookings through them ever again.

In early January, I booked a return flight from Cape Town to Guiyang China for 7 March 2020 with Travelstart. The flight ticket cost me R12 000. I requested a cancelation quote as a result of the worsening situation in China regarding the Coronavirus.

My total refundable amount is a mere R700 (out of the R12 000 flight booking). So basically I have to choose between risking my life by flying to China or paying R11300 in flight cancellation fees.

Does this sound like a company that cares about its customers or a company that is just interested in making money?

100% bad! Need I say anything else. So waiting for a response to a booking they changed without my permission. Maybe a week is not enough time to respond, afterall just because the world was created in a week doesn't mean they have the same skill set. Actually I don't think they have any skill set, still 100% bad is quite good!

TravelStart allowed someone to use my credit card details to buy an Air Ethiopia ticket. They have no security to verify that the person transacting with them is the true owner of the credit card. When querying this with them I got the run around, even a risk department e-mail address that does not exist. God alone knows how the person was able to board the plane with my details. Sick!

This company allowed money to be stolen from me.

Return of payment with respect to cancelled flight

Hello Travelstart,

Whilst I appreciate you cancelling the flight owing to an error in the dates booked, and acknowledging that that someone will deal with the matter timeously, that this happen.

I have sent numeorus mails over the last week and no reply. My booking reference is ZA07244352. Please would you kindly respond

I purchased a ticket and paid extra to be able to make a change if required. When I then needed to make the change, it became a nightmare to exercise that option. At the end I did get it, but after a battle.

I also hate the way their hotels bookings works. The site believe it or not does not show the number of stars the hotel has. So you can only go by users' ratings, which is insane. A 1 star hotel with great ratings shows up as 5 star. So you never know what you're buying.

Just a poor experience overall. Inexcusable considering they've been around for so long.

Poor service and not the best site overall.

If there was a negative star, I would have given this company -2. I agree with the previous review from Vicki Macray. This agency are rotten. Once you book with them, they dont bother assisting you or replying to emails. It cost actually more fixing up your booking done with them, so rather book with the airline directly or use some other travel agent website.

They cannot even be bothered to return emails! They are completely unhelpful and you cannot work direct with airlines for changes if you book through them. And they completely lie about fees and charges for changes. Dealing with them cost me $353 on wasted tickets!