STA Travel UK 

DO NOT BOOK WITH STA TRAVEL.
Our airline has refunded our flight money to STA but they refuse to pay the money back to us.
Customer service does not reply and people on the phone tell you that is the only way you can speak to anyone.
Absolute disgrace and appalling customer service I am in absolute shock.

If there was a -0 rating or less I would give that to Sta Travel. Total crooks! Liars! And a disgrace!!! As consumers we should all stand together and deal with this company globally they are crooks!
At first we get pressurized to make payment although Covid19 was luring at us we mentioned our discomfort but they knew their strategy. 3 days after payment our boarders were shut and when we then ask for a refund we were told that it would be processed . On the very same day we get told their refunds policy had just changed.l and no longer able to refund. The reason for my cancellation 1. I’m a chronic patient with a weakened immune system I cannot travel and would not wish to travel for the next 24-36 months or however long I wish Do Not Force Me to Rebook with you I don’t wish to rebook or ever do Business with Sta Travel because of the way you operate! 2. covid 19 happened and our countries borders aswell as the destinations boarders are shut.
I have submitted my medical certificate asking for my refund, it was sent for assessment , I received confirmation email on 31/03/2020 that airline and hotel refunded all my money now why the hell do you want to hold onto my money!!!! My damn hard earned money! WE WANT OUR REFUND OUR MONEY NOT YOUR CREDIT NOTES WE DO NOT WANT TO BE ASSOCIATED WITH YOUR COMPANY WE DO NOT TRYST YOU , STA TRAVEL IS USING THE PANDEMIC TO RUN AND COVER THEIR SHORT COMINGS. This will not be left like this trust me we will deal with you as a collective. Refund my money!!!!!!

I booked a flight online with STA Travel and then when I called the store to get the date of my flight changed as the COVID-19 situation progressed, I was told that I had to pay for a new flight and my old one would not be refunded. Under the pressure of the situation, I parted with almost £1500 and expected to receive my travel documents within a couple of hours as promised. The next day, I called the customer contact centre again and was told "oh, I'm sorry but that flight has been cancelled. Unfortunately we are unable to give you a refund". I was left stuck in Australia with no way of getting home and I was not offered any assistance with regards to making my way to my destination. I had to borrow money to be able to buy a flight directly with another airline and thank goodness for the beautiful and caring assistance from Qatar Airways, I managed to get home safely. I have been trying to get my money back from STA Travel ever since the day after my flight was cancelled (6 weeks!!!) I am entitled to this refund as I was not provided with the service I paid for. So far, they have been extremely unhelpful, unprofessional, and delayed in their responses. I am thoroughly disappointed in the way they have handled my case, especially seeing as I used to be a loyal customer of theirs. I have had confirmation from the airline, which cancelled my flights, that STA Travel have requested refunds from them and that these have been paid out to STA Travel. I would now like to receive my money back as not having it is currently leaving me in a very precarious position financially and causing a great deal of unnecessary stress and anxiety. A large business such as STA should have a plan of action in place to stay afloat financially so that it does not need to use its customers to finance itself in times of crisis. The refunds they are holding onto are not worth them losing their customers' respect for their entire brand. However, it appears that STA Travel considers their customers loyalty and their brand identity to not be worth looking after at this time. The companies who treat their customers with respect receive respect and loyalty in return. In future, my customer loyalty and respect will be aimed at more deserving companies. I would not recommend booking with STA Travel if you wish to be treated fairly and with dignity.

STA are refusing to refund my money for cancelled flights. To try and force me to accept a useless voucher, they claimed that if I did not accept a voucher by my flight date, I would get nothing at all. They've handled this crisis appallingly.

Breaking the law - not giving money back from cancelled flights and hiding under Abta guidance is shocking. Supposedly a student TA and stealing money from students who need it most! Shocking and illegal! People will remember these companies when this is over and I will be spreading the word amongst educational establishments not to book with companies who are breaking the law!!!!

Refusing to give a refund even though the contract states I am in my right to claim one and at several points through booking they informed me I would be entitled to one if it came to it. Just complete lies as they ignore the law!avoid!

AWFUL experience with STA. Would give -10 stars if I could. Myself and my boyfriend paid over £6,500 for a 2 month tour, flights, accomodation to S.E. Asia, due to start on the 25th May. Right from the start have been difficult and have refused a refund, and have refused to let us take our complaint further/higher up, despite me highlighting that they are VERY clearly breaking the law. They also emailed us saying our tour was cancelled WEEKS after the tour provider (Stray) had cancelled and already contacted us. Will NEVER, EVER book with STA again. They will go under after all of this is done as no one should ever book with them. It is such an awful feeling to have to plead for the money YOU earned, never mind with all the stresses of lockdown. I think we need to start an action group because they should NOT be able to get away with this.

DO NOT TRUST STA!!
STA refuse refunds when they cancel flights and don’t care that they are breaking the law.
Awful company and awful customer communication.
I have been told if I do not accept a credit note before the date of my cancelled flight I will lose everything.
They told me to stop contacting them and either accept the credit note or agree the complete loss of booking.
This is in fact blackmail and I am in utter shock at how I have been treated and spoken to by STA. They have my money and refuse to give it back. AVOID AT ALL COSTS.

Do not travel through STA.

Refusing cash refunds! The airline are giving cash refunds so STA are holding into the money.

In the contract it states that they will refund us but now are refusing.

Customer service is very poor and rude! Had the phone put down on me twice before telling them why I was ringing. I waited over a hour to get through!

My son has spent half his gap year working hard for a trip Africa, bought through STA for £2,500. Covid came, trip cancelled on FCO advice and they are refusing to credit him back except in vouchers, to be taken by next year. He is due to start an apprenticeship and will not have the opportunity to have so much time off in the next few years and who knows where covid will leave international travel by next year too.

STA have effectively stolen £2,500 pounds from him. A bad situation made a whole lot worse by an immoral company who seam to think they are above the law. I agree with other reviewers DO NOT BUY HOLIDAYS THROUGH THIS COMPANY.

We will continue to pursue a refund.

straight-up breaking the law. no ifs. no buts. even in the which? article (1) they seem to think they are above the law.
they refuse even to charge me for a refund. They initially stated that they would offer a refund with the loss of the deposit (£200) and a charge of £75. this was before COVID 19 when I was asking about getting a refund due to mis-spelling the price of a holiday. now they are insisting that I can use them to book further holidays with 'points'.
as I am going into full-time work come September I will have little time to book a holiday even if I wanted to. I will never be recommending sta and never be using their services again. they are a complete rip-off. they advertised a trip to Africa for £1500~ (i guessed there would be no flights attached) and not long before I had paid off my what I thought would be it, they asked me to bring an additional $1900~ for a kitty. where was the original £1500 going!?
I will be continuing to try and get back my £2300 as it was about 6 months' work of my gap year! so not only has COVID ruined one half of my gap year, STA have now made the other half completely worthless!
if only I could give less than one star!

(1) "Which? Travel has been contacted by dozens of STA Travel customers who say the travel agent has told them it won’t refund canceled package holidays. Instead, they were told to rebook or accept a credit note. The amounts involved are often thousands of pounds."

I would leave a link to the article but trust pilot doesn't let you leave links.

Breaking the law that stipulates cancellations must be refunded within 14days. But STA are even refusing refund at all.
Have booked through other companies for the same trip and they have all managed refunds.
Hope legal action gets taken

Very helpful while taking your money but an absolute disgrace in terms of customer service when things turn tricky. We had several flights, villas & transfers booked through different organisations who all refunded in full, STA flatly refused our refund request changing the terms and conditions after we had booked flights with them offering a voucher instead. As the flight was cancelled they would of been refunded so why are they holding onto our money that we need during these difficult times.
The customer definitely isn't king at STA the bottom line is, we will never use them again unless they act inline with the legal requirements.
At this rate the vouchers will be useless due to policy that will drive customers away. Business must focus on customer service through thick & thin to build their reputation as a caring and helpful organisation not taking your money and closing up shop when they are needed most....

Travel agents need customers and yet as soon as things have become difficult STA have screwed their customers over! Avoid at all costs.

We regrettably used them for a holiday to Sri Lanka which had to be curtailed due to Covid-19. After 2 hours waiting on the line, we received verbal and written confirmation from Sta that our flights had been changed to an earlier flight and, as we had been monitoring the situation ourselves, we knew that there were available seats on this flight. This change of course came at a cost.
However when I tried to check in on the next day, the airline told us that this was not possible and we didn't have a return flight home. Sta had cancelled our original flight and failed to rebook us on the earlier one.
In fear of being left stranded before the border closures, we had to book alternative flights home direct with the airline which cost a considerable sum of money and should never have happened.
So, in effect, Sta have profited from their own mistake and incompetence, and inexplicably won't give any refund let alone any thought to us. I haven't had a single response to any of my multiple emails and they don't have a customer service number.
I appreciate that they must be experiencing a high volume of complaints during these times but it is now been well over a month. It is obvious that I will never be using Sta again and will certainly never recommend anyone else to them.

This shower are illegally holding onto customers money. If you paid by Credit Card (at least £100) then ask your card provider to provide a Section 75 chargeback for failure to supply goods or services. If you paid by Debit card it is a little trickier, but ask your bank to initiate a Chargeback due to failure to supply good or services.

STA Travel deserve to lose customers by the thousands for their attitude, which can only be described as disgusting.

When we book something they are quick enough to take money from us, but when things go wrong they are not willing to refund as is required in Law!

Avoid this lot at all costs, they make the rules up to suit themselves and ignore the Law at all times. They are despicable.

After using STA travel to book several flights previously (both in-store and online), myself and my partner booked a trip to Vietnam. Due to the current circumstances (Covid19) our flights with Quantum were cancelled. The airline refunded the flights to STA travel, we were told in-store that a full refund for the flights would be given to us once they had dealt with the backlog of refunds due (this was also confirmed via email!). After waiting another month I contacted the gentleman in-store who was dealing with our refund, he then informed me that STA travel had since changed their policy and would now only offer a credit note.. I then placed several complaints through the STA travel website and got no response! so I then called STA travel where once again I was told I would get a full refund as they would honor the original agreement of a full refund, and I was told to contact the gentlemen in-store once again who I was assured is authorised to give the refund. Back around in one big circle... And after no correspondence for another 2 weeks I am told again I cannot be given a refund!!

Just got off the phone to a very helpful Travel Expert called Abi in the Preston Store. We have a trip to Sri Lanka booked in September and have been very worried about it still going ahead due to the current Covid19 situation. Abi was very calm and suggested lots of alternatives for our travel plans and helped relax my worries. I have seen a lot of negative reviews on here which were also adding to my stress and worries but Abi helped reassure me and I understand the travel experts are only trying their best and following instructions from their bosses.

Not very happy with STA at all.
Travel booked to Australia via Singapore. The flights were cancelled before we travelled die to the Covid-19 outbreak.
All the information from travel experts show that we should have had a refund within 2 weeks. STA are refusing to refund stating Force Majeur. Australia are already considering closing their borders for up to 2 years so if they do in fact do that the paltry offer of a voucher is no use to anyone.
Lesson learned NEVER BOOK THROUGH A TRAVEL AGENT AGAIN. Definitely not through STA ever.
I am advised that they changed their Policy on 23rd April. We should have been back before then, so quite how it applies to us is difficult to see.

I've used STA a few times for longer trips, such as a career break in 2017 and went well, because nothing needed amending and everything went as planned. Based on this experience, I gave them my return custom for one way journey to Asia via the US. Got caught up in the pandemic and working with them proved harder work than if I did it myself. I had to deal directly with the airlines in the US to re-arrange my travel plans as STA could not give me an answer and fortunately, the airline would deal with me even though it the tickets were booked through an agency. They are refusing to refund a plane ticket from the US to Singapore even though the airline is offering full refunds, they cannot deal with me directly but only through STA. I've spent thousands with STA but they are not going to get another penny from me. My advise, plan the journeys yourself, may take a little longer but if you need to rearrange any plans, you can deal directly with the airline and not be at the mercy of STA unfair policies. I want me money back.