Travelstart Reviews 

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

This company is a joke, I never received my e-ticket from them, contacted them 3 times, no answer.
I contacted the airline as was worried I didn’t have a flight, and resolved the issue within 30 mins of me contacting them, but this should have been with travel start, who have zero customer service, no direct contact, just sends you around in circles - rubbish, wish I had read the reviews first.
Moral of this - go direct with the airline, avoid at all cost!

There is no option for ZERO stars, but if there were that's what they would get!!!

In all my years, of booking flights I have never ever ever come across such a genuinely DISGRACEFUL company as this one. My 75 year old father living in SA booked a flight from CT to London, return, to come and celebrate a family occasion in Dec 2024.

The original booking was made and unfortunately the date of the function moved by 1 week and a change was needed to the flights.

To firstly get hold of them to engage in a conversation was impossible until we sent a barrage of emails threatening them. When we finally got hold of them, they were rude and completely unhelpful.

We would put a request in for a change and they would take 2 to 3 days to respond on email. The suggestions and costs to make a simple change where beyond pathetic. In some instances a simple date change was coasting the equivalent of an entirely new economy class ticket.

Eventually we asked for a refund price, which again was nearly the entire amount being held, and the remainder taking 12 to 14 weeks to be refunded. Who the hell do they think they are!!!!!!!

In the end we didn't have a choice but to go with their disgusting offer and it's now costing my father nearly R40,000 to fly from CT to London return in economy.

Going direct with BA for the exact same dates was nearly half the costs, even with a change.

I BEG any and everyone who is thinking of using this revolting company to read this and ALL the other awful reviews before booking with them.

Go direct via the airlines, use Expedia, or any other reputable company, just DON'T use this one!!!!!!!

Worst experience ever buying flight tickets.
They changed randomly one flight before a connecting flight to a much earlier one (and of course, cheaper one), resulting in a unbearable increased stop time, whilst the original flight does still exist and is still purchasable.
They falsely accuse the airline company as the responsible for the change. Then, they said that I accepted that change, which is absolutely untrue.
To get my original flight back seems to be completely impossible, as the customer service is conceived to drive you crazy.
The customer service over chat is just an insult: it's a kafkaesque nightmare. They constantly change from one person to the next one during the conversation. Then, they always end up saying, that they lost the chata data. Who are they trying to fool with that cheap technique?

I have been I good customer for travel start, I have never experienced such worse service, I book two flights ticket for my clients through this app and when I contact for clarification since my client plane was delayed I have been told to wait and people pretending they couldn’t hear and now am being told my refund will take 8 Weekss???? How can this be possible? How do you treat your customers like this? I request for change of flight despite me providing an alternative flight which was cheaper but am being told the person cannot see it and the only available option is twice the amount I already booked. Rubbish customer service. PURE RUBBISH .

Just another company engaging in the business of bloating the cost of a ticket with as many extras as possible.

I had to move the date of a return flight well in advance, and they use their method of charging excessive high cancellation fee which amount to the full price of a ticket to beat us into submission and purchase the refundable or flexible option next time to prevent this from happening again in the future.

Then they just throw their hands up and say sorry it's the airline not us. As if I have any contact with the airline and they won't just go and sell the ticket to somebody else afterwards.

I will never use them again and advise people to go directly.

watch out - terrible agency
no customer service
no contact
they take your money - give you a fake booking code and that's it

update: they have come back in the end - and provided the correct booking code - we'll know for sure when we are at the gate. it is for sure the worst customer interface I have evver come across - when you need support. when you call the contact phone no. thy run the tape of a lady that appears to listen to you but has difficulty to understand you - and the first time you even fall for it and spell your name etc. at the 2nd and 3rd call you figure it's a bleeding tape running

update after the trip I booked: unfortunately I have to confirm, this agency is a complete disaster: unresponsive and totally useless when it comes to help passengers that are stranded due to the agency's lack of competence

Never use these people again , they misspelled my name and when I was trying to check in online , I couldn’t until I missed a flight . Before they took my money but flight time was no longer available. Worst day ever with their rude agent T Muhammad

I would strongly advise against using this agency, especially if you're booking flights from Kenya via M-Pesa. I’m questioning the legitimacy of this company after a troubling experience. I made an online booking and followed up on my ticket after 6 hours with no response. Only when I reached out to their feedback line did I get a confirmation that my flight had been canceled and that I would need to apply for a refund. Unfortunately, I haven’t received any further communication since then. Please be cautious and consider other options before trusting this company.

I have been using this agency for a long time now and can say that their prices are good however seriously lacking in their administrative side/ customer service side of their business.
The last ticket I purchased from Travelstart I didn’t get my actual e-ticket for 10 days. In this day and age these things should not happen. When they finally sorted it out they simply said it was an admin error and sent the tickets. No one wants to be worried about if they have an airline ticket or not if they have purchased their ticket? I am not sure I will be using them again, despite their good prices.

TRAVELSTOP not start.

I have been back and forth with Travelstart since June. However, I have now edited this review, as Travelstart came to the party and assisted at solving the problem and I had a satisfactory outcome. So thank you to Lakin and her team.

I will never use this agency ever again. I tried for a week to change my flight. It was nearly impossible to get hold of them. When I did get hold of an agent, my flight was apparently booked. Turned out it was not and never received the online ticket for it. When I called I was told that I did not show up at the airport (for the ticket I cancelled) and that I could not get my change ticket anymore. Worst service I ever had.

I'm pretty sure the people who give 5 stars are the people who work in that company. Worst service I have ever seen in my life.

I don't even want to give them1 star. Extremely disgusted with the servicewe got. I booked a ticket from JHB to DXB - One Way, 1 adult, 1 infant. Quoted a price with 1 stop. We paid. Arriving at Jhb we were advised that the flight from Jhb to Dbn (the lay over) is less luggage than the leg from DBN to DXB.?!?!?!? we had to pay in R2400 for the extra luggage to DBN . The when my daughter arrivew sin dBN with her 3 month old bay, she is advised that the booking from DBN to DXB (8hours +) she has to hold her baby on her lap, as that is how it was booked on their system!!! That is not what we booked and paid for!!!!!!!! She had no choice but to board and deal with this night mare tonight. Stuck in DBN with her baby, this is disgusting service!

ZA11732322
I would not recommend Travelstart South Africa, they do not take any ownership if things are not right, they do not give refund on disputes and say that you can use services later, When you want to use it later, you can not get anyone to assist, they take forever to get back to you and when they do, they just do not do anything and shift responsibility to another party. DO NOT trust them, DO NOT use them!!! Do NOt book flights through

I received prompt and great service from them. I was very worried when I came to the reviews after making payment and thought I'd been scammed, but my flight was booked, confirmed and travelled without any problem. Will definitely be using them for any future bookings.

2 separate flights were booked with this company and we received confirmation for flights A) were the wrong time B) were with a different time as per the website booking.

We are now sitting with two flights that do not suit our travel times and this company is nightmare to get a hold of, waiting times are 12mins + to get a hold of them. They tell you to get a hold of the flight company directly.

What the point is of booking through them I am yet to understand and will not make the mistake again.

The technical team refuses to give us information they say they have of the booking process from their side. Do not waste your time, rather book directly or on another site.