STA Travel Complaint sent to Rip Off Britain

I sent the message below to BBC Rip Off Britain. This is the short version of what went wrong with our trip:

Dear Rip Off Britain,

After watching your program recently, I think my story may be of interest. I hope you can help.

In September 2010, myself and three friends booked a once in a lifetime trip round the world with STA Travel. The round the world ticket cost around £1700 each and we had been saving up for years to get enough spending money for the 5 month trip.

In November we decided to change one of the flights to allow us more time in the USA at the end of the trip. This cost us £35 each, and we received a new itinerary with the new flights included. We also booked a campervan rental with STA to coincide with these new dates.

In January there was a minor change to one of our flights which STA informed us of, and sent us new itineraries to reflect this change. No problem there.

We set off for Thailand in March and then successfully travelled to Malaysia, Singapore, Bali, Australia and New Zealand using this itinerary / e-ticket.

The problems started on June 19th, when we dropped off the rented campervan at Christchurch airport for our flight to Fiji. (Bear in mind that we had booked this campervan rental via STA Travel to coincide with our flights.)

The clerk at the check-in desk told us that there was a problem with our ticket and that we had been removed from the flight by STA Travel. We could not get on this flight unless we contacted STA, who could reissue us with the tickets.

We didn't think this a problem. We had seen that they offer help, "7 days a week,  wherever you are!" so set out to contact them. (See file below from http://www.statravel.co.uk/travel-help-new.htm):

Here To Help.... Ha!

They were not "Here to Help" at all. We spent 3 hours in the airport trying to speak to them, e-mail them, web chat with them, until we eventually missed the flight.

We were furious, but worst of all we had already donated our warm clothes and food, as we were supposed to be leaving the cold winter of New Zealand and heading for the tropical islands of Fiji.

We trudged back out of the airport and got a taxi to a backpackers hostel. The last thing we wanted to do was spend time hanging around in Christchurch, waiting for another earthquake. The city was still cordoned off after its worst earthquake ever, and continued to have tremors whilst we were there. I took the attached photo from round the corner of our hostel. We didn't sleep well that night, or the next.

So after days waiting for the weekend to roll round, we finally made contact with our local branch on Monday morning. She went away and came back with possibly the worst news that we could have expected.

In order to rectify their mistake with the flights, we would each have to fork out £244.40 to book new flights and continue our trip. At that time we had no choice and wanted desperately to leave Christchurch, so we paid the money, on the understanding that we could claim back the money by writing a letter to them when we return. (Our rep advised this by phone.)

Eventually, after months of them requesting invoices and copies of receipts, they came back with a standard reply letter offering a 50% refund of our costs (£163 each). This is despite admitting that it was their fault;  "due to a breakdown in communication between our Ticketing Department and the respective branch, the ticket confirmation for all passengers was incorrectly issued, essentially the ticket provided for that segment was not correctly set up" 

They claimed that we had failed to contact them about the incorrect flights, even though we had not received any mention of the changes via e-mail or otherwise. They claimed that we should have contacted the airline 72 hours before flying, however we had done this. As is normal, they asked for our flight number and said the flight is going ahead as scheduled. 

I have requested clarification on a number of problems with their replies, however all I ever receive are robotic responses with chunks of text copied from somewhere. Things like:  "I am sure you will understand, STA Travel strives to offer the best level of service..."

I am no further with my complaint than when I started and feel we have been treated appallingly by a company that is meant to specialise in dealing with students and young people.

I would love you to have a look at this case and see what you can do. I can provide copies of all correspondence with them.

Regards

Dan