STA Travel Complaint And Problems

Success

2012-02-09T20:29:00.002Z

I have finally got my refund from STA Travel. My persistence has paid off!

A couple of days ago I got this letter:

STA Complaint Success

I think I might frame this.

Whilst I am glad to get my money back, I am still disgusted that I had to e-mail their CEO before they would budge. Even in this letter they refuse to admit liability, and offer no form of compensation for the hassle they have caused.

Remember, persistence pays. Especially when you know you're in the right.

Good luck and Happy complaining....

STA Travel Complaint sent to Rip Off Britain

2012-01-19T23:21:00.002Z

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

How to provide awful service, Not listen to your customers, and make loads of dirty money

2012-01-17T20:36:00.001Z

More fun with STA today. </sarcasm>

After sending them a lengthy letter about how they are wrong about my claim, they sent a standard reply, without acknowledgment of my points and still offer me the 50% refund.

So far nobody has answered my points. These unanswered points make the difference between me getting all my money back or not.

I am thinking of using this experience to write a book. It will be titled, "How to provide awful service, Not listen to your customers, and make loads of dirty money."

Here are some FACTS about my trouble with STAtravel:

1. They failed to book our flight, but the flight was on our itinerary and e-ticket.

2. Despite paying nearly £2000 for a round the world ticket, they then charged us £244 each to arrange new flights. During this time we had to wait in Christchurch during earthquakes etc and pay for hostels and everything out of our own pockets.

Stuck here until we paid extra £244 for flights!

3. They told us to make a complaint when we get back to claim the money back.

4. We complained

5. They spent weeks asking for tedious bits of information, receipts and invoices, even though they were never going to cover these costs.

6. They offered to pay only 50% of our receipted costs, which didn't even cover the £244 we had paid STA Travel to sort this whole mess out!

7. They advised me to contact ABTA, what a joke. Total waste of time. Basically ABTA just want me to pay them for arbitration services, and cannot actually help in any way with my complaint.

8. Now I get a letter from Nicola Deering, Customer Relations Manager (Ha!) saying that they stand by their original decision. This is despite all the evidence against them, which they have still failed to acknowledge or provide answers to.

9. Even better than the annoying letter is that it doesn't provide a phone number or e-mail address and leaves me only the option to reply by post. This is 2012 and they want me to correspond by post. It even says "I look forward to hearing from you," but obviously not enough to provide decent contact details.

STA Travel CEO Complaint

2011-11-14T21:30:00.001Z

Below is the letter that we sent to STA Travel's CEO. It was sent by recorded post on the 26th October 2011, and signed for on the 27th, but we have never had a reply. Surprisingly.

PeterLiney

STATravel

PrioryHouse

6Wrights Lane

London

W86TA

DearMr Liney,

Iam writing in reference to a problem our party recently had with anSTA Travel round the world ticket, and our subsequent poor treatmentby your customer relations department.

Ourproblem was with an incorrectly processed date change on one of ourflights. We ended up stranded in Christchurch, New Zealand for anumber of days whilst this was resolved. By resolved I mean that wewere charged an additional £244 each to rebook the flights (and toldthat we would get this money back).

Wewere advised by our local STA rep to write a letter when we returnedto the UK to claim back these expenses.

Aftera lengthy e-mail exchange we were eventually offered 50% of ourreceipted costs which worked out at £163 each. I believe this to beextremely unfair so wrote back to clarify some of the points made bythe customer relations department. We got a standard reply and weregiven details of ABTA to make a further complaint.

Afterpaying almost £2000 each for our initial ticket and then a further£35 each for the date change that never happened we felt extremelyhard done by when we had to pay £244 to fix the ticketing mistake,and in the process totally miss out one of our scheduled stops.

Ihope you can understand how upset we all are with this. We acceptthat mistakes can happen, but to then be forced to pay for themourselves is really not on.

Ourmain issues are as follows:

We paid for a RTW ticket, but ended up missing one of the destinations due to this error.
We paid extra for a date change that didn't happen.
We then paid extra again to correct these mistakes and continue our trip
We spent wasted days in New Zealand in winter, after donating all of our warm clothing and food.

Thesewere all caused by a “...breakdown in communication between [the]ticketing department and the respective branch...” as admitted by DMozley (Customer Relations) on the 12/8/2011.

Iknow that you are not in the Customer Relations department, howeveron this occasion I feel they have failed to provide a reasonablelevel of service. Our treatment by STA Travel has been well belowpar, and I hope you can find some way to redeem your companiesreputation in dealing with this matter.

Wehave collectively spent over £10,000 with STA Travel but have beenleft feeling totally cheated. There is no way I could ever recommendSTA Travel to anyone and would be likely to suggest people avoid thecompany all together.

YoursSincerely

DanBennett

NicolaWilson

PeterJones

CherylWhyte

STA Travel Complaint - Overview

2011-10-16T11:33:00.000+01:00

**Updated - 14-11-2011

**Updated - 19-1-2012

13/9/2010 – Booked round the worldticket with STA Travel.

Flights: £1710

Taxes: £161

Insurance: £228

Total: £2099

27/11/2010 – Changed flights for Fijito give us longer in USA. Booked Campervan for New Zealand.

Flight Change: £35

Campervan: £358

Total: £393

20/1/2011 – Received a new Itinerarydue to Qatar Airways flight change. This was the last Itinerary wereceived before leaving home and shows the correct flight details (Asbooked & Paid on 27/11/2010).

We took this Itinerary round the worldwith us.

1/3/2011 – Fly out of Heathrow forthe start of our trip

21/5/2011 – Pickup Campervan inAuckland and drive round New Zealand for a month. Finish inChristchurch

19/6/2011 – Donate our winterclothing and leftover food. Drop off the Campervan at the depot.First in line to check in at Christchurch Airport.

Staff member cannot find us booked onthe flight. She speaks to supervisor who advises us to call STATravel to reissue our tickets. Still plenty of time and space on theplane.

Spend HOURS trying every possiblenumber for STA Travel, but fail to speak to ANYONE.

Eventually send e-mail via Global Helpsystem, told to expect reply within 24 hours.

Give up waiting so get a taxi (Cost £9 each)back into town and spend a sleepless night in a hostel.

20/6/2011 – Another day spentunsuccessfully trying to contact somebody.

Eventually spoke to local STA branchand explained the problem. We were given 3 options:

Stay in Christchurch until the 26^th, Fly to Fiji, Fly back out of Fiji 2 days later.
Fly to Auckland in the morning, Fly to Fiji at lunchtime, Fly to USA on 28^th getting 7 days in Fiji.
Fly to Auckland in the morning, Fly to USA on 23^rd, Miss Fiji totally.

Regardless of which option we choose itwill cost £244 to book the flight. We are told that we should getthis money refunded after writing a letter to customer services whenwe get home.

21/6/2011 – It was past 1 am when wefinally finished sorting it out and had to be at the airport 5 hourslater to catch the flight.

2 of us fly to Auckland (Option 3above)

2 of us fly to Auckland then Fiji(Option 2 above)

28/6/2011 – Sent complaint via e-mailto customer services and local branch

19/7/2011 – Receive reply fromCustomer Relations asking for receipts to support our claimed costs,even though we were only claiming a minimum amount for the 4 peoplein our group such as:

Taxifrom Airport to Hostel (Sunday Rates) £36

2nightsHostel accommodation in Christchurch £112

Internetcosts for contacting STA £10

Airportshuttle from Hostel to Christchurch £14

Flightchanges / date changes etc £966

+Livingexpenses for the extra days spent in NZ £80 (£10 per person perday)

Alsoon top of this myself and Nicola have also incurred further costs dueto the extra two days spent in Auckland:

2nightshostel in Auckland £120

AirportShuttles £20

+ Livingexpenses £40

24/7/2011 – Ireplied that I was still away and would provide the info when Ireturn.

4/8/2011 – Isent a scan of the Taxi receipt

5/8/2011 –Receivedan e-mail asking for confirmation from the Hostels.

9/8/2011 – Iforwarded the receipt from one hostel to Customer Relations.

10/8/2011 – Iforwarded the other receipt from the other hostel to CustomerRelations.

12/8/2011 – Ireceived a stock reply from Customer Relations about how they striveto offer the best levels of service. It also included the followingparagraph:

“Althoughconfirmation of payment and instruction to issue your e-ticket wasforwarded by our Portsmouth branch in the normal way, it seems thatdueto a breakdown in communication between our Ticketing Department andthe respective branch, the ticket confirmation for all passengers wasincorrectly issued,essentially the ticket provided for that segment was not correctlyset up for reissue...”

Thee-mail went on to quote their terms and conditions and advised thatwe should have reconfirmed our flights 72 hours before flying.

"Afteryou have left the UK, it is your responsibility to check with theairline that any onward flights you have confirmed are operatingas booked.We strongly recommend that you contact your airline at least 72 hoursbefore the scheduled departure of each flight to do this. Please notethat for some airlines it is mandatory to confirm with them yourintention to fly."

Wecalled Air Pacific the day before the flight and were advised thatthe flight we had booked was still going ahead and was on schedule. We are not expected to do any more than this.

Thee-mail also stated that further Itineraries had been sent to us:

“Ican confirm that your itinerary was sent out on eight occasions afterthe 27/11/10.”

Thisis simply untrue. We did receive copies of the Itinerary, however thelatest one we had was from 20/1/2011 which had our expected dates oftravel. (We did receive insurance documents from STA Travel during this time, so I suggest that they are confusing these documents on their system.)

Thenthe killer:

“...Iam happy to provide you with 50%of the total receipted costsyou are looking to reimburse for all passengers. This would amount toa refund of £653.41*”

WhenI think of best levels of customer service then this is not what Ihave in mind.

13/8/2011 – Ireply with a few arguments about how they have admitted to theticketing fault and that we had checked the flight in advance. Alsothat 50% refund doesn't even cover the £244 we paid them to fix theflights.

23/8/2011 – Ihave had no further reply so ask for confirmation.

24/8/2011 –Receiveda reply showing a screenshot of the itineraries apparently being sentto us on the 14/4/2011 which we never received (the screenshot doesnot show the Itineraries or addresses it was sent to and the Document ID is the same as for our insurance documents)

Theystand by the 50% refund and give me ABTA reference to pursuecomplaint.

26/9/2011 –Aftera lengthy complaint through ABTA, the best they can offer is theirArbitration Services (at a cost of course) and a standard form tosend to STA Travel seeking a resolution.

Ihave not had a reply since sending this letter.

26/10/2011– Sent a letter by Recorded Post to Peter Liney. STA Travel CEO.

27/10/2011- Your item with reference AI497196516GB was delivered from ourKENSINGTON Delivery Office on 27/10/11 .

14/11/2011– Tweeted @STATravel_UK and @pl_liney:

@pl_lineyStill no end to our complaint. @STATravel_UKhave their heads in the sand, with my money in their bank account.#WorstServiceEver

5/12/2011– Sent reply letter to Nicola Deering, Customer Relations Managerin Manchester via Recorded Delivery.

16/1/2012– Received reply from Nicola Deering. They are standing by theiroriginal offer of 50%

17/1/2012– Sent reply e-mail asking for a phone number to call and discuss.

18/1/2012– Received this e-mail from Nicola Deering:

DearMr Bennett,

Thankyou for your email. Although I would be happy to discuss yourcomplaint with you over the phone, for legal reasons, we now requireany communications to be documented in writing. This is to ensurethat we have a clear record of any correspondence, should eitherparty require it.

Ican assure you that all of your letters have been read and a thoroughinvestigation has been carried out into the details surrounding yourcomplaint. Each time you have sent in new correspondence, your casehas been reviewed, and your complaint has been escalated to membersof the Senior Management Team.

Imust therefore confirm, as stated in my last letter, that STATravel's position remains the same.

Ido note your unhappiness with the outcome of your complaint, andshould you wish to escalate your complaint externallyI would recommend that you contact ABTA (Association ofBritish Travel Agents) for further advice. ABTA's contact details canbe found at www.abta.com.

Yourssincerely,

Nicola

19/1/2012– I sent this reply:

HiNicola,

Asyour last e-mail suggests that a thorough investigation has occurred,I would like to know the details of this investigation.

Inparticular I would like to know the outcome of:

1.The missing itineraries (The one with the same Document ID as ourInsurance Documents - 14th April.) As mentioned in my reply to DanielMozley, our Itinerary was not sent out 8 times after 27th November.We received one on January 20th, and the only other one on June 20thafter we had paid to change the flights.

2.The status of our £35 charge for changing the flights in September,which didn't get processed correctly. You can't charge £35 forsomething and then not provide it.

Ifyou are unable to provide answers to these questions then please sendme the e-mail address of somebody in your Senior Management Team so Ican find out from them.

Itis not good enough to send me to ABTA for a resolution. I am acustomer of STA Travel and therefore it is your responsibility todeal with this complaint, not ABTA's.

Foryour reference here is a quote from ABTA:

"Asa trade association it's very important that you understand we'reunable to pursue the matter on your behalf, and are unable to replyto specific points you may have raised in your letter. "

Regards

DanBennett

Portsmouth,Hampshire

0783525 86 29

19/1/2012– Sent an e-mail to rip off britain – BBC program and cc'd insome STA e-mail addresses.