A Customer made a flight reservation via the travel start website in September 2021 from Lagos to Manchester in December 2021. About two weeks to departure, the UK included Nigeria on the red list due to Covid-19. He reached out to Travelstart to know the next option since the UK ban affected non-residents. When he tried contacting the travel agency, he realized Travelstart had deactivated their phone lines. The only means of contact was a chatbot on the WhatsApp chat line +27823286400 and email address.
He got Frustrated and went to their office at Ikeja. The staff informed him that his ticket had been canceled. When he inquired why he wasn’t getting any reasonable response via WhatsApp, The staff just responded with the ticket has being canceled and he can come in whenever he is ready to travel but to note that he could only change it before the travel date which was December 18, 2020, otherwise he would be classified as a no-show and would pay a penalty, mind you the initial cost of the ticket was N501,000.
When he was ready to rebook the ticket, he had to go back again to their office in Ikeja and after spending the whole day, one of the staff told him the difference in price for a new ticket in the same economy class was N1.1m. He told her it was ridiculous, she ignored him and kept attending to other people so he left and went back home to start scouting for where to get a new ticket. He eventually paid an additional N150,000 as the difference to his reissued ticket.
He arrived in Manchester, however the day he was to leave, he had checked in, passed security at Manchester airport then British Airways canceled the flight. It was impossible reaching Travelstart to reissue his ticket. All emails were not replied to, all WhatsApp messages met the automated replies. British Airways’ customer service line was unreachable, so when another stranded passenger was able to reach British Airways customer care at 3 am, he begged to use her phone to speak with them.
Whilst they were able to rebook others on their next available flight, he was told to contact Travelstart. Because they had masked the ticket in such a way the airline, couldn’t see what they charged and what they earned as commission so the airlines couldn’t help him
He was stranded in Manchester for 4days and lost time at work because of Travelstart. He also contacted Virgin Atlantic to see how they could help him but there was no way out.
The Victim was able to get a contact of someone in Travelstart, who told him to buy a new ticket. He eventually ended up spending an additional £65 on the covid test which he had earlier paid £70 for because the first one expired.
Travelstart is yet to acknowledge they ruined his trip, left him stranded in a foreign country, and charged him for services that were terribly rendered. Therefore, he has chosen to spend the rest of his life on earth letting others know, his story so that one or more people don’t fall victim to this scam travel agency “Travelstart”.
