STA, Contiki and Tickets

STA, Contiki and Tickets

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I am so annoyed and stressed out right now!

It's the 4th of June, with only 13 days till I should be flying off to Canada and the USA for my holiday, and I STILL haven't recieved my tickets!!!

I should have had them on the 21st of May, a month before the trip, so I could sort out little things like travellers' cheques, what optional extra side trips I want to go on, what clothing I need to pack when I find out what the weather will be like in the cities I stop at, and other such things.

Since the 21st of May, the Australian dollar has dropped from the high (ha!) of USD0.52c to USD0.50c. It plumetted like a stone, and it still hanging around the USD0.50c mark. That annoys me, because I've lost out on money I could have used to buy lunch with in both Canada and the USA. Maybe it is only $10 in every thousand I change over, but that's the cost of a breakfast or lunch in itself!!!

The next thing that annoyed me was that whenever I ring STA (the travel agency), and ask them to find out what's going on and call me back... they tell me that they WILL call me back. And they have never, ever, not even once called me back. Never. I always have to call them or stop by the travel agency during my lunch hour.

When I did travel agent class, I was told that if you tell a client that you will call them, YOU CALL THEM!! No ifs, no buts, no excuses - you do what you say you will!

Anyway, I eventually got the people at STA to tell me what Contiki said. They told me on the 22nd of May that Contiki 'hadn't bothered' doing my tickets yet, despite the fact that I paid in full on the 19th of January, and that the Contiki people would get onto it, and I'd get my tickets on Monday the 28th of May.

Monday came, and I hadn't recieved a call from STA telling me that my tickets were there. So I called them. As per usual.

I find out that the tickets hadn't arrived yet, and that STA didn't know why, and that they'd call Contiki and find out, then call me back and tell me what Contiki said.

No call.

On the 29th of May, I called again. No tickets yet, and no reason was given to me as to why the tickets weren't there yet, just that the tickets hadn't come in.

On the 30th, with still no word from the travel agency, I wrote to Contiki. No reply from them, and no call back from STA.

Eventually on the 31st, Contiki wrote back to me.

Their information-packed e-mail said:

> Hi Caroline
>
> Please be advised that you travel agent will have your documents very soon.

Thrilling.

So I wrote back asking how soon 'soon' was, stating that I was promised to have recieved them on the 28th of May, and that was obviously not the case.

> Hi Caroline
>
> Please be advised that we can only issue documents once your travel agent
> has paid us in full. Please see him/her about this.

I almost had a heart attack at this. I paid way back in January!!!

Eventually I got this reply, after telling her this:

> Hi again
>
> Your documents are being proccessed as we speak.
> Please ask your travel agent why it was not paid earlier.

On the 1st, I went into the travel agent. My travel agent wasn't there, so I spoke to another travel agent. She checked the documents, and told me that they said that my money was paid to Contiki on the 19th of January.

I sat there and got her to ring Contiki, and waited while she was on hold till she finally got through. When she got off the phone, she told me that the Contiki girl they usually speak to said that Contiki was having problems with their "internal airline booking system", and so they were having problems issuing my tickets, but they'd fixed that up and everything was fine, and that I'd get all of my travel documents and tickets either tomorrow or, at the LATEST Monday.

I went in on the 1st of June (no-one from STA had called me, as per normal), and found out that no, there were no tickets or documents delivered from Contiki.

Well, today (TWO WEEKS LATE!!!) I went in (still no phone call from STA, of course) only to find that Contiki had screwed up my tickets, and they have to be reissued from Qantas, sent to Contiki in Sydney, THEN sent to STA for me to pick up!

In 13 days I am meant to fly from Melbourne to LA to Seattle, go on the Contiki tour through Canada, go from Seattle to LA and have a bit of a holiday at Anime Expo, and finally fly home from LA to Melbourne.

AND I DON'T HAVE PLANE TICKETS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I AM SO PISSED OFF!!!!
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13 days left!!! Less than two weeks! And no-one can tell me when the plane tickets will get to me! THIS IS SO STRESSFUL, AND I AM SO ANGRY AT ALL OF THIS WHOLE MESS!!!

Clean up your act, STA! Get your system fixed, Contiki! And whoever is lying to me, STOP IT AND TELL ME THE TRUTH!

Someone is lying. I sure as heck aren't going to go with STA or Contiki on my holiday next year.

Unless someone compensates me for this horrible, stressful pile of a dog's breakfast by upgrading my airline tickets to business class!!

Grrrrr...

--

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© Caroline Seawright 2001