In Reply to: Armadale, Perth Flight Centre lie too posted by cintamu on Tuesday, 21. September 2010 at 08:53 Bali Time:
We once dealt solely via email with a travel consulant who works at one of the FC in the Darwin area.I know there are 4 of them up there & I can't remember which one it was.Granted it was the adult daughter of a very close friend of ours that we dealt with who was just starting out in the travel industry but she was very professional,we received very good service & had all emails promptly replied to.We only booked flights with her but she gave us better prices than we were able to get online at the time.The only reason we have not been back is because these days we usually have heaps of points that we can use towards flights & other travel arrangements.I think the thing to remember with FC is that they are all individually owned franchises that are very much $ orientated so it depends on the owners & staffs attitude & way that they deal with customers as to how things work out.
The company we have had major problems with in the last year was HWT in the Western suburbs of Adelaide.This company is also a franchise.It was a nightmare that was only eventually resolved by threatening them with the media & AFTA & the involvement of a friend
who used to be an Australian travel agent for many years but now lives overseas.
We lodged a voucher with them that was to be used towards future travel to be taken within a year & was worth a considerable sum of money.I made a very general query about a domestic trip & without my approval or knowledge or asking for anything to be booked- they booked flights for me & used my voucher up !
I had no idea this had been done & after they had done it there was no communication of any sort from them for well over 4 months.It was not until I rang up about 4 1/2 months later & advised that I had decided on dates etc for our overseas flights to Bali that I found out what had happened.I was told when I called "Don't forget your flight in 2 days time".When I asked what flight to where was she talking about (that I had no paperwork for or knew about)I found out what had been done!
I know if or when in the future I ever wished to deal with a travel agent & not do my own booking that I would definately prefer to deal with a smaller company that does not belong to a franchise.I strongly feel that most of the time that you get better service from this sort of place.I'm just disappointed that my favourite travel agent has moved overseas.