When you have paid them lots of money for tickets, and those flight tickets have not arrived, and you are due to travel within the next 7 days, is it too much to ask that your query is dealt with politely and efficiently???...being able to speak to someone that speaks english is a major bonus, I think this company should invest in a major training scheme for its staff, and an even more intense one for its senior management. Still I'm not really worried what they do, I wouldnt book with them again, and if anyone mentions them to me, I just tell them of my experience, think that speaks volumes.......................................

I booked tickets today for india with southall travel and i defntly dont agree with your coments, i worked for the travel industry for almost 8 years including working with one of the biggest travel houses of North America and the truth is all agencies will take time for the refund to be processed as agencies have a really lengthy procedures of refunds.

But wat i noticed while working in the industry, its not the agents who are nasty or bad, its the shoppers who waste the time of an agent and then either book it online really annoys. An agent ends up spending hours making bookings answering queries changing dates and finding the best prices of the season and then the customer going and booking online is the most unprofessional behaviour.

More importantly the useless shoppers who never book any tickets but just hold bookings or look for prices are the biggest menace..

Avoid shopping around, look for prices when you really know you are travelling and what dates and stop cribbing, im sure you must have been rude first or must have shopped around for just too long

Try to be professional yourself and then blame some one else...

Cheers for Southall Travel, they gave me an unblvbl fare the first time i called them.

Fares are based on availability and will always change if you will keep wandering for the cheapest price..this happend with me once and that was the last time i did shopping for my tickets, the fares are normally valid for atleast a day if its not an urgent travel so just take ur time shop around for the whole day but eventually book it the same day or else the prices will keep fluctuating..

Cheers

BE CAREFUL WHEN BOOKING WITH SOUTHALL TRAVELS they keep changing their fares when you finally give them the go ahead. you get trapped especially if booking for peak period travel. our family have encountered it several times and thought maybe just maybe its our luck . once is bad, twice an error but 3 times .... that cant happen especially to someone who knows how the travel trade works. higher the price more the commission

Hi,

A similar thing happened to me but with anoother travel agent. What you should do is contcat the airline directly and with you date(s) of travel, surname and a few other questions, the airline will be able to locate your booking if there is one. If not, that menas southall travel has not booked the tickets and have just issued an invoice.

If you have any questions, u can email me and I may be able to help. I am studying law.

WARNING PLEASE DONT USE SOUTHALL TRAVEL:

They took my money but never issued any tickets. They kept on finding excuses. Finally cancelled my booking. But still waiting for my money to be refunded. Have lodged a complaint with ABTA and will take them to Small Claims Court. On top the had the cheek to ask for £35 admnstration charge. What adminstration charge when the tickets were never issued.

STAY AWAY FROM SOUTHALL TRAVEL....VERY VERY BAD EXPERIENCE.

My son and his girlfriend booked with Southall travel, the main problem they had was getting someone who spoke good English in fact most of the time anyone who spoke any English.....they had booked tickets to Thailand, and when nothing had arrived a week before they were due to fly panic started to set in...loads of phone calls and emails were sent, but what a nightmare, I personally wouldnt deal with them.

Hi Shivli

Please go ahead take them to court. They need to learn a lesson

Hi

My husband will deal with them. We are planning to complain against them in ABTA. Now its not the money issue.

Its the question of our pride. How can they behave in this manner with the customers.

The guy i spoke to works in london office itself. Because after our arguement he called me back on my phone and said all rubbish.

You know the only problem is,it is really difficult to call them during working hours. They take advantage of that.

They certainly don't win any prizes for customer service. I have never dealt with such an unprofessional company, you only need to read the reviews on this site to see we are not alone. I suppose we all learn by experience!! I don't hold out much hope for getting my complaint resolved and that is probably what they want - customers to get so fed up of calling they give up! I suspect the guys you speak to are in a call centre probably in India and not at their office in London.

Have you tried an on line chat available from their website? though you may not get very far and they never pass messages on.

Good luck, interested to hear your progress........

Hey i want to tell you all that i called southall travel again in the evening .Guess what happened?

One of the employee told me that stop calling again and again, we don't have time to listen to your crap.

After listening that i got abset and had an arguement with him.

Thanx Sam for replying .

Hope our combime effort will save some people money.

I am planning to visit Southall travel personally.

If possible you too go and see them personally may be this will help and you may get a refund.

It is necessary to teach them lesson.

I think Ikhan is right, they should be reported to a trade association. I am trying to claim for a ticket which did not arrive for a group booking and had to purchase a new ticket at the airport as they would not issue an e ticket. They were clearly known by the handling staff of Air India (not in a positive way) Someone promised to phone me two weeks ago regarding an insurance claim for this lost ticket, not surprisingly they did not repond. I e mailed them on Monday asking for someone to call and they didn't.

On face value their tickets do seem to be cheap and if everything goes to plan you probably get a very good deal. It is when things go wrong you run into problems with them.

Good luck!!

Thanx again.

i think they, contact your bank first of all and tell them to stop the transaction, and then contact southall travel on this email : emailATsouthalltravel.com and inform them with details that you have contacted your bank to stop the transaction. i am sure they will do something.