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“DO NOT USE STA TRAVEL My girlfriend and I used STA...”

written by jamespiewilde on 18/07/2014

DO NOT USE STA TRAVEL

My girlfriend and I used STA travel for our trip to Thailand.

1. In short the cash cards are a complete waste of time and money, they charge you £12 to buy the card with the selling point that they are easier to use then normal debit cards, this was not the case. We got charged over £5 altogether each time we withdrew money, and our withdrawal limit was £150; a higher charge then if i had of used my debit card.

2. They completely rip you off when booking hotels. We booked a few hotels in advance with STA with the guarantee they were the best prices as we were students, however when we researched the prices when we were out there in turned out we could have booked it for 50% less on the same day.

3. Changing flights was supposed to cost £45 each, it ended up costing £160 each (even though we changed way in advance and was exactly the same type of flight as our original return). Despite changing the flights, receiving confirmation emails of the flights we had booked with seat numbers and being charged on a credit card upon checking in at the airport we were told they had not received payment. An hour long phone call to STA in the UK costing £50 later, we were told we had to make another payment as they had no record otherwise we would not be allowed on the flight. We are now home and despite evidence on our credit card statement that we were charged twice, we have been advised that to claim a refund we have to submit a complaint online and wait up to 28 days for an investigation ...

4. Full moon package is ludicrously unorganised. We were told that you had to book your stay for Full moon in advance as it gets extremely busy, therefore we booked a 5 day full moon package with STA. They told us the completely wrong dates for the package and the wrong hotel. We only found this out as we decided to email the hotel the night before to double check our booking, only to find out we were not booked there at all. This again took back and fourth emailing whilst out in Thailand with STA's incompetent staff who could not give us one clear answer.

Our whole experience with STA travel has been extremely unpleasant, costly, and we certainly wont be using them again/ recommend anyone using them.