Gotogate

It is impossible to communicate, 100% scammers.
They canceled my trip in March and it is August and I still have problems. It is a huge agency that does not respect clients

I booked a flight on Gotogate for my father to fly from Lanseria to Cape Town and when he got to the airport the flight was from Or Tambo to Cape town so their website had incorrect information. I can't get hold of the company.

1 star, only because it's not possible to give zero! I attempted to change the dates for a return flight (Joburg to Washington), and was told that only business class was available: $1,400 (more than the original ticket). I rang South African Airways who confirmed that there were plenty of economy class seats available. I rang Gotogate straight back again and was told that to change one flight, from economy seat to economy seat, would be $1,400. Each call of course taking an age to go through, and then being berated by a customer service rep that (when reciting my booking reference) believes that 'zero' is a letter, and 'O' is a number. Never, ever, ever, ever again.

Absolutely abysmal service and blatant lies from customer agents.

I was going to go through to China on the 1st of January 2018 and personal circumstances basically put an end to the departure and I was forced to cancel.

When I asked for a refund, they were happy to do this for me (even though the refund cancellation fee would be a 3rd of the full price of the ticket – R3,000 – which is excessive but those are their terms and conditions I guess), but in the first email I was informed that Airlines do not refund all of the taxes paid (which is a complete lie as taxes that are paid are only used when passengers fly out of, and into, the airports they go through and if the passenger does not fly, the airline does not need to pay those taxes so effectively, the Gotogate agent informed me that the airline was basically going to steal my money). I know Airlines are not obligated to inform you to receive your taxes back (honestly this seems pretty much like a scam) but the airline tax is not the issue of this review.

When I queried this blatant lie with the agents first email as well as asked if the refund cancellation fee could be reduced (as R3,000 is a lot of money in South Africa and I was not looking for the agent to wave the fee, just reduce it to a more reasonable amount), I was ignored completely on my statements regarding the taxes and informed that there would be no reduction. I was then informed that if I wanted to get the refund, I should reply back and ask for it again, and this was asked by a new agent not the same one (I assume they bounce the email around between agents if the original agent is unavailable).

There was no empathy from the agent, no "I'm sorry for the inconvenience" or "I'm so sorry, let me see what I can do to help and I'll write back in an hour…*15 minutes later* Oh, my manager said that I am unable to offer you a reduction at this time, I am really sorry about this" just plain old fashioned BS service from an outsourced agent following lines in a script. Now I know he (they) are not the issue, they are just following the guidelines of the company so I am not making this about the agent (or more specifically about them as people), rather this complaint is about the customer service that they provided based on their company guidelines and the company itself.

Basically I was ignored by the agents that contacted me and treated like absolute garbage. Before asking for the refund, I was going to re-book through Gotogate to continue my journey later on next year as the booking and payment process was an absolute breeze, but this whole experience has seriously put me off the whole company and not just them, all of these "Cheap Airfare" websites and apps.

I would honestly rather pay more money through the Airline itself (and some set their refund costs at only 10% of the ticket price) and know I do not have to deal with agents who are like this and companies who are just concerned about the bottom dollar rather than providing full service to their patrons. Take a note from EA in regards to their new game Battlefront, if enough people complain it seriously affects companies and their bottom lines in the end.

I hope this review will help someone (or a whole lot of people) and hopefully cause the company to change their custom approach.

Best Regards,

Nathan

We bought flights today .. well thought we did… and received an email (like so many others as we have now found out via reviews) stating that payment was not processed and booking could not be done … then I called Gotogate and spoke to Akshay twice. And i get the same reply all the other REVIEWS we have read…. wait 3-5 days for my bank to release funds. So I called my banker and they told me that Gotogate must release funds.. and .. i get told by gotogate its my fault and must clear my caches and cookies?? I mean really.. like that's a real problem? If this is a constant problem.. why not warn people .. but what scares me now is that all the reviews I have read.. not one person has received their refund ???? I WANT MY MONEY BACK …. If this is a constant problem why are they allowed to operate ? Is there no governing bodies to shut them down .. ???