“So final update from the story started below. After 4 days of procrastination from budgetair.co.uk their final response is........your flight change remains the same. So in effect all the talk about helping find a solution to the absurd time change (leaving at 09:00 and arriving at 21:40) has rendered no change, as I expected.
Also because it has taken 4 days, all the decent prices for the 11:45 to 20:55 outward service are finished. Yesterday morning I saw flights for this service at £550. Now they are £700.
As the title says, Absolutely Abysmal.
Safe to say that I've learnt a painful lesson about using these types of companies to buy airline tickets. When there are no changes, everything goes well. But if the airline changes the schedule, DON'T EXPECT ANY HELP.
NEVER AGAIN WILL I USE THIS COMPANY.
I'm in the middle of a flight issue with this organisation and so far I'm not happy with what I've seen.
Booked an air France flight with them that was meant to get me to my destination at 17:45 after a 9am Heathrow departure.
Received an email this morning telling me the chosen flight has been cancelled and I'm now on the same departure but arriving 21:40.
Spent over an hour on the phone to Budget Air, only to be told "we'll review other options and get back to you within 4 days".
Four days? I know that KLM (same family as air France) have an 11:45 departure that arrives at the same destination at 20:55. Not ideal but better that a 10 hour 40 minute travel day.
I'm not confident that I'll get the result I want.
Either way, I'll never use Budget Air again.”
“Booked a flight through Budget Air which was later cancelled by the airline. Was informed by Emirates Airline three weeks ago that I would need to claim refund via booking agent, fine.
I have made easily over 10-15 calls to Budget Air since each lasting more than 30 minutes on hold without answer. I have also sent five emails without response. It is unacceptable service and I will continue to chase this up as report this terrible service to all review platforms warning others until I get my refund. Do not book with Budget Air.”
“Booked a flight through Budget Air which was later cancelled by the airline. Was informed by Emirates Airline three weeks ago that I would need to claim refund via booking agent, fine.
I have made easily over 10-15 calls to Budget Air since each lasting more than 30 minutes on hold without answer. I have also sent five emails without response. It is unacceptable service and I will continue to chase this up as report this terrible service to all review platforms warning others until I get my refund. Do not book with Budget Air.”
“I'm in the middle of a flight issue with this organisation and so far I'm not happy with what I've seen.
Booked an air France flight with them that was meant to get me to my destination at 17:45 after a 9am Heathrow departure.
Received an email this morning telling me the chosen flight has been cancelled and I'm now on the same departure but arriving 21:40.
Spent over an hour on the phone to Budget Air, only to be told "we'll review other options and get back to you within 4 days".
Four days? I know that KLM (same family as air France) have an 11:45 departure that arrives at the same destination at 20:55. Not ideal but better that a 10 hour 40 minute travel day.
I'm not confident that I'll get the result I want.
Either way, I'll never use Budget Air again.”
“I have had the most disappointing experience with Budgetair - which nearly ruined the holiday of a lifetime.
in a few bullet points:
- we booked our tickets through budget air from Jakarta to Sorong for a dive trip with fixed dates
- the airline emailed me saying the flights were cancelled and that they will refund me through budget air
- I contacted budget air - they said the fights were still going, the airline company representative also contacted them via phone AND email copying me stating that the airline will re-imburse the flights
- Budget air did not provide any explanation for refusing to refund me, then even asked me to pay a fee!!! They also refused to answer any email or call after that.
They kept nearly 500USD that the airline repeatedly said they are happy to re-reimburse, created a lot of stress, we had to rebook tickets by ourselves, pay additional luggage fees.
For the little money we saved booking through them we lost a lot more at the end, plus our sanity. I will always book directly with the airline after that experience”
“They have lied to me and stolen my money. I have tried emailing multiple times but every reply they say something irrelevant and don’t address the issue of them stealing my money. They have cashed in on the corona epidemic. Do not use this company. Worst customer service of my life.”
“Never EVER use this website to book your flight!!! I booked a flight to Madrid through Budgetair and soon after, I received an Email in which they said the Airline provided them wrong seat information and they apparently were unsuccessful to rebook my tickets, so they refunded the amount immediatelly. This was TWO Weeks ago. I still don´t have my money back and they don´t answer my Emails and it´s impossible to get them to talk to you on the Phone. In the Email I already sent them the booking number, but as i said i never got a reply from them!”
“Our 3 flights to Columbia got cancelled last March because of the problems with Boeing. We were reassured in writing that we'll get the money refunded. Our over £1800 are still with Budget airline after numerous e-mail exchanges and phone calls with long waits. You can't get put through to a manager either because 'that is NOT they way they operate' I was told. They don't even deserve 1 star.”
“Poor unorganised customer service no answer to calls if they do answer they will put the phone down while they know we been waiting 45 min at least to get through I tried this 4 times to make sure but still same .never use this site 0 rating .”
“Booked flights and took £3.5k.... to cancel said flights 5 minutes later! Still waiting them to reply to 2 emails and had to wait on the phone listening to music for 40 minutes, until it was answers by a customer service agent (obviously based abroad) who was clueless!”
“Gave me a 24 hour timeframe to agree to a schedule change of 24 hrs or they would automatically accept it (thus making it impossible to get a refund) - impossible to get them on the phone (premium line that just rings out) and have had a back forth email chain of 11 emails within that 24 hours during which time I've expressly and clearly states several times that I need them to cancel it and obtain a refund, but they've still not initiated it. As the 24 hours has lapsed, they've now sent me my updated tickets which I can't use. Useless - they've forced me to be financially liable as per their T&Cs by completely ignoring my instructions in all of my emails - luckily have a very clear paper trail demonstrating this. If they don't act ASAP it'll be a chargeback situation.”
“Absolutely awful service. I booked a flight to India 4 weeks ago but which was cancelled 2 weeks ago by the airline. The alternative flight that they offered me would have meant missing my flight connections which should have been obvious to the company as it was all under the same booking. Almost impossible to sign into webpage account to check the status and having eventually getting through to a person (after many attempts), and confirming that the flight offered was not acceptable and cancelling the flight, I was informed that repayment to me would take up to 2 months leaving me no money to book an alternative flight with another company. Today by email I received another confirmation of my original flight so I am now even unsure if they have cancelled it.
Shoddy service which has left me extremely frustrated”
“AVOID AVOID AVOID at all costs! The is the worst website and broker on the internet.
They are a bunch of thieves, who are completely incompetent and useless. They have avoided all my communications and have not resolved my problem. I booked a flight with them last June 2019, which i had to cancel due to visa issues, the airlines agreed to fully refund all my money, however, as I originally made my booking through Budgetair, they had to return the money to them. The airline confirmed that they have fully funded this amount to Budgetair in October 2019. I have been chasing my refund since then and I have not been able to get anywhere with Budget air, who have constantly LIED about my refund. They have stopped responding to all my emails and when i call them, I get an Indian call center that do not understand English very well and have been frustrating and useless. Budgetair, is a cowboy travel broker, that has been utterly incompetent, useless and have stolen my money. DO NOT BOOK WITH THEM!”
“Awful company. I'm supposed to be getting a refund for my China flight due to Coronavirus, but there is no way of contacting them, they don't answer the phone or respond to emails. I've been trying for 2 weeks. The flight is tomorrow, I don't fancy my chances :/”
“I wish if I can give a star less than one . Pathetic , disgusting travel agent .
We have been trying to contact budget air since 29th Jan 20 with a request to change the itinerary. We been running pillar to post to somehow establish a contact with the provider but all in vein. The phone rings for 20 min and then gets disconnected. Also raised a complaint via email and FB messenger but no acknowledgment and lookin. I advice to refrain from booking services with this airline as there is no after service . customer services is absolutely pathetic. I am stranded helpless. I will be raising a complaint with regulatory authority later today if no resolution is provided by end of the day”
“Shocking customer service. On hold for over 2 hours over last couple of days. No sensible response to my email. Just need to move a flight and confirm. Extremely disappointed and will never use this company again. Still waiting for a response!!!!”
“Terrible terrible. One of the worst. Have done the absolute minimum. My return flight got moved forward 6hours which i found out while i was on holiday, which meant i could no longer make the flight because transfers would not make it possible.
Their customer service basically stopped responding to my emails.”
“Trust me...use BudgetAir ONLY if you REALLY REALLY have to!!!! (I won't be using them EVER again, even if they quote the cheapest flights!) Here's why...
Around August 2019 I booked a flight for myself, my pregnant wife, my mother and my son (who will be exactly 1 year old when we travel)) from London (UK) to Cebu (The Philippines) with a short connecting flight via the capital Manila (as they don't fly direct) for March 8th 2020.
I was emailed a few days ago by Philippine Airlines to say our main flight from Manila to London has been brought forward which means we are now going to miss it because our connecting flight wasn't changed and that will arrive nearly 2 hours AFTER our main flight leaves Manila! I phoned Philippine Airlines and they were nice stating that we can be moved onto the earlier connecting flight without ANY extra charges as they changed the main flight time. However, because we booked through an agency (BUDGETAIR.CO.UK) they cannot amend the ticket and I need to ask the agency to change it. OMG, what a nightmare!!!!
First I tried phoning them and was getting no response from anyone even though I got connected to their system! I had to give up being on hold after nearly an hour as I needed to go to work. So I filled in their form on the website (which states I would get a response WITHIN 1 day) explaining a small amendment needs to be made. I didn't get ANY reply! I then tried phoning again the following day, and once again waited too long and had to give up waiting, so I sent ANOTHER message via their website.
The following evening I finally got a reply, but they didn't answer ANY of my query! It was basically a generic reply stating their call centre was busy and if I still needed a reply to a query I need to reply to that email! So I did reply explaining for the 3rd time!!!!
The response I got was not helpful IN ANY WAY, all I got was a message stating that any changes made to our booking would incur the following fees: Airline fee of £200 (PER PERSON - there are 4 of us, so that's £800!), Admin fee of £55 (PER PERSON again, so that's another £220!) PLUS whatever the tariff difference is in the new seat price to be added on top! I am actually far better off just buying brand new tickets direct with the airline at around £35 each than paying BudgetAir ANOTHER £1,020+ just for a very small amendment to our original booking!!
I replied to BudgetAir immediately last night stating this and that I did NOT want to change anything on our tickets. It's only down to the airline bringing forward our main flight time that means we will miss it if our connecting flight isn't also brought forward to the earlier one. I also informed them that I had already spoken with Philippine Airlines and was informed that there are still about 60% of the seats left on that earlier flight so that's not a problem to amend our ticket to that flight time AND they would NOT charge ANY FEE because they have made the change to our main flight, NOT ME!! I was quite content with our original flight times and did NOT want ANY changes made as it's now more hassle for us. It now means we need to make arrangements to get to Cebu airport around 6 hours earlier than original and we will have to wait around in Manila airport for a longer period in order to get our main flight to London! Not ideal with a pregnant wife and a 1 year old!!
As it stands, I've STILL had NO REPLY from my message last night from BudgetAir, so I will update this review after I finally get a response...if I eventually get one that is!!!! If I don't, I will make a formal complaint and complain to the ombudsman to.”
“Tried to change my flight date with this company but disappointed. Change the flight date in the app then follow step by step. Then received a email quote me the price but asked to call the company to pay . However there’s no one answering. Called and called for four hours still no luck. Then sent a email again to ask where and how can I contact still no luck . And it is two days now still no reply the email and no one answer the call. Disappointed, bad service never buy any service with them again. :(”
