Southall Travel

[Cosa1717]

Has anyone used them and what have your experiences been?

 

They are currently selling flights to BKK from London (Etihad, Emirates Qatar) for around £400 for April.

 

This is 2 - 3 hundred pound cheaper than the airlines websites. These are also a lot cheaper and better airlines than anything on skyscanner

 

How can they do this? Is it legitimate to book?

[tptp76]

Travel trolley is their website and I have used it many times to book tickets for bkk. Never had any issues.

[Drewbrogan]

Southall Travel have their own website, and Travel Trolley and Fly Sharp are also part of the group.

 

I have used TT loads of times (in fact I only ever use them for economy flights), and Fly Sharp a few times for biz class flights.

 

They've are quite often cheaper than their competitors but I've never seen them be £2-300 cheaper.

 

A quick look on Skyscanner shows quite a few agents coming in around the £400 mark for the 3 big ME airlines in April.

 

I booked TT for May at £344 from MAN with Oman Air.  Qatar were actually cheaper but I wanted to fly Oman.

[belzybob]

A Google brings up a few dissatisfied customers, but most from a few years ago. Main risk with any agent is the method of payment and when the tickets will be issued. Common trick with some agencies was to offer low priced tickets, take a deposit and then tell you price had gone up or the requested date wasn't available.

 

Personally, I'd try sites like WebJet before using this sort of agent.

 

Finally, don't put any trust in IATA membership or other similar agencies giving you any protection.

[Cosa1717]

Southall travel website has the £200 cheaper fares but you have to ring them...

 

The subsidiary department website (mentioned) you can search & book online but they are £200 more...

 

Seems like a trick to get you interested and then say they are not avaialble any more.

 

I'm going during the Easter holidays so those skyscanner £400 fares are not really there unless you want to fly china or Egypt which I don't ;)

[Drewbrogan]

As said above I have used Southall Travel Group (specifically TT and FlySharp) at least 100 times for me, friends, family and business without ever having an issue.  I don't doubt that some people have had issues but I've always had great service from them.  I have never had to ring them either and always had very good prices from the website.

 

What are the dates you are looking at?

 

I've just done a quick search for Easter dates and got nothing like £600 (you said they were offering £400 and they were £200 cheaper than elsewhere) for flights.

 

7-23 April £387 BA/Qatar, £430 Gulf, loads of others under £600

 

12-20 April £435 Gulf, £452 Emirates, £458 Malaysia, £460 Qatar, £461 Etihad

 

14-23 April £415 Jet, £425 Gulf ......................................

 

All these prices are bookable now on TT

 

It may be that your dates are particularly restrictive unfortunately

[Cosa1717]

Thanks for the info Drew,

 

Yes unfortunately i'm restricted on dates from the 31st/1st/2nd 3rd........to the 14th/15th/16th/17th

[Drewbrogan]

Yeah, your dates couldn't be worse mate lol.

 

Just give them a ring and see what happens.  The worst is they will say they are not available and give you the same prices as online.

 

I wish you luck

[Stokielad]

Well my recent experience is they are a scam artist (5 days ago), using exactly the same techniques detailed plenty of times on a quick google search.

Found a flight (Qatar Man-BKK) £70 cheaper than everywhere else. Excellent deal, so I booked it.

Got to payment stage and there was a "delay" in authorising a payment. I know there is no issue with the card, use for plenty of other things with no issue, never been declined. I can't get any more info for the next ten hours but then early next morning get an email saying payment has been declined (Rang the bank this was totally untrue, it was never applied for). Called them in the morning. They claimed the payment had been declined and the seats at "that price" had been lost but they could get the same seats for £120 more, ie £50 more than available elsewhere. Total scam, believe the stories and don't touch with a barge pole.

[Harvey707]

Used Southall few times no issues and Travel Trolley multiple times no issues

[jaynewcastle]

Personally, I wouldn't use a 3rd party agent , but many do & many have no problems.

 

I would recommend having a look at the Trip Advisor Air Forum first BEFORE using any 3rd party agent, as probably 98% of complaints are about bookings with 3rd party agents. There are very few complaints by people who have booked direct with the airline

 

A quick search will bring up many threads & thousands of posts about Travel Trolley & Fly Sharp which may be of interest

[davidge]

I used FlySharp for my current trip as they had the Gulf Business Class fare about £700 cheaper than nearly anyone else!

I booked it last June. While I was here last July, Gulf changed the schedule slightly & FlySharp (Southall) sent me an email asking me to contact them urgently. The schedule change meant they had to get customers to agree to the new times or give a refund.

As soon as I said I was on my mobile from Thailand they offered to call be back to save me paying for the call.

Everything was fine and there were no problems with the booking at all - other than a five and a half hour delay to the Bangkok flight!

I start the return journey tomorrow.

 

I also used them for my next booking and I had the eticket and airline reference within the hour.

[Pheat]

Has anyone used them and what have your experiences been?

They are currently selling flights to BKK from London (Etihad, Emirates Qatar) for around £400 for April.

This is 2 - 3 hundred pound cheaper than the airlines websites. These are also a lot cheaper and better airlines than anything on skyscanner

How can they do this? Is it legitimate to book?

I first used Southall Travel the first time I flew to Asia in1988 never had any issues with this company

[jpp]

Used them a few times around 2009 & 2010 when you could book a flight on the site directly. Next time I tried to book online I then had to call to book the flight, and that's when the seats are no longer available and it would be £100-£150 more, looked again online few days later and they were still offering the cheap flights on their website, bait & switch, so never bothered using them again. 

 

I just book directly with the airline now, can be a little bit more expensive but I know there's going to be no problems, and quite often the price is the same as the 3rd parties are offering. 

[daf]

Booked with Southall Travel a couple of times previously & never had any problems. If in doubt, book with flight cente (which I now do as I have a good contact there ) who will price match any fares & are a very reputable company. Hope this helps.

[samlin]

Don't know about Southall Travel but booked with Travel Trolley for first time last week, mainly because of recommendations on here, not sure i'd use them again. Flight was with Thai for £488 but they declined payment, i phoned them up and  they said the flight was £100 more, i said forget about it, bloke said can you wait a minute, he came back with yes no problem we can do £488.

[lounge_lizard]

I've been using Southall travel for several years now.  No serious problems with flight bookings, and any issues have been resolved very quickly.

[Harvey707]

Don't know about Southall Travel but booked with Travel Trolley for first time last week, mainly because of recommendations on here, not sure i'd use them again. Flight was with Thai for £488 but they declined payment, i phoned them up and  they said the flight was £100 more, i said forget about it, bloke said can you wait a minute, he came back with yes no problem we can do £488.

 

Have never known any company good or bad "decline" payment in the first instance

[particle]

Cant comment on Southall, never tried them, but can highly recommend WestEast travel, used them for 15 years, competitive prices,very helpful, no issues, originally recommended to me by a Thai expat

[davidge]

Cant comment on Southall, never tried them, but can highly recommend WestEast travel, used them for 15 years, competitive prices,very helpful, no issues, originally recommended to me by a Thai expat

I used to use WestEast until they took 2 months to give me my refund when I had cancel a flight.

I won't use them again.

[Harvey707]

I used to use WestEast until they took 2 months to give me my refund when I had cancel a flight.

I won't use them again.

 

Yeah they'll only refund when the Airline does to them. I had to cancel one trip with Travel Trolley and they said at outset can be up to 8 weeks. Turned out to be 5 as it was

[daytripperz]

I used TT this morning to book for May 25th - 11th June £315 with Qatar. I thought it was a good deal, looked just now and it's £305! lol.

 

Not had my E-Ticket yet, but not too concerned..yet. The confirmation email does say it can take up to 48 hours. I used them on my first 2 trips and had no problems.

[daytripperz]

I used TT this morning to book for May 25th - 11th June £315 with Qatar. I thought it was a good deal, looked just now and it's £305! lol.

 

Not had my E-Ticket yet, but not too concerned..yet. The confirmation email does say it can take up to 48 hours. I used them on my first 2 trips and had no problems.

Received the E-ticket 30 minutes ago. All confirmed on the Qatar Airways website and reserved my aisle seats.

[Harvey707]

I used TT this morning to book for May 25th - 11th June £315 with Qatar. I thought it was a good deal, looked just now and it's £305! lol.

 

Not had my E-Ticket yet, but not too concerned..yet. The confirmation email does say it can take up to 48 hours. I used them on my first 2 trips and had no problems.

 

Because I book all the Tickets for Thai friends I have had literally 100's off TT and never once a problem. Normally Eticket within 2 hours and just one single time when I raised a query after 2 days and had it an hour later