Those who have been following this site will know that I started SAA Sucks as a result of this incident. After trying all my efforts, including this website, I figured that SAA would simply never refund me my money nor bother communicating with me about the matter again but I was wrong.

On the 2nd of December 2008, some two months after my initial experience, I received the following email.

Dear Mr Hartman

Refund has been finalised with an amount of zar1590.00

Regards

South African Airways
Duduzile Mnguni
Dep :Refunds

What this effectively means is that SAA have given me a full refund less a small administration fee of R285.00. So, my next thought is that if they have indeed issued me with a full refund then what was the reason for this as they made it very clear that I would not receive one.

Well, the answer lay in an email correspondence directly below the above.

From: Kgomotso Matlala
Sent: 23 October 2008 14:25
To: E-Commerce Online Refunds
Subject: Name change mistake.
Importance: High

Dear Refunds,

Please see the tkts below, and assess a full refund at least charge
administration fee. The customer mentions that he made a mistake on the
website and booked in his surname instead of his father in law’s
surname. Please see the first two tkts. And due to the name change
policy, no refund is due. Can you please advise me if it is psbl to
view this differently, so I can revert to him in writing. Customer
thereafter rebooked and paid.

Kgomotso Matlala was the manager I dealt with on the phone at the time of my original incident and it would seem that this email from him was the catalyst for a full refund. So while this website has been important to expose the consumer injustices I don’t think it helped in any which way to me getting a full refund. I think I got a lucky break with SAA and I’m certainly happy to see that policies can actually be changed.

Hi, have just come across your website and feel I need to vent my anger at SAA too.

We booked our plane tickets from Durban to EL over 2 months ago. We had booked a Starlight cruise to the Portuguese Island leaving DBN at about 2pm on friday the 31 oct 08.

We dutifully got to the EL airport, check in and boarded the plane on the 7:50am flight to DBN.
My husband happened to glance out the window & noticed that one of the tyres was smooth and had a very “bald” patch with metal sticking through. (more…)

The following contribution was sent to us by Floh Thiele.

Many thanks for your initiative “SAA Sucks” – let’s hope it will get change going.

My story of continuous bad service started with a ticket purchase and promise for re-fund on 28 July.

Despite a number of follow-up calls and emails I never received the refund. (more…)