SAA is a pile of pants

SAA is a pile of pants. I urge you to travel using any one of the other domestic and international airlines.

Why is SAA crap? Well, here is a little saga: We (Mandy+I) bought two return tickets to Durban. We booked in advance so we got a very good rate. Only, by choosing the good rate (which was only R80 better than using another airline) we apparently signed away any consumer rights:

• We cannot change dates on the flights without "upgrading" to a ticket which will cost more than booking a new flight on desired date.
• We can "cancel" the ticket and get the tax back, which is 20% of the cost of the ticket. So we would pay a penalty of 80% of the cost for a ticket cancellation. The only reason they give the airport tax back is because it isn't money they have control over
• So, given that I cannot change it, and cancelling it gives me R79, I figured maybe I could change the person flying. No, not possible, apparently too many people were buying cheap tickets and scalping them off to other people. Not difficult, to discourage ticket scalping (which possibly wouldn't happen if tickets were reasonably priced), but impossible. Don't we live in a capitalist society? Surely legally people can resell tickets? Surely they can put a red flag on someone who buys two hundred tickets and changes all of them to other names? Surely the customer comes first
• I only booked SAA because they offer me a few voyager miles, I have my credit card linked to my voyager card (for a fee). If I had realised that by saving R80 I would have given up my ability to act freely on merchandise I purchased, I would have spent the extra money
• Just to let you know, other airlines have a fixed cost to change tickets, plus any price difference (which is fair). They have a fixed cost to change ticket owners, and it is fair. So stop using SAA and make them realise that they are a bunch of encumbent twats who deserve nothing more than to fizzle away with the other ogres of this country

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