I know this is about South African airlines but there doesn't seem to be SA forum and United is my airline so just to show you how bad it can be elsewhere.

Dear South African Airlines,

I’m writing today to express my utter and profound disappointment with your product and services.

The story begins on October the 10th when I purchased a ticket for a friend of mine who is doing a hardship intern in India. I’m having my 40th birthday in Capetown and wanted to have my friend there (who I haven’t seen in two years) so I purchased a ticket from Bombay to Capetown for him from your website. I then received an email from him telling me about the sponsored ticked authorization form. I filled out the form, copied my passport and my credit card and faxed it all in. I then called the USA reservation number to make sure they got it. Everything looked good so I told my friend to go to the airport and pick up his ticket. When he got there they refused to give it to him. They said they would give it to him if he could produce the credit card to buy the ticket. The whole reason to go through all this trouble was because he has no money working in India. He contacts me and tells me the story.

I’m then on the phone again to the USA reservation line out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. They do some research and tell me they need to get the credit card Xerox again but this time bigger so they can read it. So I send them and enlarged copy of the front and back of the credit card and then call to make sure that’s what they needed. I wait a day to tell my friend to go pick up his ticket. He waits until it’s convenient and tries again. And again they will not give it to him. He tells me about this again.

By this point I’ve called South Africa airlines in South Africa. They tell me there should be no problem and that he should be able to pick up the ticket. I’ve sent them all the correct information and the ticket had been issued. So again I tell my friend to go pick up the ticket at the airport and again they refuse to give him the ticket. This time he has all of my paper work. The authorization form, copies of my credit card and passport. He argues with the people behind the counter only to find out that in India, they will not honor a sponsored ticket and that if he wanted it he could purchase it.

Now you have to remember this all started on October the 10th. Luckily I’m not going to Capetown until the end of February so I’ve had time to try and make this right. By this point it’s coming up on Christmas and I’ve had enough of this foolishness. I call the USA SA airlines reservation number and cancel the original ticket. I then purchase a new ticket to have sent to me so I can then Fedex the ticket to my friend’s office in Bombay. I try to get them to deliver it to my office because I’ll be out of town for a bit. They will not do it. The ticket has to go to my billing address. Fine.

Well I go and do the holiday thing and the ticket gets delivered to the house. I’m not at the house so I can’t pick it up. I call (from Rio) to let SA airlines know that it will probably be sent back and that they should resend it but that they needed to wait until this week because no one would be home to accept the package. Well, what I didn’t know was that my roommate was going to be called away on business at the last moment and would not be working out of the home office. So once again no one was at home to sign for the package. So I get the Fedex “we tried to deliver but you where not here” note on the door. On it is a place for me to sign to authorize delivery. So I sign it and I put it on the door. Well Fedex comes and leaves another package but not the ticket.

That brings us to today when I called USA SA reservations again and get the tracking number. I then call Fedex only to find out that they will not drop off the ticket unless they have a physical adult person sign for it and that the signature I left on the door didn’t count. This is per South African airlines request. I also can’t get it rerouted to my work address because of SA’s policies. So tonight I get to go to the Fedex sorting facility in the bad side of town and retrieve it myself.

To recap, I tried on October the 10th to spend $1,000.00 with SA airlines, it is now January the 24th and I still don’t have the ticket. I do hope this will change tonight but with the way things have been going I’m not too confident in this.

Please know that this experience has soured me on South African Airlines and that I probably will never use or give money to them again.



What an ordeal this has been.