December 2011
Having recently returned from a round the world trip where we visited Singapore – Perth – Ayers Rock – Cairns – Sydney and Los Angeles I wanted to blog my experience of a niche travel company in Brighton that made it all possible.
We first visited Travel Nation in February 2011 to plan our trip; and they couldn’t have been more helpful. Despite having a vague idea about where we wanted to go, it was great to have somebody who had been to Australia to help us plan our trip. This insight made sure we spent the right amount of time in each of our locations and got to see everything we wanted to!
Travel Nation arranged our flights for us and at exactly the same cost as it would have been if we had booked with Qantas (round the world ticket) direct.
When we woke up on the morning of the 29th October and turned on the news we found out that Qantas had grounded all flights; both domestically and internationally due to strike action. We were due to be flying at 21:30 that evening to Singapore and then onto Perth Tuesday. Given the knock on disruption and the scramble for seats to Singapore on other airlines we feared that our trip would have to be cancelled.
Being stressed, upset and not thinking rationally we first tried to contact Qantas on Saturday morning but couldn’t get through. We then contacted Travel Nation and they were fantastic from the first call we made to them.
They told us to leave it with them and to be ready to go that day. After a lot of going back and forth they managed to get us on a flight to Singapore at 21:30 with Qatar airways; and had agreement from Qantas that they would cover the cost of the tickets. They also managed to get a steer from Qantas that the strike would be concluded by our next flight on the Tuesday.
They were brilliant at communicating with us throughout the process; and there is no way we would have been able to achieve the same outcome without them. The work they put into saving our trip with so little time was above and beyond anything we expected.
Once on the flight to Singapore the rest of our trip was amazing, but it so easily couldn’t have happened.
Our experience with Travel Nation was a great example of Customer Service: it reminded me that the personal touch and going above and beyond are two key ingredients of being a successful business. We will be using them again for any big trips and would recommend them any day of the week; it just goes to show that word of mouth still has a place in today’s world!
Agile IC 
Really pleased to hear you had a good experience with us and that Heather and co. were able to rebook you AND get you some compensation!
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