Tricia O'Brien

United Kingdom

Review about Travel UP
My son had a return ticket from Sydney to London Heathrow on 10 May 2017 purchased from Travel Up.The original ticket was changed and amended several weeks ago which caused inconvenience but we had no choice but to agree to it.He was scheduled to go from : Sydney to Beijing Beijing to Shanghai Shanghai to London. When my son checked the details shortly before leaving Sydney he discovered that another flight had be added to the itinerary and that he had to first fly to Hangzhou.We had not been notified of this addition nor had we agreed to it.However he presumed he had no choice and boarded that first plane. When he arrived in Hangzou he was stopped by the immigration and informed that he was travelling illegally and could not transfer through 3 Chinese airports.He was not allowed to continue to Beijing and was told he had to make his way independently to Shanghai,my son is 19, not an experienced traveller and had very little money. He texted me saying there were 10 immigration officers interrogating him and none of them spoke much English .He was completely stressed as was I. I immediately contacted Travel Up and explained the situation to an agent ,he said he would have to seek advice , he then put me on hold and left me hanging ! I then had to repeat all the details again to a different agent.He said the only thing he could do was to put me in touch with Chinese Eastern Airlines to seek help.He arranged a 3 way call with the airlines and then once I was talking to the Airlines he hung up. The Airline representative told me there was nothing she could do as my son must have either boarded the wrong plane or that Travel Up was responsible for erroneously booking him to transfer through 3 Chinese airports ! In the meantime my son had no choice but to make his own way to Shanghai.This caused unbelievable stress,anxiety,countless phone calls but he did manage.However when he got to Shanghai airport we discovered that his ticket from there back to London had been invalidated as he had not gone via Beijing. Travel Up have not offered any sort of apology other than one representative said she was “sorry for any inconvenience” ! After several phone calls and emails requesting their complaints procedure they eventually said they will look into the matter and notify me within 28 days. I will be updating this review if or when I hear back from them.