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Home for this Travelstart blogger is just outside of Vancouver, on the west coast of Canada. I currently live in Sweden, but I was born and raised in Canada. 

I wasn't planning to go home to Canada for Christmas this year, as it's expensive to fly from Europe, especially if I visit more than once a year. 

But a month ago, I decided to check online, just in case there happened to be any great deals. If I could find a super price, then I might just go home for Christmas. My search began at Travelstart..... 

Within minutes, I had found a flight that would take me home for 3 weeks over Christmas, and it was really really cheap. In fact, it was so cheap I didn't believe the price I was being quoted. I thought, maybe Travelstart hadn't included the taxes in the quoted price, or maybe they are showing me the one-way, and not round-trip price. But having used Travelstart for many previous bookings, I knew they have an up-front pricing policy that always includes the taxes, so I quickly realized the price was in fact correct. Yippee!  

To make a long story short, I'm going home for Christmas, thanks to an amazing deal I found through Travelstart. The price was about 35% less than I usually pay, for this same flight. 

I'll be sure to file a blog or two during my travels home. One of the first things I plan to do, besides visiting family, is visit my favorite ski hill in Vancouver, Cypress Mountain. The photo above was taken the last time I snowboarded there. The clouds were covering the ocean, and it was a crisp, beautiful morning.  

Are you going home for the holidays?  Check Travelstart's home page today, and maybe you will be surprised by a super deal, like I was! 

Travelstart is celebrating its 10-year anniversary in business this year.  During the month of September Stephan Ekbergh, our CEO, was sharing one story every day from our history (go here to have a read). We are now looking into a new decennium with great excitement, and lots of new things are to come. Travelstart is stepping up in our aim to communicate the true Travelstart spirit. One of our major areas of focus is and will be to learn more about you, our customers, so that we can improve your experience with us.

During September, when our official celebration was going off, we ran a survey on our website and had 20 lucky winners for airfare tickets to 10 global destinations. The survey gave us tons of interesting insights, for example that over 50 % would rather get the swine flu than loosing their luggage.  This story generated a lot of media attention, you can have a look at a fraction of it here. We thought this was such an interesting result, as it again proves how much we as travelers value things to function properly. Reality is that traveling is often a hassle and time consuming. This is why we, as travel agents and providers in the first step of the travel process, want to do our best and improve where possible. That is why we love to get feedback and hear from you.

Anyone curious about some of the other results we got? Have a look below, click on the small images to enlarge :-)

We wanted to share this wonderful compliment we received for one of our travel gurus, Levonne Aspey 

Dear Mr Stephan Ekberg

COMPLIMENT : LEVONNE

I phoned for assistance to book a ticket abroad for my son. As this is
not something that I do everyday I asked for help.

Levonne assisted me in an extremely professional manner and made me feel
as if I am the only person that matters at that stage.
She also assisted me in queries I had regarding terms and conditions.

My son also needed to get a visa and time was not on his side and I
requested Levonne to be able to speed up the issuing of the e-ticket
receipt, which I assumed will take at least 3 hours as normal turnaround
time was  24 hours.
I was very surprised that I got all the documentation within 10
minutes!!!
This is service excellence!!!!!

I would definitely continue to make use of your company in future and
tell everybody about Levonne at Travelstart in Cape Town.

Regards with a smile
Retief Hitchcock
Pretoria

Our Travelbar team celebrate their 1st birthday today.

The Travelstart office has been decorated with pink helium filled balloons with the team also dressed in pink – Travelbar’s official colour.

It’s hard to believe it has been a year since we opened the phones to our customers wishing to book directly with a consultant opposed to booking online.

Travelbar has grown from strength to strength. Having started business a year ago with just 2 consultants, we have now 5 consultants.

Happy birthday Travelbar long may you reign & continue raising the bar.

Our Travelbar team are:
Wouter Nel - Team Leader
Delani van Rijswijk
Kirsty Henderson
Nanette McDonald
Levonne Aspey

Tel: 0861 878 278 (select option 5)
Email

This morning I found this in one of our customers blog. This made me so happy, it does everytime I read that customers like our site.

Thank you Michelle!

This is some of the e-mails that we have gotten the last couple of months from our customers.

Thank you! We love you guys!

Hi Travelstart

Thanks, we had no problems at all. I must admit, I was a little nervous
initially about not having a "proper-looking" air ticket in my hand, but
next time I will be much more confident. Thanks. Emails like this and the
one you sent shortly before the trip also make a good impression.

Regards
Karen

Wow you guys are super special.  Not only did you organize a stress less trip but then contact me to welcome me home and enquire whether I was happy or not.  Well done to your team.  In a world where service no longer exists it is refreshing to find a company excelling in it.
Thank you for your effort
Kind Regards
Julie Woldemar
Service is excellent!!!
I give you a TEN star rating.
Victor
Hi TravelStart,
All I can say is that you guys, although in principal your aim is to 'make money', are providing a much needed and great service........ and thanks it all turned out fine.....
Cheers
Braam Grobler

Hi the Travelstart Team,
we just returned back from Germany.... to you All, I can just say >>>"Excellent"  !!!!  The service, the people,everything was very good ... we, I will definitely use travelstart again !!! Very professional !! Thank you !!
Greetings  Fritz

Your service was outstanding - thanks for making our brief holiday one of happy memories of stuff that truly WORKED.!!  You guys deserve every cent that you make.
Nicolette

Thank you, we enjoyed our stay in Cape Town.  The trip going there was great.  Coming home again on Sunday was not that good, there was first of all a 4 hour delay, then finally when we were about to land there was gailforce winds in East London , and that was a bit scary, all the bumping etc. The staff on board were excellent, always smiling and were genuine caring for all on board.  The food was great.
Thank you for helping make our flight so easy to book and pay for, when arriving at the airport we just gave our reservation number and it was easy from there.
You guys are a team that we would certainly consider useing in our future travels.
Kind regards
Naidene Richards

Hi   
Just to say thanks, we were most impressed with your service (and that does not happen easily...):)   
We will certainly make use of this service as often as we can.   
Regards
Ninell Robinson

Riana Prinsloo wrote:
Your service was 100%!!!
Thank you

01:45:45 PM [Jana Marshall] this chat feature is really great by the way, two thumbs up for the service support, you guys are awesome :D

Hi,
Had a really great trip. SAA were truly outstanding. I was So impressed with the service and care i received from all the flight attendants and all their staff in general. Being in the bubble was amazing.
Will always use Travelstart for future bookings.
Kind Regards
Heather Whittington

*/Firstly,/*
*/Everything was great!/*
*/Although I never spoke to a single person, everything came through in time – Vouchers, etc./*
*/The Hotel was wonderful, with fresh orange juice on arrival and a Porter to cart luggage in a brass trolley./*
*/The price for everything was equivalent to a return ticket for 1 if I had gone through the usual channels./* */I was impressed, my husband was impressed, and I will definitely make use of Travelstart for all future travel plans./*
*/Thank you for the follow-up./* */Kind Regards/*
*/Debra Barry/*

Hi Travelstart team.   
I would just like to thank you for facilitating the most amazing trip of my life!  Dealing with your company was such a pleasure and I was blown away with the efficiency shown with regards to my booking and requirements.   
I will be contacting you again soon as I would really appreciate your assistance and advise with regards to sending my son overseas too now.   
Kind regards
Anne Manning

Linda wrote:
12 Junie 2007   
Hiermee wil ons net vir u baie dankie sê vir uitstekende diens. Ons het ons vliegtuigkaartjies Vrydag 8 Junie 2007 ontvang, en ek het die bespreking Maandagaand 4 Junie 2007 gedoen.  Ons is regtig baie beindruk met u goeie en flinke diens en sal beslis weer van u gebruik maak, asook u naam vir ander gee wat vliegtuigkaartjies wil bespreek.   
Dankie aan elkeen wat so getrou my op my e-mails geantwoord het, ek waardeer dit.   
Gaan voort met u goeie diens.   
Nogmaals dankie.

Tony wrote:
Hi All at Travelstart   
Thanks for your great service.  Definitely the way to go.  Next time I will arrange accommodation through you guys as well.  Had a great trip with no difficulty at all.  All flight arrangements went absolutely smooth.   
You have a return customer and promoter.   
Tony van Niekerk
Editor
COVER Publications

Thank you very much for excellent service.  Our booking was effortless
and all the flights were on time and everything went smoothly.

Regards
Susan Hanekom

Yes you guys Rock
Thanks
Kind Regards
Chris Green

I hope that everyone seen that we got a new way for our customers to get in contact with customer service? No? Well, then you missed something really special.

Forget e-mails and boring call waiting, now you can chat with us at Travelstart.co.za. Just click on the button in the right corner that says "chat with us" and someone from customer service will give you instant help.

This is a transcript of an IM conversation between a customer and one of our travel desk staff, Mumtaaz:

[Mumtaaz] Hello, how may I help you?

[Visitor] Hi my name is xxxxxxxx, ref no. xxxxx.

[Mumtaaz] hi xxxxx im hvin a look at ur booking as we spk

[Visitor] I've been billed for the adult cancellation extra when I opted
not to take it, how can I sort this out?

[Mumtaaz] i will refund you the cancellation amount and will send you
an email as well

[Visitor] Are you serious?

[Mumtaaz] yes of course

[Visitor]* I'm truly.... well, speechless! I was expecting a fight.
Thank you for your time and service.*

[Mumtaaz] you r most welcome

[Mumtaaz] Thanks for contacting us. Please do not hesitate to contact us
again if we can be of further assistance.

[Visitor] Well, if that's all thanx again and good-bye!