Flight Centre 278 Collins Street

I bought tickets to Europe in November 2021 to fly in May. The agent at Collins St was to contact me closer to the date with Covid restrictions. This never happened.

About 3 weeks before my flight, I found out through another office that my flight HAD BEEN CANCELLED. I never got contacted by Flight Centre Collins St about the cancellation.

I had to buy new tickets with another company and request a refund from the airline. They assured me that this would be done via Collins St Flight Centre. I am still waiting for a call from them 9 months after I bought the tickets.

I understand the travel industry has had it difficult with reduced staff to cope with the surge post Covid. But that is why I used an agency instead of buying online. The personal component has totally disappeared and I am left wandering if I will ever get my refund back.

August - went there at 9am to find this note on the door.
Phoned to talk to customer service at 9: 10 was disconnected and told to go to a store.
Made a booking using the email below.
Save time and book as they are struggling.

The staff on arrival and through my experience were nice. But are challenged based on the uncertainty of the travel industry.

Whilst my experience wasn’t the best. Still give grace if you go as they are doing the best they can under challenging circumstances.

Failed to provide my partner with the correct and relevant travel advice on her return into Australia. Failed to answer calls and emails from myself or my partner abroad. Failed to be open during listed business hours.

I have been to the flight Centre Collins Street location recently and want to share my experience here. I have been assisted by Kara who has been extremely professional polite friendly and efficient. Kara has done a great job in advising me the right routes, fares and dates that suitable for my travel plans. She has informed me about the international vaccination certificate (different from my state certificate) that I need to carry during my international travel, and to get it from the MyGov site. She has also suggested me the most reasonable and 24-hour on-call support or travel assistance during the journey. She has helped me choosing the right flights and stopover times that are suitable for my aged parents travel and also helped in logging the wheelchair requests for them. I was feeling guilty for taking up some of her lunch time minutes but Kara has been extremely patient, completed the entire work and ensured all the follow-up detailed documentation reached me on time. My sincere thanks to Kara and the flight Centre team.

My booking experience with Olivia was good when we met at her office. Once I paid the final installment, suddenly the communication ended. She was quick to communicate when it came time for payments, but leading up to the trip, when I needed further assistance, I could not get in contact with Olivia (or anyone at Flight Centre Collins Street).

I sent multiple emails with no response. I then called a few times to try to get hold of Olivia, however was hung up on as the "mailbox is full", not even allowing me to leave a message. No response from Olivia or anyone at Flight Centre Collins St.

If I had an emergency or needed to change flights I would not be able to get in contact with Olivia or the agency - they are the ones who can only do this through the airline I booked.

Was very unsettling to not be able to get hold of my travel agent, who is supposed to be supporting and assisting me in the lead up to my holiday. Not sure what I am paying for, as I didn't receive any service what so ever.

So disappointing and completely unprofessional. Won't be using Flight Centre again.

I have always booked my flights with the collins street store and I have thousands of credits within the store that are about to expire and almost $700 expiring today.
I sent an email on the 23rd of March to book flights using my credits and spoke to the person who I deal with “don’t want to mention names here” after trying to speak with him for months and I am still waiting.
My Credit are now expired and have few more that will expire soon.
I NEED SOMEONE TO CALL ME ASAP

Rude staff who wouldn’t serve you because I didn’t have a booking. They had plenty of employees free to help me as there was only one customer in the building. I have vouchers and I can’t use them online to book my flights. So of course I have to go into store to book my flights. Hard to do that when the staff is rude and all they care about is sitting around doing nothing at there desk. Website isn’t helpful with creating a booking at other stores. Ended up getting amazing help from Ben at camberwell.

I have been trying to contact this place via emails, calls and every possible way but I could not reach anyone (have been trying to call 10 times). No email reply either. I still have a credit there since 2020 (had to cancel due to COVID), and recently I have been trying to reach someone so I can use my credit to book flights, but unable to reach. The Flight centre 1300 numbers also doesnt work. Hopefully after this review someone please contact me back to sort this issue out. Please check your email as I have sent a couple of emails already.

I was very impressed with the level of attentiveness and knowledge of Olivia during our booking experience in-store however this is where the attentiveness ended. We needed a refund processed and she did not respond to emails. We tried to call the store and got sent to a voicemail that was full and not accepting new messages. The process is still ongoing and insanely frustrating! If you want ongoing service after you hand over your money try a different agency.

They are more then skilled workers! I really want to say thanks to Bart and Marques because they looked after of me in a emergency situation, they have been fast, efficient and precise on finding the best solution in short time! Absolutely awesome job done.

Trying to get through on the phone is a nightmare.
I've called 4 times, asked to be diverted to the Collins Street store, only be hear the recorded message that I can't leave a message because the inbox is full!

I called the line for the 5th time, spoke to another consultant who said that he was unable to assist and needed to be transferred to Collins Street. After waiting for 5 mins, line was disconnected.

Still on hold.

I went there about week ago.
First, the agent gave us some informations that were wrong about traveling, which is really bad for a travel agency.
After that she was supposed to send us some travel plan. Three days later we were still waiting for it, so I decided to call the center. The girl at the phone were like, yep, no worries, give me your number and someone is going to call you back. So I gave her my number. But a week later no one called me or sent me anything.
Highly not recommended.
Waste of time.

Highly recommend Lara Johnson, she was very informative and helped me
with all my queries.was quick to respond by email and was able to organize my flights, hotels and all the extra admin that you need now because of covid, she made it easy and stress free.thank you.

We wanted to take the time to write a very heartfelt letter of praise, thanks and gratitude for Olivia Kipman from the Melbourne Collins St center.

We are not exaggerating when we say that Olivia provided the most patient, generous, professional, knowledgeable, friendly, incredible and outstanding customer service we have ever experienced anywhere in the world. Period.

And by some distance at that.

We first met Olivia in the Collins St Melbourne center in April 2021 to secure flights to the US.

God must have been smiling on us that day because we could not have made a more important or fantastic contact.

Even in this initial consultation, Olivia was able to provide an extra level of depth and insight that ensured there was total comfort, only one conversation was needed, and we could proceed with and complete the booking within 30 minutes.

We generally take out time - and we can assure you, that for us was a world record time.

But thank goodness we had made her acquaintance, because as we were flying out the next wave of Covid craziness hit and our global travels then became incredibly complex and precarious.

Our travel plans were also very fluid and changing frequently, reflecting the changing world around us, and we also had unique and challenging visa issues to deal with.

Even the usually simple steps of travel were now complex - and it all might have been hugely stressful - were it not for Olivia.

We spoke to Olivia on zoom every 2-3 weeks for the entirety of our 6 months travel - and the combination of her extensive experience, patience, professionalism, perseverance, and relaxed Aussie demeanor - meant we were able to find hugely creative and cost-effective ways of successfully navigating the globe and eventually find our way home to Australia in time for Christmas with family and friends - all in a very stress free way - and all during the most intense phase of global Covid challenges and restrictions.

There are so many anecdotes we could provide by way of examples to highlight her outstanding service, but here are a couple to give you a flavor of the level of service involved

1) Part of our challenge was we needed to lock in a return to Australia for one of us whilst there other was still waiting on an Australian visa. No problem: Olivia found an ticket with an obscure set of conditions which allowed a full refund should a visa not be issued! Who knew that was even a thing? !

2) We had booked a layover in Singapore inclusive of time in the airport hotel on our return leg - only for this not to eventuate. Olivia then tried for hours on the phone and email to get a refund on the hotel for us. While the hotel was not feeling particularly generous on this occasion unfortunately, we later learned that shortly thereafter on a Singapore layover on her own vacation time, Olivia went to the hotel personally to see if she could get a refund for us! I mean that is just truly exceptional!

We never write testimonials, but we strongly felt called to do so here to acknowledge and recognize this incredible level of professionalism and service.

We would not even contemplate using anyone other than Flight Center again as a result of this experience.

Glory and David Johnston

Highly recommend Marcus Maitland! Super helpful and really patient, gave me all the information I needed and did it all with a really positive attitude. Brilliant experience

I would like to thank Bart Hostyn for all his help on my recent trip to Thailand. Bart guided me through all the pre travel requirements such as PCR tests, Thailand Pass, Flights. I had to return early due to Omicron variant as I had to do 72hr quarantine on my return, I called Bart on a Sunday an he got me an earlier flight home at no extra cost. Bart made this very easy for me and his professionalism and courtesy has no bounds. Thank you Bart, I will definitely use Flight Centre again and I've told my friends how good your service was.
Cheers
Sam Reid

Olivia is by far the best travel agent we have come across. She has gone above and beyond numerous times to accomodate our requests. She is extremely attentive, professional and reliable. We will definitely be coming to Olivia for all of our future adventures!

The staff at collins st were extremely helpful. They helped us get the last flight out of Melbourne, before lockdown. All in such a friendly manner, especially at a very anxious time.

Travel centre is fantastic! Olivia & the team have gone above and beyond. We have extensive experience with travel agencies- would HIGHLY recommend!

Craig and Bart were exceptional. I was left stranded in Europe end of 2021/start of 2021 and couldn’t get home. Both Craig and Bart were in regular contact, checking flights and possibilities, supportive and giving advice. They were with us from start to end until a solution was found and we were able to return to Australia.
Professional, quick to respond, caring and helpful, as well as knowledgeable, we can’t thank them enough for all their support in a difficult time.
I know it’s easy these days to book online and find cheap airfares, but this proved yet again that you still need the personal touch only a professional person brings. We did have good-priced airfares of course but these days what we will all need is to know there’s a person watching our flights like Bart and Craig, and ready to help. The best insurance and the best reason to still go through Flight Centre rather than risk it online.
Thanks both of you for all your help. Phillip Lambou