STA Travel Chatswood

I generally don’t use travel agents when booking any part of my trips, but I’ve used this branch of STA Travel thrice in a span of around 3 years to book lay-​by flights. I like the option of being able to lock in flights months in advance without actually having to shell out the cash right away in one go. I always do a search on the airline website to see if the price STA Travel quotes me is the same and only once has there been a premium added (around $ 100) because of the lay-​by deal. The flights I’ve booked were on Air New Zealand, Cathay Pacific and Philippine Airlines.
All of the communication I do with them is via email and despite dealing with three different people each time I booked a flight (seems they have a high turnover of staff as it has always been the case that the person I previously dealt with would no longer be there), they are always prompt in responding to emails, even to questions I have after I’ve already sealed the deal and booked and paid for the flights.
They always ask if I want a quote for travel insurance along with the flights and I’ve always said no each time. They didn’t push and try to sell me into getting a quote after a simple no, which I really appreciate.
I’ve never had to make any changes to my itinerary after travel has commenced so I can’t comment on how efficient they’d be in resolving those types of issues.

A blatent rip off is one way to describe the service we received from the staff at STA travel. While the flight prices we received were very reasonable, it was the cost of our Croatia sailing which was ridiculous. Our travel agent from STA Travel in Chatswood, named Ben, assured us it was the cheapest tour available. We paid $ 1,500 for eight days sailing in Croatia, with the accommodation being pretty shotty and dinner not included. Other passengers on the boat paid AUD $ 600 for the exact same rooms and package, if not better! Even the tour guide who lead us on the Croatian sailing tour told us we had been ripped off BIG TIME! I requested a partial refund from STA travel midway through our sailing but they basically told us «TOO BAD». They didn’t want to hear about it at all– so much for customer service. I will never book with them again and I have told all of my friends who are students to not do the same. Perhaps I should have done my research a bit better before paying up, but we went to a travel agent to find the best deals possible and ultimately take the work out of it for us. They evidently made huge commissions out of the packaged deal.