I've had many good experiences of Trailfinders over the years. However, with the popularity of…read morebooking flights directly over the internet I feel they are losing their way somewhat. They need to offer something more. Maybe I was served by the wrong person but the passion or enthusiasm and love of travel was just lacking. On a positive note, they don't charge any extra for credit card payments which is unusual nowadays.

This is a brilliant travel option. Especially good if you are planning a travelling trip, ie a…read more"round the world" trip etc. Many different independant travel companies are available and all branches have many different brochures to look through. The staff are very helpful and friendly and have undergone specialist training in this area.

Ok so I booked with Omega via Skyscanner - THEN read the online reviews and absolutely panicked !!…read more Rang them - admittedly took several goes to get through and the person I spoke to wasn't the easiest to understand.. but I explained to her that I had changed my mind and wanted to cancel. She told me there was a cancellation fee of £30 per ticket ( which is clearly explained in the T &C section of their website so I was prepared for this) I said I wanted to go ahead & cancel & she sent me a cancellation form by email. Had an email back from them on Friday to say refund was being processed and would take 5 working days. Lo and behold the money is today ( Thursday) back in my account. I told my daughter the tale and apparently she flew to Thailand with them without any problem last year. SO they might be a bit rubbish but they're not crooks. I have my refund and if I hadn't panicked I might have had my cheap flights !

Omega Travel (Omega Flightstore) is the most terrible booking agency I ever dealt with. They booked…read moremy wife and 3-year old son on a wrong flight (!!) and caused them stuck at the airport!!! When we called as emergency they said they would 'investigate and come back' then nothing happened!! After we complained to ABTA they even denied any fault and blamed us for not check our itinerary with the airline prior to travel!!! Which means as their customer you must check for their mistakes for them! Even the booking was confirmed in written! How could someone be so shameless to deny their fault with written evidence just in front of them?!! Unbelievably terrible customer service and shameless company! Hard to believe they could survive for so many years. VOID THEM!!! VOID THEM!!! VOID THEM!!!

I don't really like travel agents. I've been travelling a few times and never used one. I actually…read moreenjoy browsing around for the best deal for a flight, reading hotel and hostel reviews to make sure there are no cockroaches and making up the rest of the details when I get there. However, as far as travel agents go, STA isn't a particularly bad one. Rather than intimidating orange ladies with red neckerchiefs, this branch of STA usually has about four chilled out 20-something year old lads in checked shirts behind their desks. I've never seen the queues that Thomas describes but maybe this is just in the run-up to the university holidays. I went into this branch with a friend (who annoyingly pronounces it staaar travel), as she thought it would be the cheapest place to buy our tickets to NZ. Despite the friendly staff and fact that they apparently give discounts to students and under 26s, the prices they quoted for the flights to NZ alone were more expensive than flights I had found on the Quantas website which included 3 free stopovers. I've also been tempted to buy STA's travel insurance in the past but have always found better deals for my requirements elsewhere. As for volunteering, unless you fancy paying a grand to work for free, then you can find much cheaper (and some free) volunteering projects with companies such as Concordia. Only good if you are a student with no time and no imagination.

Sta travel is a hubbub of excited students planning their next jaunt. In those desperate few months…read morebefore the summer things get a little mad and I recall my experience of waiting in a queue for upwards of an hour as a very frustrating experience. Couple this with me not actually going on holiday it made for quite the wind up. I'm trying to see the light with this place, it is student orientated they have lots of well sorted trips that can be booked to pretty much any corner of the world apart from maybe Afghanistan (the army careers office is further down the road) or maybe the poles. Yet again though these trips draw me into another pet hate apart from queuing, the gap year was for me about really plonking you in the middle of nowhere, no guides nothing. Then through your experiences, developing an interpretation of local culture and perhaps even a temporary role within the community; that's real travelling. In recent years more and more websites and travel stores have become gap year orientated creating series of frustrating package deals wrapped up as the real deal, go nurture lion cubs in the outback making a real difference £1200, go diving in some of the most beautiful reefs in the world in the name of conservation (aka a body to drag a measuring tape across the coral) £800 and teach English in Ethiopia amid the savannah grasslands (£900). In my opinion you may as well book yourself two weeks in Magaluf.

PLEASE DO NOT USE THEM…read more Please do not use their 'services'. The person who is incharge is very egoistic, would not listen to you, once you have made the payment will either hang the phone on you or might ask you to 'shut up' Very Unprofessional and Unreliable and simple not Trustworhty. I would never advise any one to use their services

Minus 20 stars, if I could give such a rating. Do not book…read morewith this lot. Their customer service is the worst I have ever dealt with and I don't think they actually know what they are doing or have something mentally wrong with them. Once they have your money you will never hear from them again. I booked through the Teletext website and had to call, and they did not say they were in fact Going On Holiday Ltd when they answered the phone. I booked with them towards the end of 2011, I gave all my contact details and spelt out my email address twice to make sure I received confirmation all was booked and for our tickets. I said it was important they did not get the wrong email address as it would go to another person. They rang back about 40 minutes later to say they had got my email address wrong and that I wouldn't get confirmation until it had been changed which would be tomorrow. By the end of that week I still had not heard anything so rang back and was told the person I spoke to was busy and would call me back. They did not call back. Three days later I called back and it said this number was no longer in operation. At first I thought I had been scammed somehow. So I had to find another number which I got off Teletext. When I called again I was told someone would call me back who never did. After 3 weeks of numerous phone calls I was on the verge of giving up, when I spoke to another staff member and again asked where the confirmation was. I was told it had been sent to the email address on record which she reeled off and guess what it was still the wrong email address. I worked out that they did not change my email address as they had booked me with Ryanair for the flights and they would charge for the change of details. So they lied to me for 3 weeks. Thanks to this cowboy operation I very nearly didn't go on holiday. I had to check in on the Ryanair site using the wrong email address as they could not be bothered to correct their mistake. If you want to book a stress free holiday book anywhere else but here.

Avoid this company. This company took money from my account without providing me with any goods or…read moreservices.