I've done a quick background check on the site. It is registered to Polani Travel Limited, 84 Kingsley Road, Hounslow, TW3 1QA . Google streetview shows that place does exist (opposite Hounslow East station) and when the photo was taken was a working travel agents with both names shown. So that's good.

Then all it all goes a bit hazy. The site shows a contact address in Tooting - which turns out to be a firm of accountants and if you do a Google search on it, shows up as being used by a lot of companies as their registered address.

The phone numbers across the top of the website in the 0207 183 series and that code doesn't show up in a dialing code finder yet, but may be connected to a company that provides telecom services over the net - so route you to an overseas location.

However when I did a search on one of the whole numbers it through out 2 more websites.

the first was http://absoluteflights.co.uk/ which is the same as flightcatchers with the name and logo changed. Still shows the Tooting address but the incomplete site registration is now Haryana in India.

the second was http://nassersiddiq.com which is the full flightcatchers site but this time is registered to Karachi in Pakistan.

All a bit vague until I ran into http://www.polanisgroup.com/main.html . So the answer is they do seem to be a genuine travel company with close ties to IATA, but if anything went wrong you may have a chase to get your money back.

Thanks very much for all that Steve, I was PM'ed a link to another site where people had had loads of trouble getting etickets and whatnot, so as I was only saving about £30 or so, I'll just stick to sites I've used before.Again thanks
Alan

the interesting thing there is that problems getting e-tickets are often down to the user's own ISP and PC settings and not the agent!

I wanted to share my Worst Customer Experience Ever! If you can Stay Away from Polani Travel and Flight Catchers!

Polani travel and all associated companies (flight catchers to say!) are absolute nightmare! I am dealing with them currently. They charged £1159 to my American Express card, allowing me to pay online for the tickets that I wanted to book, yet ‘forgot' to update their website and mention, that they DO NOT ACCEPT AMERICAN EXPRESS anymore! As a result I have £1159 pending from my credit card (the credit card is authorised automatically), but have no tickets! As a result, the amount of £1159 went through processing with my credit card company, yet I was informed by Polani Travel/Flight Catchers, that they cannot issue me tickets, as the transaction ‘hasn't been authorised'.
I have no tickets, yet the amount of £1159, which they allow to go through processing via online transaction has been charged to my credit card.
Because they don't accept AMEX, but accepted it as an online method of payment, the transaction was automatically triggered to be processed. I tried whole day to get through to them and get their confirmation, that they will abort (void) the process. Many times the rude staff put the phone down on me or said that there is no manager I can speak to.
The staff also refused to give their names.
Tried again the next day (today) to get through to their accounts/refunds department, their staff is rude and incompetent and there is no interest on their side to help you! They put the phone down on you as soon as you want to speak with manager. I called at 4PM and was informed that ‘ all accounts and reservation department has left for the day'"¦. When asked about their working hours, I was informed that apparently they work until 6PM (sic!)"¦
Nobody will put you through the manager!
Nobody will resolve the issue!
They take your money and that's where the so-called ‘Customer Service' ends!
When asked about head office address (just to verify, as I already found it on the internet), and told them I will send a complaint letter, the person on the other side of the phone laughed to my face.

I still don't know if they aborted the transaction.

Completely dreadful experience. Please pay a few pounds extra and book directly with airline, what you ‘save' is not worth the experience! I am fighting to get my money back and have no tickets! The e-mail addresses to various departments on Polani Travel website and Flight Catchers website are all either non-existent or wrong, as all e-mails bounced back to me!
DO NOT USE POLANI TRAVEL OR FLIGHT CATCHERS IF YOU CAN STAY AWAY FROM THEM!

Any mods know what happened to the post that was in this spot yesterday (about the pregnant wife) which has disappeared all of a sudden?

Hi steve ... it was removed at the member's own request.

David

Irena, I'm confused by your message because you seem to be saying both that this company doesn't accept AMEX cards (which usually means that they don't have a transaction account in place) and has been able to charge this money to your account. Assuming that you have received confirmation that the money has definitely been taken from your AMEX credit card account, then you need to contact AMEX as soon as possible and see about getting them to process a chargeback.

SM

I'm wondering whether there is a third party card handling company (like a bank) in the middle who have taken the details even though the transaction will ultimately fail.

Irena, what do you think is the head office? It certainly isn't the address in Tooting that appears in places. And in this case the one I've given at the top may not be much good. Your best bet for a letter would be the MD in Pakistan but the group website doesn't give a fax number.

guys,
how can I pm in this forum.
it always ' Sorry but you don't have the facility to compose a new PM'
Thanks

Sorry, new members can't PM until they have made a certain number of posts on the public boards - this is intended to stop spam.

Thanks, Steve,
I'll be back later next month. Or may you pm me your mailbox?
Thanks

I originally thought of not posting a negative comment about this travel agency since I got full refund including the credit card handling fee as promised within 7 days.

MODERATOR EDIT: will2011 .... your original complaint was removed at your own request, as you felt it may jeopardise your chances of a refund. Now that you have received a full refund, I'm afraid it does not mean that you can then come back on and post whatever you wish. This latest post was very confusing and potentially libelous and most of it has had to be removed as it was very difficult to follow how much of it related to your own experiences and how much related to what you have read on other forums. Please feel free to post only about your own dealings with the company, without any libelous comments or accusations, without details of other customer experiences which you have read elsewhere, and without links to other sites which may contain libelous accusations.

Many thanks
David HT Mod

irena
Joined: January 24th, 2011, 6:55 pm
Posts: 1
Gender: Female
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Dear Irena,

In reference to your complaint, please note that each query/concern when raised, requires some amount of time to investigate, however your demonstration of impatience shows that you wanted instant results without even giving us time to investigate and provide you with a timely resolution.

We do apologize for any inconvenience caused to you due to the same, however a fair practice could have been, if you would have returned to the forum and could have let the members know that your concerns were resolved in just 24 hrs, hence ironing out the scope of any further inconvenience to you.

Please find the reply sent to you by the customer relations department :

Dear Irena,

Booking Reference 4S7M7X

This is in reference to your ongoing correspondence(s), regarding your credit/debit card transaction which did not go through, and of which you are looking for a refund, as per your most recent correspondence to us.

Further to the same, please note that our website is equipped with the most updated payment gateways, wherein we do accept payment(s) from an American Express card as well, however our records indicate that your payment could not go through due to the mismatch of your card credentials provided to us, by you.

Please note that in the event, wherein, the card details (given to us), do not match the card details possessed by the card issuing bank, the payment(s) are generally debited from the cardholder(s) account and are withheld by the payment gateway of either the card issuing bank or the merchant bank, which is automatically credited back to the cardholder's account within 3 to 7 working days.

Please be advised that the above security measure is implemented by the card issuing bank(s) to avoid any fraudelent transactions and to ensure that all online / over the telephone transactions are carried out smoothly and with the due consent of the cardholder(s). At the same time, please note that these guidelines are not imposed only on American Express cardholders, but are applicable for all credit/debit cardholders throughout the globe, irrespective of any bank / financial organization.

Furthermore, we believe that the money withheld on your card account would have been credited to your card account by now, however in the event, wherein the same has not yet reflected on the card account, we request you to contact your bank about the same, and at the same time, please send us your latest card statement as well, so that we can forward the same to our accounts department, for further review and advise.

In regards to your whole experience with our organization, which you claim has not turned out to be a good one, please note that it is our continous effort to provide timely and efficient service(s) to all our passenger(s), however we are sorry to learn that we could not meet your level of expectations from us.

Hence, we have forwarded your comments to our training team for further investigation. If required, new procedures will be put in place to rectify any issues.

For any further assistance, please feel free to write to us at customercare@polani.co.uk and we would be glad to assist you.

Whilst we acknowledge your dissatisfaction at present, we do hope that you will be able to view your experience as an isolated incident and that in time, allow us another opportunity to serve you again in the near future.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.

Dear All,

Please note that Flightcatchers.com and Comefli.com are a subsidiary of Polani Travel Ltd. which has an expertise in travel trade since past 37 years and at the same time are members of ATOL and IATA as well, and hence our passenger(s) are quite confident to deal with us, during all these years.

We are not only associated with 0207 but 0208 number(s) as well, and the same are most commonly used by our sales representative(s), at our office locations within and outside the U.K. as well.

Please note that although we have a total of 4 office locations (including U.K. and overseas), however as we are expanding in terms of business and in terms of number of employees that we hire, new contact numbers with different area codes (keeping the convenience of the customers) could be seen rolling out on our website and on our advertisements on the internet, soon.

In regards to our office locations in the U.K., the address displayed on our website is the registered office address, however all public dealings take place at our office located in Hounslow.

For any further information, you may revert to us at : customercare@polani.co.uk and we would be glad to assist you.

Regards

Andy

Please ignore the above attempt at PR written by Andy...who works for or possible owns the company, this is my experience !!

I have found this company to be very rude and unhelpful. I sincerely believe that any posts on any forum to the contrary have been written by themselves.
I made a booking through them to fly to Kiev. They did not pass the money on to the airline company and so on the day I had to pay more than twice the original early booking discounted fare when I got to the airport.
They have not responded to emails and they have ended three telephone conversations I have had with them, speaking to them in a reasonable and polite way, by hanging up on me.

Luckily I used a credit card so my money was safe.

Avoid using them at all costs.

They might be a couple of pounds cheaper than other agents but is really not worth the trouble you have with them when things go wrong.

So did you have a flight ticket which the airline refused to honour or just a booking reference number or similar?? Which airline? When you had your 3 conversations what did they say before they hung up?

Steve, Yes, Ukraine International, I politely asked for a refund.

What's your interest here ??

My interest is the same as this site's. We like to look into what happens and whether complaints are justified so that others can get a true idea - the site isn't just for posting negative comments. If we can spot a way to help a genuine complaint we also give advice but to do anything we need the full details of the story.

Now, I asked what you had as a travel document - I gave 2 options and you replied Yes. So we still don't know what you had. I asked what THEY said and you replied that YOU asked for a refund - so we still don't know what excuse they gave.

We do now know that this involves Ukraine International so maybe someone else will know something about their record, good or bad.

I have just had my first and last experience of Polani/flight catchers/comefli or what ever name they use. I booked 12 flights in april this year with XXXXX for a family reunion to see my siter who I have not seen in 10 years, for next Easter, I explained this when I booked. My deposit was taken on the day I booked. Due to lots of mistakes on Polanis part wrong dates spelling of names even after sending them full name details they have kept telling me all flights were booked even tried twice to pay in full for all flights payments did not go through due to a Polani problem. ( thank god) Three weeks ago three of the party found flights else where due to mistakes still being made, Polani said we would loose our deposit but the three were not prepared to put up with anymore problems. All the other 9 flights were still confirmed. Two weeks ago recieved emial saying Virgin had taken back all our flights and we had no flights. Rang Virgin who looked into booking which they confirmed to me Polani had never booked our flights at all even though they had taken deposit and continually confirmed they had. Virgin actually rang company for me, which did not do much good as we have still have no flights. My emails have been returned and no one has given me any explanation as to why are seats were not booked. I can only reiterate again DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY! Write to watch dog I have the more of us who do this the more chance they wil publicly be shown up for what they are; who don not care what mess or heart ache they leave behind.