Consumer Affairs and Fair Trading : Travel Tips

Travel Agents

Travel Tips

Fair Trading Tips - The Consumer View
Useful Links

Fair Trading Tips - The Consumer View

Travellers experience a great diversity of problems and many of these result from innocent mistakes or reasons beyond a travel agents control. However, travellers can take precautions to minimise the opportunity for problems to occur.

These are the more common problems experienced by travel consumers, and should be borne in mind when arranging and carrying out travel:

incorrect flight times shown on airline tickets;
confirmed booking being refused by an airline due to local peculiarities;
not being advised that a booking is waitlisted, or in some cases not advised of the significance of such status being endorsed on a ticket;
increases in prices of tours and/or airline tickets after consumers have made the final payment, due to currency fluctuations, airlines or consolidators withdrawing special rates, or agents quoting fares for the wrong season;
vouchers for travel services not being accepted by overseas tour operators;
tours cancelled or varied at the last moment, leaving insufficient time for consumers to make alternative arrangements;
not being notified of codeshare arrangements;
standards of accommodation and travel services being inferior to, or of shorter duration than those described in tour brochures;
not being advised of special requirements - visa, customs, monetary controls, etc.; and
not being notified of cancellation charges at the time of booking, or the possibility of lengthy delays in obtaining refunds of unused air tickets, especially 'off-shore' tickets.

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Useful Links

Below are links to websites that cover areas of information useful to both the domestic and international traveller.

The Department of Foreign Affairs provides information on many areas, including:
passports;

travel advice;
travel bulletins on specific issues or events;
embassies and consulates; and
visas.

International Airport Information:
http://www.worldairportguide.com/airport/

Currency Conversion:
http://www.oanda.com/convert/classic

USA and International Weather
http://www.intellicast.com/

World-Wide Health Information
https://www.tripprep.com/scripts/main/default.asp

Travel information on Australia
http://www.travelmate.com.au/Home/Home.asp?TM_Page=Home

Map Maker for Australian States and Territories
http://www.travelmate.com.au/MapMaker/MapMaker.asp?TM_Page=mapmaker

Travel Doctor - vaccination advice, travel health advice, clinic details, and current health alerts for overseas travel
http://www.traveldoctor.com.au/

Information on countries around the world
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/destinations/

Getaway
http://ninemsn.com.au/getaway