OMEGATRAVEL??, STAY AWAY FROM IT IF YOUR DON'T WANT HEADACHE!…read more I have booked their 7 day-six night Greek tour. Before the booking, I called the agents in London and Shanghai (very hard to reach them) and I was told there nine other customers in the tire as well. Guess what, The tour was cancelled the next day. It takes long time to have money refunded back to me and less that what I have paid for

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!!!

Very helpful, enthusiastic staff that will work with you to find the flight deal, route, airline…read morethat are right for what you need. They can book hotels, transfers, car hire, etc but the main business is booking scheduled flights. Apparently, they can deal with every single scheduled airline anywhere in the world!! I probably spent about an hour going through different options and stop overs. In the end I was happy with the option and the price offered so I got my flight to Australia booked!

First class service from Thomson on this visit. Myself and…read moreAdam Y had spent a couple of weeks deciding where we should go on holiday this August and couldn't come up with any ideas within budget so we wandered around Bolton one day and picked up some brochures from various travel agents. Eventually we resorted back to the internet and just doing any old search with the main search being 'Adult only hotel' - we hate children. We found a 5* hotel within (almost) price budget on the Thomson website, but decided to go in-store to see if they could better it. Of we popped down to the late opening Thomson shop on the Fort shopping park on a Wednesday evening and we were warmly greeted by a young chap who happened to be the manager. He asked us to sit down and explain what we wanted. He searched and unfortunately the price his system was giving him was £250 more than the website. Not to worry he said, he would price match for us and even waiver the admin fee because he could. How nice! However, he was going away in two days so if we wanted it we would need to book with him before Friday to get this deal. We couldn't decide there and then so had a wander around the car park and came to the conclusion that we would only spend the next two days looking on the internet more and only coming back here. So we walked back in and booked it. The young man was very friendly and gave us advise on the resort and travel tips without being patronising as some travel agents can be. I would definitely recommend using Thomson, this one in particular.

Irina Gorianova is a woman to watch. She has a determination to succeed and Travel Moscow has…read morefulfilled a lifelong dream to be able to show off the city where she was born to the discerning tourist. I have known her since she came to this country and have worked with her for the past three years. You will not be disappointed as she will endeavour to give you a trip of a lifetime

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.