StudentUniverse UK Reviews 2.028

Worst experience.

Amazing! I was nervous bc I never heard of them nor am I a student. And needed to book a last minute flight from US to Spain. They made it easy to compare prices and had no complaints throughout the process of purchasing or flying. And their price was the cheapest I found in my days of scourging for deals

I strongly advise against anybody using Student Universe to book flights. I have had a terrible time trying to get a a refund.

We have had to cancel our trip, so I contacted the customer team to process my cancellation and refund on 17th July. The airline had confirmed with Student Universe that they would charge a fee to cancel, which I accepted. I was then sprung with a hidden cancellation fee from student universe. The agent gave all of the figures to me in Australian dollars and told me that the fees meant I would not receive any money back. I then challenged this and said that the fees needed to be converted to GBP, as that is the currency I had paid in. Once converted, I was actually owed over half of my money back. If I had not challenged this, I would have received nothing. The agent then confirmed that they would process my refund, and I would receive it within 12 weeks.

Today, nearly 5 weeks after my original conversation, I received a call from student universe. The agent asked if I had received my refund and when I confirmed I hadn’t, the agent said I needed to contact the airline directly, which goes against the advice I was given previously. As I booked through student universe, not the airline, student universe is responsible for my refund.

After being put on hold, I was then told that my refund required coordination between the ‘higher ups’ and the airline and that I would be emailed with a follow up. I asked when I would hear back, they couldn’t give me an answer. I queried why this co-ordination hadn’t happened when I called over 5 weeks ago and my refund was confirmed, they couldn’t give me an answer.

This means I’ve been waiting 5 weeks for my refund, and am now restarting this lengthy and frankly unnecessarily confusing process again.

When I asked to make a complaint, I was told I needed to complain to the airline, but it is not the airlines mistake. I pushed back on this and was told I couldn’t make a complaint today and needed to call back tomorrow.

I am disappointed that after having confirmation of my refund five weeks ago, I am now having to work very hard to try and obtain my money back. I feel strongly that the process in place to acquire a refund is purposefully difficult to try and avoid people obtaining their money back. For example, I booked my outbound flight through a different booking company, and had to fill in a simple online form to get my refund. My money was returned to me within two weeks.

The agents I have spoken to have been extremely unhelpful and I receive different messages every time I speak to someone. Similarly, they provide me with false information and then change their mind when challenged, for example:
- stating I don’t qualify for a refund due to the fees, but when challenged admitted they hadn’t converted the fees from Australian dollars to great British points
- stating I needed to contract the airline for a refund but then admitting that they needed to coordinate it as if booked via student universe
- stating any complaints needed to be made to the airline

I can’t speak on their service when you’re able to travel, but in the unfortunate event you are unable to, the service is stress inducing and unnecessarily complicated. Nobody wants to have to cancel their holiday but for piece of mind, I strongly recommend you book elsewhere.

If i could give a lower review i would. Trying to change my ticket date, having also bought the Priority support, i was informed of a price for the change over £550 thrn there were admi. Fees of over £100. When calling the airline directly to change my flight date, they said there was.seat availability and to chage it would cost £136 plus a £30 Admin fee. The airline then said unfortunately they cant change the flight as i should go through the agent. On calling Studentuniverse again (every time you call them they put you on hold for 40 minutes if they need to ho check something), Studentuniverse told me that the flight difference that i must pay is now over £600.
Sounds rather fishy to me and there was no-one other than a service desk agent with a script to follow to talk to.

Hi
I found your service is great and that did not find it in other flight agencies but yiu need to develop your service to get top of the best digrees. The stuff of your food was cold. Indeed you should warm it and kan make it just little bigger. The view of tv. is just for the distance while you can mix it with little short movies and little higher sound.

Fantastic flights. Really cheap and great. Cant fault the experience.

Good price and good conditions

Terrible customer service
Dreadful

My fare had not been ticketed and had a wrong departure date leaving on the day the I made the booking Instead of changing the fare to the right date, a request was made for a further payment of more than $400 AU to make changes which I refused . Instead of just changing the ticket to the right departure date I had no alternative but to cancel the fare There is more to the story than meets the eye

I got a very affordable ticket from studentuniverse considering I booked my flight close to summer time. I had been worried I would not be able to travel or afford the flight ticket but StudentUniverse made it possible.

First time user good experience so far would recommend .

THE MOST HORRIBLE EXTRACTIVE COMPANY IN THE BUSINESS. I RECOMMEND TO NOT EVEN ENGAGE WITH THIS COMPANY.

Easy to compare flights and use. Good rates.

I paid £168 to StudentUniverse for specific seats on a return trip on Kenya Airlines flight JNB-NBO. I got an email from Kenya Airways with a link to check-in, I did not automatically get the seats I had paid for but two completely different ones. I couldn’t select « my » seats and had no way to receive what I had paid for.

I emailed StudentUniverse for help or refund. When I eventually received a response it said « Please note that you can easily check your flight status and access all the information related to your booking by visiting the airline's 'Manage Booking' section on their website. Here, you will also have the option to add seats, purchase extra baggage, and select your meals.« This was pointless, useless, frustrating & upsetting.

I will never use them again and am putting this up a warning. It took me 45 minutes at Kenya Airlines ticket, check-in and boarding gates to persuade them that I had paid for upgraded seats, StudentUniverse are, I think, incompetent rather than dishonest but in that case you would hope that they had adequate help staff. They really don’t.

Simple, quick and affordable.