Benz Travel Avis 

Awful experience trying to get refunds - lie after lie - promise after promise - had to resort to court action to get anything out of them !!

Be very aware if you are thinking of booking

And if you are waiting for a refund - don't wait - on line £115 - start court claim - they then pay up

Robbers !!!

Citrus Holidays are part of Benz Travel and are terrible!
They used aggression tactics to make me rebook a cancelled trip with them (I refused). They then told me I couldn’t have a refund, even though I had an ATOL certificate that stated it was booked under Package Travel Regulations. I was very patient and understanding due to the situation with COVID and their suppliers, but it took 16 months to receive a refund. Totally unacceptable! Please don’t use them, the holiday may sound wonderful but the grief you’ll get if things go wrong is just not worth it.

Absolutely disgraceful customer service! Took 6 months to get PARTIAL refund! After chasing them, not returning our calls and constant lies,Agents most likely used made up names. When asked for their full name they wouldn’t provide it. At first even said they won’t refund us the money. Twisting our words and made us look bad when they didn’t offer any help. Their office address doesn’t exist.
Eventually after checking with airlines, they refunded 2/3 of the amount we paid. We just wanted it to end so excepted whatever they offered. The airlines have sent them a refund 2 months earlier but they haven’t been bothered to let us know.
Do not use them as you’re asking for trouble!!! Wouldn’t even give them one star!

Yes we know refunds are taking longer to process but Citrus Holidays part of Benz Travel are literally dragging there feet.
As you can see from the answers to questions or complaints stock ‘cut and paste’ answers to concerned customers.
I’ve been dealing with ‘Solwyn’ in Admin don’t get any straight answers just fobbed off with excuses about refunds delayed due COVID crisis, yes that’s why holidays have been cancelled!!!

Ian was very helpful and looked for other option for me, Thank you

Lies and lies after lies, these guys are all cowboys out to get your monies, fraudulent company, took my £3300 and despite cancelling my flights due to covid 19 in late March, promised to sort the refunds out, no monies received. Going to take them to court and give them some much needed publicity in the National Press and expose the James and other people and directors of this company. I have excellent links with all the journalists and they are all ready for this story. So anyone else can contact me too and can expose them further.

Clearly, in our case, both Citrus Holidays and Benz Travel have demonstrated no credibility to follow up on their promises.
In November 2019, we booked and fully paid for a Citrus holiday departing mid June 2020. However, due to COVID the holiday had to be cancelled. Citrus offered a cash refund for a portion of the amount paid or credit. We choose to receive the cash refund and was told that the money would be deposited in our account within 6 to 8 weeks. It has now been over 16 weeks and the only response from the Citrus Administration has been that payment will be made soon with no definite commitment as to when. We have also received no response or statement from Benz Travel, the parent company of Citrus, as we were assured Benz backed up and provided security for Citrus Holidays.

Absolute joke of a company. Con artists that only care about getting your money. Once they have your money if you need anything you will be cold transferred to different departments and many times the call won't even connect. You're told different things from different people and people claiming to be managers, which their colleagues then advise they arent managers. They will outright lie to you about a great deal many things.
Stay away from this company!

Benz travel are not a trustwothy company.
The company give lots of talk about talking to their accountants to offer refund but nothing of the sort happens. James one of their agent is very good with the lies and false promises.
The company has no integrity please dont waste your money. The company is owned by Mr and Mrs S Kirpalini and they are not based in Myfair that is only a front office to make their company look successful, they run their business from a seedy office in Alperton.
I learnt the hard way, but I am sure they will one day lose what they have cheated people out of. I am surprised Trust pilot is even giving them advertising space, should Trust Pilot continue their integrity will also be at stake.

Do not book with this company Rude and unprofessional. When call to book anything they are sweetest. When it comes to refund or resolving any issue the dont want speak to you. An agent (Roger) literally was screaming at me on the phone when I called to query about my flight.

Stay away from Benz fraud travel they will lie to you all the time, you will never receive a refund if the flight was delayed or cancelled. You will always get told to speak to the manager Austin who is a ghost?? Doesn't exist as you’ll email 1000s times without a reply, you’ll then get given a number for him which just rings and rings no one will ever answer. Everyone please avoid at all cost stay away from this dodgy company unless you have money to waste.

Very bad company lie alot and change the person who deals everytime. Convince you to change to later date to get more money....Rubbish company. Not to use

I booked a return ticket to SA from UK. I flew out on 7th Mar 20, when I was due to fly back to UK on 27th Mar 20, I was not allowed to board, as people with UK passports were given priority, this due to Cov-19. I was stuck in SA for two months, as I travelled on my SA passport and not my UK passport. I have been speaking to Ronn, to try and resolve this. All I want is a partial refund as I only used 50% of my return ticket. Email ping-pong, Ronn said that I must ask the carrier, who in turn referred me back to Benz Travel. I was fortunate enough to secure, at some expense, a repatriation flight through the BCO and returned to the UK on the 2nd June 20. Once again I followed up with Ronn, still no joy. I have now taken this to the small claims court.... this company in good times, is good to book with, unfortunately now with Cov-19, their customer support has drastically declined, I'm very unhappy with them and will not use them again.

A bad choice do not buy tickets from this company as they refuse to refund tickets that could not be used because of the pandemic. Forcing customers to take vouchers which have a specific life span so quite frankly stealing customers money if they can’t travel within the voucher time limit. Customer service is also disgusting as Myra was rude and only thought about her commission that she would lose if she refunded my ticket. Saying I would lose £210 of my money if I wanted my money back. DON’T TRUST THIS COMPANY NO GOOD BUY DIRECTLY FTOM THE AIRLINE OR A REPUTABLE COMPANY.

This is not true as I have had printed confirmation from the airline that my refund has been made to you and I can upload it here as proof if you want me to but your company has still refused to pay me back my money. I would never have written this review if you had been honest enough to pay me back and not tried to force me to take a voucher.

Booked my fathers flight to India for April 20 due to covid 19 was cancelled.Said Air India was giving free date change so had no option to put it on hold untill another date.Mean while my father speaking to his friend informed him that he got a full refund back.So I went on to Air India website and they have put up flights between march and April giving full refund back.Spoken to Benz Travel and said you can get refund less there booking fee and admin charge of £41.Air line is refunding the money but this travel agent ripping off its customers at this time due to what's happening with covid 19 should be helping there customers so once this is over there previous customers returning back.Not happy .

I have purchased four tickets from Birmingham to Amritsar from hoodaki which is the sister site from Benz travel in January, all was wel until this pandemic happened and now have been offered a credit note which is less than our purchase price which lasts till March 2021. We have not accepted this as we want a full refund for our tickets as we aren’t able to fly out this year due to this pandemic and also early next year we have weddings in the UK so are unable to fly out. When calling and email hoodaki they haven’t been helpful with this situation and seem like they are not professional at all (I have received a forwarded from Eric with someone else’s e-ticket including there details and there email address associated to them also.) I would not recommend to use this company my son has recently tried to contact Pam who I have been dealing with on 22/04/2020 but no response yet.

On 13th February I checked Princess Cruises website & found that our cruise booked for 23rd February was cancelled. On the 14th February I requested a refund under Package Travel Regulations 2018. Firstly I was advised to claim directly from the cruise company who confirmed that is incorrect as my contract is with Benz Travel. Our insurance does not cover cancellation by provider as the travel company are legally liable. I was informed they need to wait for their providers to refund them first. I appreciate this is a difficult situation for all involved so I have waited & chased periodically, even tried to defer the holiday to next year but they wanted an additional £1200 to do this. On 3rd May still no refund. Our only option appears to be a bank charge back & if that is unsuccessful small claims court.
UPDATE - partial refund received, I m now chasing refund of the rest.
Full refund received many thanks Alex

I booked 8 tickets to fly to India for a family wedding for the 4th April with Hoodaki which is apart of Benz travel. I paid in full and tickets were not issues as promised. Then I received an email to say the flights have been cancelled due to the coronavirus covid -19. This was fine with me but I’m still no futher forward with my refund, I have been chasing the manager Austin who keeps asking me to wait for there reply.

I bought a ticket for my family end of January 2adults and 2 kids London to Colombo on june for £2079 but airlines Emirates cancelled my ticket due to cronovirus situation my ticket was dealt with Richard he said he said he can refund me but charge me 250 plus 15 plus 1% commotion each person and that's more then 1300 end of the day I can only get 735£ tell me is that fair?i will take to this consumer court i request people to help me my money back......