Cancellations are rare, but they do happen. The most common reasons are illnesses and personal injuries, but it could also be some kind of force majeure or even the loss of a relative, God forbid. Sometimes it's just a technical matter like a rescheduled business meeting or a major delay at the airport. Since we reserve the date(s) just for you and reject any alternative bookings, we must take into consideration the possibility of unforeseeable circumstances preventing you from being able to have the tour. It goes without saying that one should always have a good travel insurance to cover possible expenses, especially for circumstances that are nobody's fault (regardless of how improbable that might seem).
Although the actual guiding is the most important aspect of our profession, it is not the only one: There's accounting, customer service on the phone and in emails, coordinating drivers, website maintenance, plain office work etc. In fact, the actual guiding makes about 40-50% of the work, so the whole operation only makes sense if we get to do the tour as planned. In case of cancellation we're actually at a loss - hence the deposit we ask for.
Whatever the reason is, we will accept your cancellation. Always. You won't need to convince us of anything. What's important to us, is that you let us know as soon as possible. Some people book us eight months in advance, others just two weeks before they come - yet the negative impact of a cancellation depends only on the time left for us to find other clients.
Having said that, we don't want to make you wait for your refund until we would get other clients, which might not even happen. Instead, we want you to get your refund even if we won't be able to find other clients after all. So ultimately, this is a question of probability: The more time we have, the higher the chance is that we could find someone else. That's why we think it's fair to both sides that the amount that we can refund will be relative to the time left between your cancellation and the date you booked - the more time, the higher the refund:
If you cancel more than four months before the tour, we will refund 60% of the deposit.
If it's less than four months but more than three months: 50%
If it's less than three months but more than two months: 40%
If it's less than two months but more than a month: 30%
If it's less than a month but more than two weeks: 20%
If it's less than two weeks but more than a week: 10%
And finally, if it's less than a week but at least 48 hours before the tour, we will refund 5% of the deposit.
Based on this, we can issue your refund regardless of whether or not we'll actually get another booking for the same date. So even if we won't find other clients, you will still get your refund.
If you chose to pay for our guidance more than the per-day deposit, we will refund, in addition to the above, the whole difference except for the Visa/Mastercard/AmEx fee (3.9% of the total invoice value). We'd love to be able to refund the fee as well, but the fee is deducted from the amount paid to us and is not at our disposal.
If you paid for transportation services (vehicle/driver) that we've booked for you with other companies, we can refund 75% of that amount as long as you notify us about your cancellation at least two weeks in advance, 50% if it's less than two weeks but more than a week, and 25% if it's less than a week but more than 48 hours.
To avoid any misunderstandings (specifically when some people in your group want to cancel, but others might not), please make sure to notify us about your cancellation with our online cancellation form. It's short, fast, and clear.
We hope you'll find this cancellation policy fair. It is our goal to make it as fair as possible for both sides. If you have any suggestions for improvement, please let us know.