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Terms and Conditions

1. Booking a Travel Merchant holiday

The person making the booking (the "lead name") accepts these booking conditions on behalf of everyone in their party. If you had not seen these booking conditions when you made your booking (and you will be taken to have seen and accepted them if you have sent us a confirmation on your booking - indicating that you have done so) and you are not happy to proceed with the booking now that you have seen them, please return all documents and cancel your booking within 3 days of receiving these conditions. Please note that deposits are non-returnable unless cancellations are made more than 56 days (8 weeks) in advance.

2. Payment

When you receive the deposit invoice please check the details carefully and inform us immediately if anything is incorrect. Spelling of names etc, is particularly important. Names on travel documents must exactly match those shown in passports - we cannot accept responsibility if an airline or other supplier refuses boarding because the name(s) shown in your passport differ from those on your ticket. Payment for all monies due, including any surcharge, must be paid to us no later than 20 days before tour departure.

If you do not pay the balance by the due date your booking will be cancelled and you will forfeit your deposit. Travel documents will not be issued once here unless final payment has been received and any cheques have cleared. We cannot accept any liability for tickets lost in the post.

In the case of any booking made within 30 days of departure, your travel documents will be available for collection at our Tallinn office or, upon payment of a fee of EUR 5 per person, will be sent to you by regular mail. If you live outside Estonia but would like to obtain tickets by post, we will send your travel documents by courier and will add a charge of approx. EUR 70 to your booking (this charge is variable depending on your country of residence). It is imperative that you re-confirm the reservations, timings and check-in details of your flight with the airline concerned at least 72 hours before departure. This applies to your outward flight from Estonia and to your return flight. If you miss a flight or suffer any disruption as a result of not following our instructions as to reconfirmation, we will have no liability to you.

3. Cancellations

You or any member of your party may cancel your tour at any time providing that the cancellation is made by the lead name in writing. As this incurs costs, we will retain your deposit and in addition will apply other cancellation charges as shown below:

Period before departure within which written cancellation is received	Amount of cancellation charge shown as percentage of the tour price
More than 56 days	Deposit only
Between 55 and 40 days	30%
Between 39 and 28 days	60%
Between 27 and 14 days	90%
14 days or failure to arrive at departure airport	100%

 

5. Complaint Procedure

If you have any complaint (including responsible travel practices) during your holiday, you must inform both your group leader and the relevant supplier of the service immediately. If you are not happy with their action in response to your complaint, you should notify our office in Tallinn immediately, and we shall endeavour to resolve the problem promptly. Failure on your part to notify us and our agents does not give us the opportunity to take appropriate action to put things right, and may seriously affect your legal rights. If you feel the problem has still not been dealt with, you should notify us in writing within 20 days of your scheduled return home, giving us your booking reference and all other relevant information. We will acknowledge your written notification within 7 days and aim to provide a full response within 28 days. It is unlikely that you will have a complaint that cannot be settled amicably between us.

6. Claims against third parties

If you, or any member of your party, suffer death, illness or injury whilst overseas arising out of an activity which does not form part of your package travel arrangements, we shall at our discretion, offer advice, guidance and assistance to help you in resolving any claim you may have against a third party, provided we are advised of the incident within 20 days of its occurrence.

7. If we change your booking

It is unlikely we will have to make any changes to your tour after you book. However, we plan the arrangements many months in advance and may occasionally have to make changes. Most changes are minor. Transportation timings and carriers shown in the brochure are subject to change. A change of carrier timings will not be considered a major change. If a major change becomes necessary, we will advise you of the change as soon as possible. Whether a change is ‘major' depends on the nature of the tour and may include: alteration to the scheduled departure by more than 12 hours; a change to a lower standard of accommodation; or a change of departure point. When a major change occurs, you will have the choice of either accepting the change, purchasing another available tour from us, or cancelling your tour, in which case we shall refund you in full. In all cases, except where a major change arises from circumstances amounting to force majeure or consolidation (see below), we will pay you, as a minimum, compensation as detailed below:

Period before departure within which a major change is notified to you	Compensation per person
Before balance due date	Nil
Between balance due date and 14 days before travel	EUR 20.00
Between 13 days and the date of travel	EUR 20.00

Important notes: Compensation will not be payable if we are forced to cancel, or in any way change your tour for reasons of consolidation or force majeure, namely war, threat of war, riot, civil strife, industrial dispute, terrorist activity, health epidemics, natural or nuclear disaster, fire or adverse weather conditions or other similar events beyond our control and that of our suppliers. Consolidation refers to the fact that the operation of the tour is dependent on a minimum number of persons booking the tour. If that number is not achieved, we reserve the right to cancel the tour. We will not however, cancel a tour for reasons of consolidation less than 6 weeks before the departure date. We strongly recommend that you make no travel arrangements to your point of departure from Estonia until such time as your travel itinerary has been confirmed. If you make such arrangements which you are then unable to use due to a change in your itinerary we shall not be liable to you for the cost of those arrangements.

8. Compensation or Liability

Our obligations, and those of our suppliers providing any service or facility included in your holiday, are to take reasonable skill and care to arrange for the provision of such services and facilities and, where we or our supplier is actually providing the service or facility, to provide them and to do so with reasonable skill and care. You must show that reasonable skill and care has not been used if you wish to make any claim. Standards of, for example, safety, hygiene and quality vary throughout the transport and destinations that your holiday may involve. Sometimes these standards will be lower than those which would be expected to be found in your home country. The services and facilities included in your holiday will be deemed to be provided with reasonable skill and care if they comply with any local regulations which apply or, if there are no applicable local regulations, if they are reasonable when compared to the local standards and customs.

For claims which do not involve death or personal injury, we accept, and will only have, liability should we or our suppliers fail to satisfy the obligations detailed above. If we have liability we will pay you reasonable compensation (limited to 1,5 times the value of your holiday) if your enjoyment of the tour is adversely affected. Any sums received by you from suppliers such as from airlines due to the Denied Boarding Regulations 1992 (in this case sums paid by the airline constitute the full amount of your entitlement to compensation for all matters flowing from the airline's actions) will be deducted from any sum paid to you as compensation by us.

For claims which involve death or personal injury as a result of an activity forming part of your holiday, we accept, and will only have liability should we or our suppliers fail to satisfy the obligations detailed above. If we have liability, we will pay you reasonable compensation.

We shall have no liability where the cause of the failure to provide, or failure in, your holiday or any death or personal injury you may suffer is not due to any fault on our part or that of our servants, agents or suppliers, because it is either attributable to you, or attributable to someone unconnected with your holiday and is unforeseeable or unavoidable, or is due to unusual or unforeseeable circumstances beyond our control, the consequences of which could not have been avoided even if all due care had been exercised, or an event which neither we, nor our servants, agents or suppliers could have foreseen or forestalled.

If you choose to issue court proceedings in respect of a claim against us, you must do so within 1 year of your return from holiday or within 1 year of first discovering the matters giving rise to the claim, if this is later. If you do not, then our liability to you will be limited in all cases to the sum of EUR 100.

Other than a set out above, and as is detailed elsewhere in these booking conditions, we shall have no legal liability whatsoever to you for any loss, damage, personal injury or death which you suffer arising directly or indirectly from any aspect of your holiday.

9. Data Protection Policy

To ensure that your holiday runs smoothly, we (and your travel agent, if you use one) need to use information such as your name and address, special needs, dietary requirements, etc. We will apply appropriate security measures to protect this data. However, we must pass it to suppliers of your travel arrangements, including airlines, hotels and transport companies. We may also supply it to security or credit checking companies, and to public authorities such as customs and immigration. If your holiday is outside the European Economic Area (EEA), controls on data protection in your destination may not be as strict as in Estonia. We will only pass data, including sensitive information regarding disabilities or dietary and religious requirements, to people responsible for your travel arrangements. If we cannot pass this information to the relevant suppliers, in the EEA or elsewhere, we cannot provide your booking. When you make this booking, you consent to this information being passed to the relevant people. Information held by a travel agent is subject to that company's own data protection policy. We can supply a copy of your information held by us; there is a small charge for providing this.

10. Independent arrangements/excursions

Any arrangements you make independently which do not form part of the tour are entirely at your own risk. Where you book any excursions or additional travel arrangements while on your holiday, we act only as your booking agent.

11. Transport timings

Please note that the timings of air, sea, road or rail departures are estimates only. These timings may be affected by operational difficulties, weather conditions or failure of passengers to check in on time. Carriers' conditions of carriage which will apply to you, have clauses which limit or exclude liability. We do not make any arrangements if there is a delay at the outbound or inbound point of departure. However, most airlines usually make provision in this case.

12. Passports and visas

Whilst we are able to provide basic advice to clients regarding passports and visa requirements, you should check with the appropriate Embassy or Consulate for the exact requirements for your chosen tour and date of travel. It is your responsibility to ensure that you have the correct passport and visas to gain access to any country/region included in the travel arrangements which you purchase from us. If you fail to do so, we have no liability to you for any cost, loss or damage which you suffer, nor will we refund you the cost of any unused portion of your travel arrangements. In some cases, countries will refuse entry to clients who have criminal records. Should you be concerned about this, please check with the embassy or consulate of the countries to which you are travelling.

13. Health requirements

We are able to advise on mandatory health requirements; however, we are not medical experts. It is your responsibility to ensure that you obtain proper and detailed medical advice. Where you do not do so and either are not allowed to enter any country, or suffer personal injury or death, we have no liability to you for any cost, loss or damage which you suffer nor will we refund you the cost of any unused portion of your travel arrangements. Clients with existing medical problems, pregnant women and anyone who has recently visited other countries, should check requirements with their general practitioner.

14. Special requests

We endeavour to fulfill any special requests (e.g vegetarian meals) and will pass your request to our suppliers but do not guarantee that the request will be carried out.

15. Notices

All communications relating to this Agreement (in particular any requests to cancel or amend your holiday arrangements) must be from the Lead Name in writing and in English and delivered by hand or sent by e-mail to the following e-mail address: info@travelmerchant.eu . Any such communication shall take effect when a complete and legible copy of the communication has been received at the appropriate address.