Contents
Terms & Conditions
These terms and conditions work alongside our privacy policy, which is fully compliant with the European Union’s GDPR regulations active as of 25th May 2018. You must agree to these Terms and Conditions before making a purchase on our website.
Terminology:
In this document, first-person plural pronouns, eg ‘We’, ‘us’, ‘our’ as well as ‘South America Backpacker’ refer to the site, South America Backpacker. The site is owned and operated by two people, Nicola Sarah Scott and David Noakes. We can be contacted via info(at)southamericabackpacker.com.
Second-person pronouns, eg ‘you’, ‘your’, ‘yours’, along with ‘user(s)’, ‘readers’, ‘visitors’ refer to anybody visiting the site, including those people who pay the referral payment (described on-screen as the ‘deposit’) for an activity on the site’s booking platform. Visitors who place a booking through this platform may also be referred to as ‘customers’.
‘Trip operators’, ‘operators’, ‘trip providers’, ‘providers’, ‘trip organisers’, ‘organisers’, ‘guides’ or ‘vendors’ refer to the person/people/business that organises, run or carry out the activities bookable through the platform.
‘Activity/activities’, ‘trip(s)’, ‘tour(s)’, ‘training(s)’, ‘service(s)’ and ‘course(s)’ refer to the activities carried out by the customer under the supervision of the trip organiser.
Your Personal Details:
Specifically for customers who book a trip through our website, we would like to make you aware that any information given to us at checkout, will be passed on to the relevant trip organiser in order for them to process your order and confirm your travel arrangements.
On a basic level, these details include your name and email address which the trip organiser will need to book hotels, tours and other experiences for you and to communicate directly with you.
Any information that you send to us via the ‘customer order notes’ such as your pick-up hotel address or special requirements for the trip will be immediately passed on to the trip organiser and your information will not be stored nor used by us for any other purpose, nor will we share this information with other 3rd parties.
Please never send us any sensitive personal information such as passport details or flight details, these should be directed to the trip organiser (should they require it). We will delete them immediately if they are accidentally sent to us.
Your name, email address and details of your booking will be stored via WooCommerce on our website for the lifetime of the website as we are required to keep a record of all transactions made through our website. If you wish for your details to be removed from our systems, you can email us at info @ southamericabackpacker.com and we will delete your records if we are legally allowed to do so.
Correspondence from South America Backpacker:
We will use the email address that you provide us with to contact you about your booking. We will contact you with a confirmation of your booking. We will also send you a set of useful resources to help you prepare for your activity. These may include details about entering the country, visas etc, itineraries, other destinations, as well as more promotional material, such as details of other activities it is possible to book through our platform, accommodation options available in the area, travel insurance options, etc. After you carry out the activity, we will contact you once to ask you to leave a review of your experience (more about this below). You will not be signed up to any ongoing newsletter, unless you have checked the box asking to be subscribed to our newsletter at checkout, or if you have already subscribed by other means. In other words, we won’t annoy you any more than is necessary!
Feedback and Reviews
After participating in any activity booked through our platform, you will receive a prompt inviting you to review and provide feedback on your experience. This helps us to maintain high standards and improve the quality of services offered. Your reviews are valuable to us and to future travelers, assisting them in making informed decisions based on your insights and experiences. We appreciate your time in sharing your thoughts and encourage honest and constructive feedback.
Bookings on South America Backpacker
The role of South America Backpacker
South America Backpacker and the people who run the site act solely as an intermediary.
We do not sell, rent, run or organise any of the activities or services users can book through this site.
The payment (deposit) made through this website is a referral fee. After this payment is made, the user and the organiser of the activity booked enter into an agreement and both parties are responsible for keeping their side of that agreement.
South America Backpacker, its owners, writers or anybody else that publishes on, or speaks on behalf of the site accept no liability for the quality of the activities booked, nor the behaviour/actions of the organiser of the activities, nor the customers that book the activities.
Your Payment Details:
Any payment that you make through South America Backpacker is managed by one of two third-party services, Paypal or Stripe. None of the payment information that a customer provides Paypal or Stripe is shared with South America Backpacker, with the exception of your email address. We do not have access to a user’s billing address or their credit card or debit card details. For more information on Paypal and Stripe’s Privacy Policies, please visit their website(s).
Your Payment:
If your selected date is not available, the trip provider will contact you with the nearest alternative date. If the trip is fully booked, and no alternative is suitable, your deposit will be refunded to you in full.
Cancellations and Refunds:
The deposit that you pay to South America Backpacker is refundable according to the following conditions:
- Up until 72 hours before the start of the activity you have booked, you can request a refund of 100% of your deposit.
- If your refund request is fewer than 72 hours before the start of your activity, you will not receive a refund.
- In the case of bad weather or any other external influence that may lead you to decide to cancel your booking, your refund will depend on the word of the operator. I.e. If your operator decides that an activity cannot go ahead, for whatever reason, you will receive a 100% refund of your deposit from us, irrespective of how soon before the start date it is. However, if you decide you don’t want to carry out the activity, but the operator believes it can go ahead, you may receive a refund of your deposit in accordance with the first two points of this section.
What are your responsibilities when placing your booking?
It is very possible that mistakes are made when placing your booking. Of course, we understand this and will do everything we can to allow for these mistakes to be corrected. When placing a booking, you must:
- Provide correct contact details: If you enter the wrong email address when you place your booking, we will not be able to contact you. If you have placed a booking and do not receive an email immediately informing you that your order has been received (and you’ve checked in your spam folder), it is your responsibility to contact us and inform us of your correct contact details.
- Provide the correct pick-up address: Many of the activities offered on this site include a pick-up from wherever you are staying. It is your responsibility to ensure that you have provided a pick-up address and that this address is correct.
- Choose the correct date: When you receive the email informing you that your order has been received, you must check that you’ve chosen the correct date. If you have not, you need to contact us as quickly as possible to inform us of the error.
What are your responsibilities when carrying out an activity booked through this website?
It is your responsibility to act legally and responsibly in accordance with local laws and rules, as well as those specified by the organiser of the activity you book.
This responsibility includes behaviour, as well as meeting legal obligations with respect to your presence in the country/area where the activity takes place. It is the responsibility of the customer to have gained permission to be where they are, through the adquirance of the necessary visas.
Health
The customer is responsible for following all health guidelines, including necessary vaccinations and any requirement to wear particular items (masks, helmets, breathing apparatus), to socially distance, to take tests etc.
Qualifications
When carrying out activities that require specific licenses/certificates, it is the responsibility of the trip provider to ensure those licenses/certificates are held by the customer and it is the customer’s responsibility to truthfully provide that information.
Your Agreement with the Trip Provider:
Upon confirmation of trip booking, your contract will be 100% with the trip provider.
Every trip provider will have a different policy on when they require the remaining balance of the trip and how that should be paid to them. Each trip provider will also have their own refund policy regarding the payment that you make to them. You will be informed of the payment policy by the trip provider.
South America Backpacker acts solely as an intermediary and accepts no responsibility for any problems which may occur in the interim period between paying for your deposit and arriving at the trip destination.
As an intermediary we do not have any role in carrying out the trip or activity that is booked on this website and accept no responsibility for any unfortunate event which may occur during the trip itself. Please know that complaints about the trip should be directed to the trip provider. You will be given their contact details upon making the booking via this website.
Regarding feedback, you are also encouraged to write a review on the trip page of this website to help inform other travellers about your experience.
Responsibilities of the trip provider(s)
The trip provider(s) are fully responsible for the quality of the activity, the reliability of the services offered, adherence to local laws (this includes the nature of the activity itself, as well as the behaviour and actions of staff members) and the accuracy of the information provided on this site, including the price of the activity.
South America Backpacker accepts no responsibility for:
- Any injury or death which may occur during a trip that is booked via this website.
- Any theft, loss of money or damage to personal property which may occur during a trip that is booked via this website.
- The behaviour of the staff during a trip that is booked via this website.
- The behaviour of the other customers who have booked a trip via this website or via any other website.
- Loss of money due to missing ongoing transport/hotels/other activities booked, caused by a delay that happened during a trip booked via this website.
- Weather, transport crashes, natural disasters, war, political uprisings or any other extreme event which may seriously affect the enjoyment of a trip booked via this website.
- The COVID-19 vaccination status of the staff of the trip providers.
- Illness or food/water poisoning that happens during the trip.
- Any customer who may contract or pass on the COVID-19 virus during their travels.
We strongly recommend that every customer who books through South America Backpacker carefully follows the government health guidelines of the country that they are visiting regarding COVID-19 and the spread of other infectious diseases.
Changes of itineraries due to external factors:
Occasionally, activities are forced to change due to factors entirely out of the operator’s control. For instance, sometimes governments close down access to certain areas of their country.
In such instances, the trip operator will adapt the itinerary of the activity accordingly. South America Backpacker supports the right of its operators to make a judgement call as to how best to respond to these external changes. All of our operators reserve the right to adapt their activities to fit in with what is logistically possible at any given time.
The Right to be Forgotten:
You have the right to email us at info @ southamericabackpacker.com to edit or remove your data at any time (as long as it is legal for us to do so). We will contact you immediately if there is any breach of data that affects your information.
Thanks for reading!
The South America Backpacker Team