Booking Agreement · Guideless Travel

1. Who this is between, and what it covers

This agreement is between Guideless LLC, trading as Guideless Travel, and the person who makes a booking. It applies to each booking separately, including bookings made with a friend's trip code: joining a friend's group puts you on the same departure and in the same group, but each booking is its own contract and each party pays for itself.

It takes effect when we confirm your booking and issue a confirmation number, and it continues until the trip ends and any refund or complaint arising from it is settled. Our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy also apply; where this agreement and the Terms of Service differ about a booking, this agreement wins.

2. Booking for other people

One person may book a scheduled trip for up to eight travelers. For a custom trip, the party must fit the reviewed proposal and its room allocations. That person is the lead traveler, and by booking they confirm that every traveler on the booking has agreed to this agreement and to the Terms of Service.
We deal with the lead traveler on money, changes and cancellation, and the lead traveler is responsible for paying the whole booking.
Every traveler can still use the app, the group and support in their own name once they are on a booking.
The lead traveler is responsible for passing on what we send: itinerary changes, deadlines and travel documents.

3. What we organise, and what we do not

We organise your hotel at the level you choose and the trains or coaches the route needs between destinations. Nothing else is included; transfers, tickets, tastings, dinners and other extras are optional and priced separately. Where a trip offers a first evening for the group it is optional, and it is not a service we are promising to provide. Your itinerary, timings, directions, tickets and confirmations live in the app.

There is no tour guide. Nobody accompanies the group during the day, counts heads or escorts you between places. This is the point of the trip and it changes what you should expect from us: we are responsible for arranging what we said we would arrange and for helping when something goes wrong, not for supervising you.

Flights are yours to book, along with getting to the first hotel and home from the last one. We tell you the times to plan around.
Free time is a deliberate part of every route and is not a service we provide.
Recommendations in the app are suggestions. We do not run those places, take a commission on them, or guarantee their prices or opening hours.
Activities suggested by other travelers, including Live Moments, are their plans, not ours.

4. Our status and your money

Guideless LLC is the organiser of your trip, not an agent booking it for you. We contract the hotels and trains, and any extras you add, in our own name and sell you one trip at one price. Your contract for the whole of it is with us, and clause 13 says what that means when a supplier lets us down.

Your money is not held in a trust or escrow account. Card payments go to us through Stripe and we pay suppliers out of them, which means that if Guideless failed before your trip, money you had paid would not be ring-fenced. We would rather write that plainly than imply a protection we do not have, and it is the reason we recommend travel insurance that covers supplier failure on every departure.

California, Florida, Hawaii and Washington have seller-of-travel registration regimes. We intend to register in all four, and none of those registrations has been issued yet. We accept bookings from customers wherever they live, and where you live never changes the price. Clause 18 lists the current status: a missing number does not establish that a registration was issued or an application filed. Contact us for the current status before booking.

5. Price, deposit and balance

Scheduled trip prices are per traveler in the currency shown, and your own room is the default. Two travelers on one booking may share one room and each receive the shared-room saving shown at checkout. A custom proposal shows the reviewed room types and how many adults each room holds; your assignments must fit those rooms.
You may pay a deposit and the balance later, or pay in full. The deposit amount and the balance due date are shown on the departure, at checkout and in your account. Optional extras are paid in full when you choose them and never count toward the deposit.
The price you accept at checkout is recorded on your booking and does not change afterwards. If a hotel, rail operator or activity provider raises its price after you book, that is our cost, not yours. We do not add surcharges.
If the balance is not paid by its due date, we email you a warning. If it is still unpaid 10 days after that warning, we cancel the booking, and that is treated as a cancellation by you on that day: the cancellation tiers below apply to what you have paid.
Hotel prices are live. We check your rooms with the hotel again just before you pay; if a room has become dearer, the price changes to match and you see and confirm the new final total before anything is charged. Over 5% we stop and ask you to choose again.
Card payments are handled by Stripe. We never see or store your card details.
Discount, coupon and referral codes reduce the base trip price only, one per booking. A friend who books with your referral code gets $50 off the base trip price. You earn a $100 discount code for your next booking only once their booking has been paid in full, can no longer be cancelled for a refund, and their trip has ended. We check once a day. If the booking is cancelled or refunded before then, no code is earned. If a payment is disputed or we cannot verify it, the reward is held until a person has reviewed it. Section 4 of the Terms gives the full conditions.
We do not offer account credit. A discount code is yours alone, is used on one booking, and cannot be exchanged for cash or transferred. If a change or cancellation means money comes back to you, it goes to your original payment method once the supplier has released it. Account credit earned before this agreement keeps the terms under which it was earned.

6. Changes you make

You can update traveler details from your account. Names must match the passport used to travel; some suppliers need final details by a date we will tell you.
You can add optional extras whenever they are still on sale, including during the trip, and remove one up to its stated deadline for a full refund of that extra.
You may transfer your place to someone else if they meet the conditions of the trip and any supplier whose booking must be renamed allows it. We charge you what the suppliers charge us to make the change, no more, and we tell you the amount before you commit. Some components, event tickets in particular, cannot be renamed at all.
Room and traveler changes depend on what hotels and rail operators allow; we ask on your behalf and tell you what it costs.

7. If you cancel

Every departure publishes its cancellation tiers before you book: what percentage of the trip price comes back depending on how many days before departure you cancel. Your account shows the percentage that applies on the day you ask, before you confirm.

Request a cancellation from your account. We confirm within two business days, and refunds go back to the original payment method, usually within 10 business days of confirmation.
No tier is 100%. The card networks keep their processing fee when we refund you, so a full refund costs us money on every cancellation; we would rather show you a real number than advertise a round one and find a fee to charge instead.
The tiers differ by departure, and on some they are far lower than you may expect. Where we buy rooms or tickets a supplier will not refund at any notice — a Grand Prix weekend is the clearest case — the most we can return is what we can actually recover, and the published top tier can be as low as 20% even months ahead. That figure is on the departure page and at checkout before you pay, and it is the figure that governs. It is also the strongest reason to insure those trips.
Optional extras follow their own deadlines, not the tiers. Most can be removed for a full refund until a stated number of days before they happen. Some are non-refundable from the moment you buy them, because we buy them in your name and cannot give them back — event tickets are the clear case. Which one applies is written on the extra before you add it and again in your account.
Tiers differ by departure, because the risk does. A touring route commits us to little until about a month out, so its early tiers are generous. An event weekend is prepaid much earlier and cannot be resold, so it steps down sooner.
If one traveler on a booking cancels, the tiers apply to their share, and the room arrangement for the others may change and be repriced.
If you need to leave a trip after it starts, contact support first: we work out with you what the hotels and sellers can still release and pass on what they refund. If you leave without contacting us, or are removed under clause 11, no refund is due for what you do not use.

8. If we change or cancel the trip

Before you book, if the hotel behind your level fills up or becomes much dearer, we offer another hotel at the same level rather than withdrawing the level. After you book, we may replace a hotel or train with one of equal or better standard, and we tell you as soon as we know, in the app and by email.
If we have to make a significant change before departure — a different destination, a materially shorter trip, a lower standard of accommodation for most of the trip, or a change that defeats the reason you booked — you may accept it, move to another departure, or cancel and receive a full refund of everything you have paid us. Tell us within seven days of our notice, or sooner if the trip departs in less than a fortnight. Choosing a refund does not stop you claiming for a loss the change caused.
A Guideless trip runs even if you are the only person on it. We do not cancel a departure because few people booked it. If we ever cancel a departure for a reason within our control, you choose a full refund or another date, and we tell you as soon as we know.
If we cancel for any other reason within our control, you get a full refund of everything you paid us.
Events outside our reasonable control — extreme weather, strikes, disease, government action, the failure of a supplier, or an event organiser moving or cancelling the event a trip is built around — may force a change or cancellation. We refund what we can recover from suppliers and help you find an alternative, but we are not liable beyond that. This is why we recommend insurance that covers your flights.
For a trip built around a scheduled event, the date depends on the organiser's calendar. If the event moves, we move the trip with it where we can and tell you promptly; if you cannot travel on the new dates, the significant-change rights above apply.

9. What you are responsible for

Passports, visas, vaccinations and entry requirements for every country on the route, including any country you transit. Requirements depend on your nationality and change; check them close to departure.
Being where the itinerary says, when it says. Trains and transfers do not wait. If you miss one, getting yourself to the next place is at your cost.
Telling us before you book about any medical condition, mobility need, allergy or dietary requirement that affects what we book for you, so we can say honestly whether the trip works for you. Some routes involve walking on uneven ground, stairs without lifts, and long days.
Your own behaviour, and complying with local law and with the terms of the hotels and providers you use.
Travel insurance. We strongly recommend cover for medical care abroad, cancellation, delay and belongings, bought when you book rather than later. We do not make it a condition of booking and we do not check it. We do not sell insurance and we do not advise on which policy to buy.
Meeting the trip's minimum age: on a scheduled tour it is shown on the trip and is never under 5; a custom trip has none. A traveler under 18 on the departure date may travel only on a booking made by an adult who is that child's parent or legal guardian, travels on the same booking for the whole trip, and accompanies no more than two children. The person who makes a booking, and anyone travelling without a parent or guardian, must be 18 or older. Extras with their own age rules, race viewing in particular, say so before you add them.
Giving us true details. A false name, date of birth, guardian relationship or any other false detail given to make a booking or pass a check may cancel the booking without refund, and you lose your deposit. Any venue with its own age check that turns you away is neither refundable by us nor our responsibility.

10. Help when something goes wrong

If you are in difficulty during the trip, contact us through support in the app, which reaches a person who can already see your itinerary and your bookings. Emergency numbers for every destination are in the app and do not need a signal to read.

We will help without undue delay: information about medical services and local authorities, help contacting your insurer or your family, and help arranging alternatives when travel is disrupted. Where the difficulty is caused by something you did deliberately or negligently, we may charge a reasonable fee for that help, and we will tell you before we do.

11. Behaviour, and when we can end your trip

There is no guide on the ground, so the way a group treats each other matters more here than on a trip where somebody is watching. This is the whole of what we ask.

Treat the other travelers, our staff and the people who host you — hotel staff, drivers, guides on an optional experience, anyone serving you — as you would want to be treated. Nobody on this trip is working for you.
There is no tolerance for harassment, discrimination, sexual harassment, threats, intimidation or violence. That covers what you say to someone, what you say about them, and what you keep saying after they have asked you to stop. Discrimination means on any basis: race, nationality, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability, age.
Take no for an answer the first time, in person and in the app.
Obey local law. It is not ours, it is not always what you are used to, and it applies to you. Illegal drugs are a matter for the country you are in, not for us to manage, and being arrested is a trip that has ended.
Do not do anything that puts another person in danger, including drinking or taking anything to the point where the group has to look after you instead of enjoying their holiday, and including anything that risks a hotel refusing the whole group a room.
Do not photograph or record another traveler who does not want to be, and do not post them anywhere without asking.

If something happens, tell us. From the app you can block a person and report a message or a person, and from your trip page you can report a problem on the trip — a safety worry, someone's behaviour, a theft, a hotel or activity that let you down. It reaches our staff, not your group. You can also email us. If you are in immediate danger, call local emergency services first — 112 across the EU — and tell us afterwards.

What we may do, in order and no further than is needed: talk to the people involved; move a room or rearrange who is where; remove content or remove someone from the group chat and the group features; and, for behaviour that is serious or that continues after we have asked it to stop, end your participation in the trip. If we end your trip you get no refund for what is left of it, and we are not responsible for getting you home or for what that costs. We will tell you in writing what we decided and why.

Where somebody's safety requires it, we will share what is necessary — and only what is necessary — with the police or other authorities, with a hotel, transport operator or activity provider, or with emergency and medical services. We will also keep an internal record of what happened and what we did about it. We do not otherwise tell your group, and we do not publish it.

None of this is a promise to supervise you. It is what we will do when something reaches us, and it works better the earlier you tell us.

12. If you want to complain

Tell us during the trip, through support in the app, so we have a chance to fix it while you are still there. Many problems can be solved the same day and cannot be solved afterwards.
If it is not resolved, write to hello@guidelesstravel.com within 30 days of the trip ending, with your confirmation number and what you would like us to do. We acknowledge within two business days and aim to answer fully within 14 days.

13. Responsibility and limits

We are the organiser of your package. We are responsible to you for the proper performance of every part of the trip we sold you — the nights at your level, the journeys between cities, and any extras you bought from us — whichever supplier actually performs it. If something is not delivered as described, come to us. You do not have to chase a hotel or a rail operator yourself.
Hotels, rail operators, transfer companies, activity providers and event organisers are independent businesses. We choose them with care and hold agreements with them, but we do not run them, and that is our problem to manage rather than yours.
What we are not responsible for: anything you buy directly from a supplier or a venue, anything outside the trip we organised, and the separate terms you agree to yourself when you use a facility at your own risk.
To the extent the law allows, our liability for a booking is limited to what you paid us for it, and we are not liable for indirect losses such as flights you booked yourself, lost earnings, or disappointment.
Nothing here limits liability that cannot be limited by law, including for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, or for fraud.
Where an international convention limits a carrier's liability, our liability for that part of the trip is limited in the same way.

14. Reviews, photos and your data

After the trip you may write a review. Only travelers who actually took the trip can, and we publish it with your first name and the trip you took. We may decline to publish content that is abusive or identifies someone without their consent, but we do not edit a review to make it kinder to us.
If you share photos with your group, you keep them. You give us permission to show them to travelers on that trip, and we ask separately before using anything in marketing.
How we handle your personal data, including what your group can see about you, is in the Privacy Policy. You choose what is visible on your profile.

15. Law and where disputes are heard

This agreement is governed by the laws of Delaware, United States, without regard to conflict-of-law rules, and proceedings take place there — except that if you live somewhere whose consumer law gives you the right to bring a claim locally or gives you protections that cannot be signed away, you keep those rights and this clause does not remove them.

If you live in the EU or the UK, what we sell you is a package under the Package Travel Directive and the rights it gives you apply whatever this clause says. That includes the right to terminate without a fee, with a refund inside fourteen days, if a main characteristic of the package changes significantly before you travel, and the right to transfer your booking to someone else at reasonable notice. Those rights are yours; nothing here removes them.

16. Custom trips

A custom trip is one we research and build for you, rather than one you choose from our catalogue. Everything above applies to it. This clause states the things that are different about it, and they are the things most likely to cost you money if nobody tells you.

What a proposal is. A proposal is a researched plan with a planning price. It is not a reservation or a booking, and no room, seat, table or ticket is held by the proposal. Availability and prices can change between research and payment. We show the current total and terms before asking you to pay rather than quietly substituting a component.
How long the planning price lasts. A proposal has a displayed validity deadline, but that is not a room hold or price guarantee. We check current rooms, total price and cancellation terms before asking you to pay, and show any change first. The trip plan stays saved after its planning price expires; ask us for a fresh review.
Who you are contracting with. Guideless is the organiser and the seller of every custom trip, without exception. We contract the hotels, trains, transfers and experiences in our own name, we pay them, and your payment is to us. Clause 4 and clause 13 apply to a custom trip exactly as they apply to a catalogue one, whoever introduced you to us.
Cancellation is derived, not published. Clause 7 describes the tiers a catalogue departure publishes in advance. A custom trip has no such tiers, because it is assembled from rooms and tickets bought for you alone. Instead we build your cancellation terms at confirmation from the rates we actually hold, and they are never more generous than the strictest component on your trip — one non-refundable hotel is enough to make a whole trip non-refundable. You see those terms on the proposal and again at checkout before you pay, they are recorded on your booking, and they are the terms that govern. They do not change afterwards, in either direction, even if a supplier later changes theirs.
What we could not source, said out loud. The proposal states, leg by leg: whether we book a component or you book it yourself; whether a hotel is one we have used and vetted or one we found by searching; whether a price is a ticket we hold or an estimate taken from a published fare, in which case the fare you actually pay may differ; and whether any part of the trip is still waiting on a supplier to confirm. We do not put a component on a proposal as confirmed when it is not.
A proposal is not advice. It is an offer to arrange travel. It is not a professional judgement that the trip suits your health, mobility, fitness, budget or tolerance, and it is not advice on visas, entry requirements, vaccinations, personal safety or local law. Clause 9 keeps those with you, and they carry more weight on a route nobody has run before.
Automated drafting. Parts of a proposal are drafted by an automated assistant working from our own research and suppliers. The final trip details, price and terms you accept before payment govern your booking, not a planning price or anything the assistant said in conversation.
Changing a custom trip. Traveler details change as in clause 6. Dates, cities, hotels, route order and length can usually be changed before you book, and much less often afterwards, because by then the components are bought. Any change that alters what we have to buy re-prices the trip: we tell you the new price, and what is already non-refundable, before anything is charged. A component a supplier will not refund or rename cannot be removed without cost, and where it cannot be removed at all we say so.
Help where we have not operated. Clause 10 stands, and on a custom trip in a place we have not run a trip before it means help at a distance: a person who can see your itinerary, contact the supplier and rearrange what can be rearranged. It does not mean a representative on the ground, a local office, or a supplier we have a relationship with. We say which destinations those are before you book, and we do not promise more than we can do.
No group. A custom trip runs for the travelers on your booking. There is no Guideless group, no group chat with strangers and no shared moments. The app, Your Guide and support work as they do on any other trip.
Insurance. Everything in clause 9 about travel insurance applies with more force here. A derived cancellation ladder can return nothing, and insurance is the only thing that covers the gap.

17. Trips arranged through a partner

Another company may use Guideless to build and operate a trip and market it under their own brand, usually described as “powered by Guideless”. This clause is what that arrangement means for you, and it does not change who owes you the trip.

Your contract is with Guideless LLC. You pay Guideless, your confirmation number comes from Guideless, and this agreement is the agreement for your trip. A partner never takes your money for a trip we operate, and never becomes the seller of it.
A partner may charge you a fee of their own on top of our price. If they do, it must be disclosed to you separately and identified as their charge before you pay. Our price is our price; a partner may not present a marked-up version of it as ours.
A partner has no authority to vary this agreement, to make representations about the trip on our behalf, to quote our suppliers' rates as their own, or to resell what we quote them to anybody else. If what a partner told you conflicts with this agreement, this agreement governs, and we would like to hear about it.
A partner is responsible to you for their own marketing, their own site and their own charges, and they indemnify us for those under their own agreement with us. We are responsible to you for the trip.
We may suspend or withdraw a partner's access at any time. A booking you have already made with us is unaffected: the trip is ours to deliver either way.

18. Seller of Travel registration

Guideless LLC, trading as Guideless Travel, sells travel to customers wherever they live. The four US states below have seller-of-travel registration regimes. We intend to register in all four, and none of those registrations has been issued yet.

We ask where you live when you book, so that we know which rules apply to your booking. Where you live never changes the price, and we do not refuse a booking because of it. If you live in California, Florida, Hawaii or Washington, you are welcome to ask us about the status of our registration in your state before you book.

When a state's registration is issued, we will list its number below and update these terms to say so.

A missing number means this page does not provide evidence that a registration has been issued or that an application has been filed. Contact us for the current status before booking. We publish a number only when we can verify it.

California — Seller of Travel (CST), Attorney General: registration number not listed.
Florida — Seller of Travel (ST), FDACS: registration number not listed.
Hawaii — Travel agency registration, DCCA: registration number not listed.
Washington — Seller of Travel, Department of Licensing: registration number not listed.
Registration by a state is not an endorsement of us by that state, and it is not insurance for you. It is a public record that we are registered to sell travel there, and a place to complain if we fail you.
California residents: the Travel Consumer Restitution Fund is a California programme and only California residents who bought from a participating seller can claim on it. If you live elsewhere, it does not apply to you, whatever our registration says.
Some of these regimes may require a bond or a trust account for customer money. This section does not confirm whether such protection is in force for your booking. Ask us for the applicable details before paying.

19. Changes to this agreement

We may update this agreement. The version at the top changes when we do, and the version you accepted is stored on your booking. A change never reduces your rights on a booking you have already made.

20. Contact

Guideless LLC, trading as Guideless Travel. Email: hello@guidelesstravel.com. Based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Seller of Travel status is in clause 18.