Two different things cancel on two different sets of terms. The travel cancels on the suppliers’ terms. The design fee cancels on this practice’s terms. This page separates them, because conflating them is where most disappointment in this industry comes from.
Every hotel, operator, cruise line and airline sets its own cancellation, amendment and refund terms. The practice does not set them, cannot waive them, and will not pretend otherwise. They differ by supplier, by season, by rate, and often by individual booking.
The proposal you receive sets out the specific cancellation policy attached to each component before you confirm anything. If a component carries unusually hard terms, and some do, you are told which one and why at the point it is proposed, not at the point you want to cancel it.
The standard payment structure is 30% on proposal confirmation, with the balance due 60 days before departure. Specific terms vary by supplier and are flagged in each proposal.
When you cancel, the practice tells you what is recoverable, applies for it, and tells you honestly what is not. Where a refund is due from a supplier, it is passed on in full. The practice does not retain any part of a supplier refund.
The design fee is not a deposit against travel. It buys the research and design work, and that work starts at the first substantive conversation.
It is non-refundable once work begins. If you cancel after that point, the fee stays with the practice, because the hours it paid for have been spent. Fifteen to forty hours of focused work per journey does not become recoverable because the journey does not happen.
Before work begins, it is refundable in full. The point at which work begins is not left vague: it is the formal brief, and you will know when it happens, because the practice confirms it to you in writing before anything is charged.
What the fee covers, the amount, and whether any part of it is credited against the final cost are agreed with you in writing before any fee is charged. Nothing on this page overrides what your own written agreement says.
If the practice cancels, or concludes it cannot deliver the journey to the standard proposed, the fee is returned in full regardless of the work done. That is the one case where the hours are the practice’s problem and not yours.
Membership is charged annually and covers a defined number of journeys in the year. It is not refunded pro rata against journeys not taken, for the same reason: the practice holds capacity for a small number of households, and capacity held is capacity not sold elsewhere.
Travel insurance is a requirement for every journey arranged by the practice, and it must be in place from the moment the first deposit is paid, not from the balance date. The gap between deposit and balance is exactly the period in which a cancellation costs you money and an insurer would have covered it.
Cover should include cancellation and interruption, medical treatment and evacuation, repatriation, baggage, and any pre-existing conditions declared honestly. Travelling without it, or booking without it, is at your own risk.
The practice is not authorised to give regulated insurance advice, and does not. It will point you to providers and tell you what the cover needs to do. The choice, and the declaration, are yours.
Where something outside anyone’s reasonable control prevents a journey, including government action, airspace closure, civil unrest, natural disaster or supplier failure, the practice will work in good faith to find alternatives, to move rather than cancel where a supplier allows it, and to recover what can be recovered.
That is a commitment to effort, not a guarantee of outcome, and it is worth saying plainly which one it is.
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For the full booking terms, conditions and financial protection that apply to your travel arrangements, see the booking terms and conditions.