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Terms & Conditions

1.             These terms

1.1           What these terms cover. These are the terms and conditions on which we supply travel and tour booking and arrangement services to you. They come into effect for packages and arrangements booked on or after 18/5/2021.

1.2           Why you should read them. Please read these terms carefully before you place your booking with us. These terms tell you who we are, how we will provide services to you, how you and we may change or end the contract, what to do if there is a problem and other important information.

2.             Information about us and how to contact us

2.1           Who we are. We are Connoisseur Golf Ltd (SC691007) a company registered in Scotland, and our registered office is at 13 The Links, St Andrews, Fife, Scotland KY16 9JB. 

2.2           How to contact us. You can contact us by telephoning us at (+44)1334 460 780 or by writing to us at info@connoisseurgolf.com or Connoisseur Golf, 13 The Links, St Andrews, Fife, Scotland KY16 9JB. Our registered VAT number is 380 2966 80.

2.3           How we may contact you. If we have to contact you we will do so by telephone or by writing to you after receipt of your deposit at the email address or postal address you provided to us with your booking. When we use the words "writing" or "written" in these terms, this includes emails.

3.             Our contract with you

3.1           How we will accept your booking. Our acceptance of your booking will take place when we email you to accept and confirm your booking, at which point a contract will come into existence between you and us.

3.2           Group leader. Our contract is with you as the individual placing the booking for your tour (the Group Leader).  As the Group Leader, by accepting these terms and conditions you are accepting responsibility to us for all obligations under this contract and are acting on behalf of and undertaking responsibility for all of the members of your tour party.  

4.             Our services. We are a tour operator and booking agent only.  The service we offer is the arrangement and organisation of your tour only.  We do not own any of the hotels, golf courses, restaurants, vehicles, helicopters or any of the components of your tour.  All of the travel arrangements, tee times, trips, accommodation and experiences offered by us are supplied by third party suppliers whose services you may receive on your tour arranged by us.  All bookings are therefore subject to the terms and conditions of such third party suppliers.

5.             Your rights to make changes.  If you wish to make a change to your booking after we have confirmed it, please contact us.  We will make every effort to accommodate changes you wish to make to your tour where we are able to and will let you know if the change is possible. If it is possible we will let you know about any changes to the price of your tour, your itinerary or anything else which would be necessary as a result of your requested change and ask you to confirm whether you wish to go ahead with the change.  Where there is any additional balance payable for any changes made, these must be settled in full immediately on us issuing confirmation to you of the change.

6.             Our rights to make changes

6.1           Minor changes to your tour. We reserve the right to make minor or incidental changes to your tour or your itinerary.  This may include adjustments to timings, transfer arrangements, or the scheduling of the various individual components of your tour (i.e. tee times at specified golf course, specified accommodation).  

6.2           More significant changes to your tour. Where we are unable to arrange the supply of a particular individual component of your tour (i.e. we can no longer supply a round at a specified course, or a stay at a specified hotel), we will:-

(a)           Where this occurs more than 100 days prior to the start date of your tour, we will offer to cancel your tour and provide a refund of the price of your tour, less any third party costs incurred by us up to that date in arranging and booking your tour;

(b)           Where this occurs less than 100 days prior to the start date of your tour, we will make every effort to arrange an alternative of a similar standard at no additional cost to you and will refund any difference in price which arises as a result of the arrangement of such alternative provision. 

7.             Your responsibilities

7.1           It is the responsibility of each individual member of your tour party to ensure that they possess all the necessary documentation for travel, entry into the countries visited and access to all courses.  This will include passports, tickets, visas, vaccination certificates handicap certificates, and any other relevant travel documentation. We will not be liable for any denial of entry, access, or refusal of service by any third party due to lack of any such required personal documentation.

7.2           Insurance.  We strongly recommend that you have appropriate travel, health, accident, luggage and trip/ flight cancellation insurance.  Many of the third party suppliers who will supply the travel, accommodation and golf trips which form part of your tour will seek to exclude liability for any loss or damage suffered by you or to your personal belongings.  We are not responsible for any such loss or damage suffered by you (see further clause 11 below on our responsibility to you) and it is your responsibility to arrange appropriate insurance to cover you for any such loss or damage.

7.3           Information required to book your trip. We may need certain information from you so that we can book the individual components of your trip, for example, handicap certificates or rooming lists. If so, we will contact you to ask for this information. We will not be responsible for any failure to provide any component of your trip if this is caused by you not giving us the information we need within a reasonable time of us asking for it.

8.             Your rights to cancel

8.1           Cancelling your booking with us.  You may cancel your booking with us at any time prior to the start date of your trip by letting us know that you wish to do so in writing.  If you cancel your booking, the following termination fees will apply:-

(a)           Where cancellation is more than 100 days prior to tour start date, a fee equivalent to the deposit;

(b)           Where cancellation is less than 100 days prior to tour start date, 100% of the total tour cost.

You acknowledge and agree that the foregoing charges arising on termination are an appropriate and justifiable termination fee, reflecting the limited availability and specialist nature of the travel arrangements being provided.

8.2           Ending the contract because of something we have done or are going to do. If you are ending a contract for a reason set out at (a) to (c) below the contract will end immediately and we will refund you the price of your tour (less any third party costs incurred by us up to that date in arranging and booking your tour) for any failure by us to provide the services covered by the contract. The reasons are:

(a)           we have told you about a change to your tour which you do not agree to (see clause 6.2);

(b)           you have a legal right to end the contract because we have materially breached our obligations under the contract.

8.3           How we will refund you.  We will refund any sums due to you as soon as possible following cancellation by the method you used for payment. However, we may make deductions from the amount refunded, as provided for above.

9.             Our rights to end the contract

9.1           We may end the contract if you break it. We may end the contract and cancel your tour at any time by writing to you if:

(a)           you do not make any payment to us when it is due and you still do not make payment within 7 days of us reminding you that payment is due;

(b)           you do not, within a reasonable time of us asking for it, provide us with information that is necessary for us to provide your tour, for example, rooming lists, handicap certificates.

9.2           You must compensate us if you break the contract. If we end the contract in the situations set out in clause 9.1 we will refund any money you have paid in advance for your tour but we may deduct or charge you reasonable compensation for the net costs we will incur as a result of your breaking the contract, and any third party costs incurred by us up to that date in arranging and booking your tour.

10.           Price and payment

10.1         Where to find the price for your tour. The price of your tour will be the price stated in your tour itinerary, confirmed in the acceptance of your booking.  We take all reasonable care to ensure that the price of your tour advised to you is correct. However please see clause 10.3 for what happens if we discover an error in the price of your tour.

10.2         What happens if we got the price wrong. It is always possible that, despite our best efforts, some of the components of your tour may be subject to change by third party suppliers or may be incorrectly priced. We will normally check prices before accepting your booking so that, where the correct price at your booking date is less than our stated price at your booking date, we will charge the lower amount. If the correct price at your booking date is higher than the price stated to you, we will contact you for your instructions before we proceed with booking the relevant component of your tour.

10.3         When and how you must pay. We accept payment by electronic funds transfer (preferred) or via Visa/ Mastercard (in relation to which we reserve the right to add a charge of 3.5%).  Unless we have indicated otherwise in your itinerary (i.e. for tours including tickets to the Open Championship) in which case payment will be due on the date specified on your invoice, payment for your tour is due as follows:-

(a)            a deposit of 50% is payable immediately upon us issuing your booking confirmation;

(b)            the balance of 50% is payable on the date 100 days prior to your tour start date; and

(c)            for tours booked less than 100 days prior to the tour start date, 100% of the price is payable immediately upon us issuing your booking confirmation.

10.4         We can charge interest if you pay late. If you do not make any payment to us by the due dates above we may charge interest to you on the overdue amount at the rate of 4% a year above the base lending rate of the Bank of England from time to time. This interest shall accrue on a daily basis from the due date until the date of actual payment of the overdue amount, whether before or after judgment. You must pay us interest together with any overdue amount.

11.           Our responsibility for loss or damage suffered by you

11.1         We are not liable to you for any loss or damage caused by any third party supplier. As identified at clause 4, we are a booking agent only and do not own or operate any of the transport, travel, accommodation, restaurant or golfing and other facilities provided by third party suppliers as part of your tour. 

11.2         We are not responsible for delays outside our control. If your tour is delayed or postponed by an event outside our control (including, but not limited to, any epidemic, pandemic, disease or travel restrictions arising from any such occurrence) then we will contact you as soon as possible to let you know and we will take steps to minimise the effect of the delay. Provided we do this we will not be liable for delays caused by the event, but if there is a risk of substantial delay you may contact us to end the contract and receive a refund for your booking, subject to our right to our right to retain an appropriate and justifiable termination fee (together with any third party costs incurred by us up to that date in arranging and booking your tour). You acknowledge and agree that a sum equivalent to a deposit of 50% is an appropriate and justifiable termination fee, reflecting the limited availability and specialist nature of the travel arrangements being provided

11.3         We do not exclude or limit in any way our liability to you where it would be unlawful to do so. This includes liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence or the negligence of our employees or agents; for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation; for breach of your legal rights in relation to the services provided by us.  

11.4         We are not liable for business losses. If your tour is for any commercial, business or re-sale purpose we will have no liability to you for any loss of profit, loss of business, business interruption, or loss of business opportunity.

11.5         Online payments. We accept no liability for the misdirection of funds where you make a payment to a fraudulent bank account or payment link. It is your responsibility to ensure you are not the victim of a financial scam (including from any 'spear-phishing', interception of emails, or acting upon emails, invoices or payment links that originate from fraudulent activity). It is your responsibility to check and make payment to the correct bank account or payment link.  We stongly recommend that you contact us by phone on +44 1334 460 780 to ensure that the payment request was a) instructed by us and b) the payment information is correct.

12.           Financial protection for you.

12.1         Insolvency protection. In accordance with our legal obligations, we have put in place an insurance policy to protect sums paid by you in the highly unlikely event of our insolvency.  This insurance policy covers the costs of all payments made by the you to us for services not performed or components of your tour which we have not delivered as a result of insolvency.

12.2         The policy.  Details of the insurance policy are as follows:-

(a)           EVOLUTION INSURANCE COMPANY LIMITED 

12.3         How to claim. 

Connoisseur Golf Limited, trading as Connoisseur Golf is a company committed to customer satisfaction and consumer financial protection. We are therefore pleased to announce that, at no extra cost to you, and in accordance with the current ''The Package Travel, Package Tours Regulations '' all passengers booking with Connoisseur Golf are fully insured for the initial deposit, and subsequently the balance of monies paid as detailed in your booking confirmation form. The policy will also include repatriation if required, arising from the cancellation or curtailment of your travel arrangements due to the insolvency of Connoisseur Golf.

This Policy is issued by Evolution Insurance Company Limited which is registered in Gibraltar No. 88737 with a registered office at 5/5 Crutchett’s Ramp, Gibraltar, GX11 1AA. Evolution Insurance Company Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Commission in Gibraltar and authorised and subject to limited regulation by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK. Details about the extent of our authorisation and regulation by the FCA are available from us on request. 

In the unlikely event of Insolvency of Connoisseur Golf please follow the procedures below:

Claims should be submitted in writing within 14 days of the Administration order of Connoisseur Golf being declared insolvent supported by documented evidence quantifying the value of the claim.

Claims should be submitted to: Evolution Insurance Solutions Limited, 53A High Street, Saffron Walden, Essex, CB10 1AA or via email to claims@evo-insurance.com   

Policy exclusions: This policy will not cover any monies paid back to you by your travel insurance or any losses which are recoverable under another insurance or bond.

13.           How we may use your personal information.  We will only use your personal information as set out in the privacy policy at www.connoisseurgolf.com/privacy-policy.

14.           Other important terms

14.1         Helicopter bookings.  Where your tour involves a trip or transfer by helicopter, the following terms apply to this component of your tour:-

(a)           The helicopter component of your tour is provided by a third party supplier who will determine whether conditions are suitable to operate the helicopter at their sole discretion, and we draw your attention to clause 11.2 above in relation to our liability.

(b)           The helicopter operator’s terms and conditions (and in particular, safety requirements) will be made clear to you by the helicopter operator.  Any failure to adhere strictly to these terms and conditions may result in the helicopter operator refusing to allow you or a member of your tour party to fly.  In these circumstances, we will have no liability to you for any failure to provide the helicopter component of your tour. 

(c)            If the helicopter operator determines that conditions are suitable to fly, no refund will be applicable for the helicopter component of your tour price if you choose not to utilise the helicopter transfer.

(d)           If the helicopter operator determines that conditions are unsuitable to fly, we will make reasonable efforts to re-schedule the flight and any affected tee times on the same at day to make the itinerary possible. Should helicopter transfers not be possible on the day of the scheduled booking, green fees may not be refundable or transferable, and in these circumstances, the full value of the helicopter component minus the green fees will be refunded to you as soon as reasonably practicable (and we reserve the right to make such refund by way of bank transfer to you rather than direct to your credit or debit card).

14.2         We may transfer this agreement to someone else. We may transfer our rights and obligations under these terms to another organisation. We will always tell you in writing if this happens and we will ensure that the transfer will not affect your rights under the contract.

14.3         Nobody else has any rights under this contract.  This contract is between you and us. No other person shall have any rights to enforce any of its terms.

14.4         If a court finds part of this contract illegal, the rest will continue in force. Each of the paragraphs of these terms operates separately. If any court or relevant authority decides that any of them are unlawful, the remaining paragraphs will remain in full force and effect.

14.5         Which laws apply to this contract. These terms are governed by Scottish law and you can bring legal proceedings in respect of your tour in the Scottish courts.