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Introduction
Thank you for visiting www.rugged-tours.com. This Site is owned and operated by Rugged Tours. For purposes of these package holiday terms and conditions of booking, references to “we,” “our,” and “us” mean Rugged Tours.  References to “you” and “your” mean the lead and contracting member of the booking party.  For the avoidance of doubt, the lead and contracting member of the booking party is the person who books the package holiday arrangements (“experience”) with Rugged Tours, arranges payment to Rugged Tours (whether or not that payment is made by the lead and contracting member of the party) and receives Rugged Tours’ booking confirmation invoice and/or any other documentation relating to the experience contract.


1. contract
A binding contract is only entered into after we have received payment from you, in cleared funds, of either the required deposit or the full experience price (depending on when the booking is made relative to the intended departure date), and we have issued a written confirmation invoice via email or letter. By making the booking you accept that you have the authority to bind all members of your party to these terms and conditions of booking. It is essential that upon receipt of our confirmation invoice, you check the experience details we have made and confirmed and inform us immediately of any errors.  Where this is not done, and there is an unreasonable delay in notifying any apparent discrepancies in the confirmed arrangements, we will not be responsible for any charges that may arise as a result of alterations that have to be made to the experience booking.

2. payment for your experience
In all cases, in order to make a booking, a deposit will be required. The deposit is variable and will be confirmed at time of booking.  Where experience bookings include flights with airlines who require full payment in advance of booking, the full price of the flight(s) will be included in the booking deposit and will be chargeable in the event of cancellation. If the booking is made less than 10 days before departure, the full experience price will be payable on booking.  If, following the payment of a deposit at the time of booking, any balance remains unpaid within 10 days of the intended departure date, we will reserve the right to treat your booking as cancelled.  In such circumstances cancellation charges will be applied as set out below. Payment must be made in the currency of the invoice and you will be responsible for any bank charges that may be incurred.
Payment for your experience can be made by cheque, cash, bank transfer, debit or credit card.  In all cases, a booking will not be confirmed until we are in receipt of cleared funds. Where payment is made by credit card, we reserve the right to pass on the appropriate bank processing charge (between 0%-3%) when your deposit and balance payments are made. 

3. insurance
It is essential that you purchase travel insurance for participating in our trips, although it is not compulsory according to the Chinese regulations, we strongly recommend you to do so. We will not be responsible for any costs incurred by you or any member of your party before, during or after your experience as a consequence of inappropriate or insufficient travel insurance being purchased. Please ask our staff for details of insurance providers if you do not already have cover in place.

4. passports, visas and health requirements
We will, upon request, provide general information relating to passport, visa and health requirements, for the destinations we feature. Ultimately, it is your responsibility to ensure that you and your party will be able to obtain, and will be in possession of, all necessary travel documents/visas in advance of travel.  It will also be your responsibility to ensure that you and all members of your party will be able to comply with all health requirements for the destination concerned.  We will not accept liability if you or any member of your party is refused entry onto any transport or into any country due to failure on your/their part to carry correct documentation or to comply with relevant health requirements.

5. information
Whilst we make every effort to ensure that the information on our website is accurate and not misleading, it is published many months before your experience takes place and may be subject to change. We reserve the right to make changes to the website and any information it contains at any time.  Where material changes are made to website content after your experience has been booked, every effort will be made to inform of such changes prior to travel.

6. amendment and cancellation by you

(a) amendment
We will do our best to assist you in amending your experience arrangements after booking, but cannot guarantee that this will be possible.  You will be responsible for any charges (whether made by us or the suppliers of the various experience components) that result from such amendment.  We might charge an administration fee of certain amount (depending on the changes) amendment, in addition to charges made by the suppliers of the experience components (see also charges applicable for name changes below).

We reserve the right to treat any amendment notified less than 7 days prior to the date of departure as a cancellation and in such circumstances, will apply cancellation charges as set out below. If you or any member of your party is prevented from taking your experience for reasons beyond your control, you/they have the right to request the transfer of your/their booking to another person, subject to our prior approval. Such person will be bound by these terms and conditions of booking. Please note that in many cases, scheduled airlines apply 100% cancellation charges and will not permit name changes or other booking alterations to be made.  If you and/or any member of your party are considering altering your booking in any way, please contact our staff, who will notify the applicable charges.
In addition to amendment and cancellation charges applied by us and/or the suppliers of experience components, you will be responsible for any increased charges arising from changes to accommodation arrangements and/or room occupancy levels.

(b) cancellation
You, or any member of your party, may cancel your travel arrangements at any time. The cancellation will take effect from the date that we receive written notification of cancellation from you.  We will accept notification of cancellation by email, on the understanding that you agree and accept that where you are shown as the sender of the email, we will be entitled to assume that such email has been sent by you.  Booking cancellations will incur cancellation charges applied by us and the suppliers of the experience components.  If you cancel more than 10 days before your intended departure date, this charge is likely to be the amount of your deposit (including any increased deposit payable as a result of the booking of scheduled flights, see above) although it could be more. If the cancellation charge exceeds the deposit, you will be required to pay us any additional amount due.  Charges for cancellation after the balance due date will vary due to the complex nature of our travel itineraries. Please ask for confirmation of the amount of any cancellation charge before cancellation. You should be aware that this charge is likely to increase the closer to departure date that the cancellation is made and may well be up to 100% of the total price of your booking. Please note that if the reason for your cancellation is covered under the terms of your insurance policy, you may be able to reclaim some or all of the cancellation charges.

In all cases, where cancellation results in a refund payment, such payment will be made to you as the lead and contracting member of your party, or any substitute lead and contracting member of the party (see above).  This will be the case regardless of which member(s) of the party make(s) the deposit and/or balance payments for the booked experience arrangements.

7. amendment and cancellation by us
(a) amendment
It is occasionally necessary for us to make changes to booked arrangements as described in Clause 5 above. In exceptional circumstances, we may have to change your experience arrangements after your booking has been confirmed. If the change is minor, we will do our best to notify you in advance of departure but we are not obliged to do so and no compensation will be payable.  If the change is material (including, but not limited to, a change of flight time by more than 12 hours, change of experience destination or change of accommodation to one with a lower official rating), we will notify you as soon as practically possible and offer you the choice of (i) accepting alternative arrangements; (ii) arranging an alternative experience with us; or (iii) cancelling your experience. Unless such change has been caused by Force Majeure or insufficient bookings:

(b) amendments during the experience
If we are unable to provide a significant proportion of your experience whilst you are away, suitable alternative arrangements will be made for you at no extra cost or, you will be given the option to return to your point of departure (subject to flight/transport availability) and given a pro-rata/proportionate refund for any part of the experience not received. This does not apply to minor changes in your accommodation, itinerary or transportation arrangements.

(c) cancellation
Whilst we hope we will never have to cancel your experience, this is very occasionally necessary and we reserve the right to do so.  We will do our best to offer alternative arrangements of a comparable or better standard with any appropriate refund, or will give you a full and prompt refund of the experience price.

(d) force majeure
Compensation will not be payable in any cases where an amendment, change or cancellation is due to an unusual or unforeseeable event or circumstance beyond our reasonable control (’Force Majeure’). Such events include, but are not limited to, war, threat of war, riot, civil disturbance or strife, terrorist activity (actual or threatened), industrial disputes, technical or maintenance problems with transport, machinery or equipment, power failure, natural or nuclear disaster, fire, flood, drought, adverse weather conditions, levels of water in rivers, acts of god, closure of airports, changes of schedules or operational decisions of transport providers.

(e) travel delays
We have included in many of our experiences the services of major international airlines and whilst these airlines’ flights are rarely subject to lengthy delays, there are occasions when such delays do occur. We cannot accept responsibility for such events and do not provide for meals, overnight accommodation or any other costs resulting from such delays.

8. prices
All advertised prices or prices quoted by our staff before booking confirmation are for guidance only and may be subject to change prior to the booking being confirmed.  We reserve the right to increase (surcharge) the price of your experience after your booking has been made.  Such price increases will be limited to those resulting from increases in transportation costs (including fuel and airfares), dues, taxes (including VAT), fees chargeable for services (including landing taxes and embarkation and disembarkation and security fees at airports), Government action or exchange rate variation.  In the event that a surcharge increases the price of your experience by 10% or more, you may cancel your experience and receive a full refund.  We will, in any event, absorb the first 2% of any price increase, and no surcharges will be made within 30 days of departure. 

9. our responsibilities to you
We take care to ensure that we use all reasonable skill and care in our selection of the parties involved in the preparation and supply of your experience. Please remember that the appropriate standards will be those prevalent in your experience destination.  We undertake the following responsibilities in connection with your experience:(a) To pay reasonable compensation (subject to (c) below) if the product or service supplied to you is not of the standard described or contracted for by you, apart from in cases where such sub-standard product or service results from an event that we and/or the suppliers of the experience components, could neither foresee nor prevent, even with all due care.  This compensation will be limited (except in the case of death, illness, injury and lost/delayed baggage) to no more than twice the price of your experience; (b) We accept no liability to you for (i) any circumstance arising from fault on your part or the part of any member of your party, (ii) any circumstance arising from fault on the part of someone not connected with the provision of the booked experience and/or its various components, (iii) any circumstance which arises due to unusual or unexpected circumstances beyond our reasonable control which could not have been avoided, or (iv) any circumstance which arises due to an event which we or the supplier of any service could not anticipate, expect or reasonably prevent; and, (c) any acceptance of liability is subject to you agreeing to assign to us your rights against any third party responsible for the events leading to your claim and to you affording us all necessary assistance in pursuing that claim.

10. if you have a complaint
If you have any complaint or problem whilst away, you must inform us, our representatives or the relevant supplier as soon as possible to give us the maximum opportunity to rectify it.  Any unresolved complaints must be notified to us in writing within 30 days of your return.  If you do not notify your complaint at the earliest opportunity and/or formalise your complaint in writing within 30 days of your return, our ability to investigate your complaint will be affected and your right to compensation may be reduced or lost.  Any incident of illness or injury arising from an incident connected with your experience should be brought to the attention of the local supplier immediately.

11. special requests
Whilst we will endeavour to comply with any special requests we receive (for such things as specific airline seating, dietary requirements or specific rooms), we are unable to guarantee compliance with such requests or that it is possible for us to comply with those requests.  We will pass any special requests to the relevant supplier but will not be liable for any loss suffered in the event of such requests not being met.

12. excursions and activities
Where excursions and/or activities are booked and paid for in advance, and detailed on our confirmation invoice, these will form part of the experience package.  We undertake to use all reasonable skill and care in our selection of excursion and activity suppliers.  Any excursions and/or activities purchased in the experience destination, will not form part of the experience package and your contract for such excursions/activities will be made with the relevant supplier, even where the excursion/activity is booked via, and/or payment is made to, our representatives or local agency staff.

13. event tickets
Cancellation or curtailment of a major event or sporting fixture is an unusual occurrence and we accept no responsibility to refund or compensate where changes to an event are made for reasons beyond our control. Every effort will be made to offer alternative arrangements and in the unlikely event of cancellation any refund obtained will be passed on to you.