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Applies to everyone who uses Travacant.
1.1Travacant is a website, travacant.com, run by [TRADING ENTITY]. In these terms, "we", "us" and "our" mean [TRADING ENTITY]. "You" means the person using Travacant.
Travacant is the trading name of [FULL LEGAL NAME], of [ADDRESS FOR SERVICE].
1.2You can contact us by email at [CONTACT EMAIL], or by post at [REGISTERED ADDRESS]. Section 15 says how to complain.
1.3A "host" is someone who offers a home, or space in their home, on Travacant. A "guest" is someone who books a stay. You can be both.
2.1We are the middleman. We help guests find homes and help hosts find guests. When you book a stay, the stay is supplied by the host, not by us. The agreement for the stay is between the guest and the host.
2.2We act for the host. Each host appoints us as their agent to advertise their home, take bookings for it, collect guests' payments for it, and make refunds from those payments under these terms. Part 3 sets out what the host agrees to.
2.3Where the guest's money goes. When a guest pays for a stay, the payment is made to the host's own account with our payment provider, Stripe, and the guest's card statement shows the host's first name followed by "TRAVACANT" (Part 3, section 3.6). We receive our fee out of that payment. We do not hold the host's money in an account of our own.
2.4The Travacant fee pays for our booking service — finding the home and making the booking. Our booking service is complete once your booking is confirmed (Part 2, section 15.5). What we do after that — taking the payment when it is due, making refunds, releasing the host's money, and deciding a cancellation or a complaint — we do as the host's agent (section 2.2), under these terms; it is not a further service you buy. The fee is not insurance, and it does not buy any promise about the home or the stay. Part 2 says how much it is.
2.5What this means for the stay. Because the host supplies the stay, the host is the one responsible for the home being as described, safe, and available on the dates booked. Every host on Travacant hosts as a private person, not as a business — we do not accept business hosts at present. Because your host is a private person, some of your legal rights as a consumer may not apply to the stay, because those rights apply only against a business.
2.6What we are responsible for. We are responsible for our own service: running the site, taking and refunding payments correctly, keeping the promises in these terms, and doing all of it with reasonable care and skill. Section 14 says more.
2.7What we are not. We are not a party to the agreement for the stay, we do not own, inspect or manage any home, and we do not employ hosts.
3.1You agree to these terms by creating an account. Under the sign-up buttons, on every way of signing up — "Continue with Google" included — we say "By creating an account you agree to Travacant's Terms", with a link to these terms. We record which version of the terms you agreed to, and when.
These terms come in four parts, and creating an account accepts all of them:
Parts 2 and 3 apply to you when you do what they deal with. If you host, you also tick a box to agree to Part 3 the first time you publish a home.
3.2If a word in Part 2, 3 or 4 seems to conflict with this part, the more specific part wins for what it deals with.
3.3Each booking is governed by the version of these terms, and the host's cancellation policy, that applied when the booking was made. Section 13 explains changes.
3.4Nothing in these terms takes away your legal rights. If you are a consumer, you have rights under the law that these terms cannot remove.
4.1You must be 18 or over to use Travacant.
4.2Before you book or host — or use Buddy Up, if it is open — we ask you to complete your profile and verify your identity. We may refuse a verification we cannot confirm.
4.3You may have one account. It is personal to you: do not share it, and keep your password and sign-in details safe. Tell us straight away at [CONTACT EMAIL] if you think someone else has used your account. You are responsible for what is done on your account, unless it was done by someone else and you were not at fault.
4.4You can close your account at any time by emailing us at [CONTACT EMAIL]. Bookings already made carry on under the terms they were made on until they end, unless they are cancelled in the usual way (Part 2 and Part 3).
4.5What you post, and our adverts. What you post on Travacant stays yours. If you post a comment or a post that anyone on Travacant can see, you give us permission, free of charge, to show it on Travacant and to use it in our adverts and in other material about Travacant. We never use your photos — including any photo in a post — or your ratings and reviews in our adverts. This does not apply to your messages, which are private, or to your listing, which Part 3 deals with. If you do not want us to use a post or comment in our adverts, email [CONTACT EMAIL]: we will not use it in any new advert, and we will take it out of adverts we run as soon as we reasonably can. The same happens if you delete it.
4.6Your profile, and who sees it. Your profile shows your first name, your photo if you add one, whether your identity is verified, the month you joined, how many stays you have completed, the average of your ratings and how many there are, your booking cancellation rate (section 7.6) and a short "About you" if you write one. Each side can see the other's profile before any booking: a guest sees the host's on the host's listing and in their conversation, and a host sees a guest's once that guest contacts them about their home — there is no way to look a guest up otherwise. Your gender is shown only as section 8.6 says. Your surname, email address, phone number and date of birth are never shown to other members. If Buddy Up is open, its members also see your age (Part 4). Write nothing in "About you" that you would not want the other person to see, no contact details, and nothing about who you would not host or stay with (section 8).
5.1Everything you tell us, and everything you tell another user through Travacant, must be true. Keep your profile, your listing and your payment details up to date.
5.2You must never submit information, content or evidence you know to be false or fabricated. That includes photos, documents, messages and evidence for a cancellation, a complaint or an appeal.
5.3An honest mistake is not a breach of this section if you put it right when you notice it or when we ask. Submitting something you know is false or made up is a serious breach, and section 11 says what can follow.
6.1When you use Travacant, and during any stay or trip arranged through it, you must:
6.2Pay and be paid only through Travacant for a stay booked on Travacant. A host must not ask a guest to pay anything for that stay outside Travacant, and a guest must not offer to. This keeps the price you see the price you pay, and keeps the whole booking under these terms.
6.3You can tell us about anyone who breaks these rules by emailing [CONTACT EMAIL]. If Buddy Up is open, you can also use the report button there.
7.1After a stay ends, the guest and the host may each rate the other, from 1 to 5 stars, with a comment. If Buddy Up is open, its members may rate each other after a trip (Part 4).
7.2A rating is hidden until both people have rated, or until 14 days after the first rating was left, whichever is sooner.
7.3A rating must describe a genuine experience. You may rate only a stay or trip you actually took part in. You must not offer, ask for or accept anything in return for a rating, or for changing or removing one.
7.4We never rate anyone automatically, and we never write, change or score a rating ourselves. Ratings show what people said about a real stay or trip.
7.5We may remove a rating that breaks section 7.3, or that is unlawful — for example threatening or defamatory — and we will tell the person who wrote it why.
7.6Booking cancellation rates. We show how often a person has cancelled confirmed bookings late without an accepted reason — the kind of cancellation that can earn a strike (section 10):
A host's rate is shown on their listing and their profile; a guest's is shown on their profile to a host they contact (section 4.6), and again in the host's request box when they ask to book. If Buddy Up is open, its members' rates are shown on trip pages.
8.1A host may state a preference that their home — any kind of home — is for women only or for men only. It is the host's preference, not ours. It is shown on the listing, and beside the booking button as "Host's preference".
8.2We do not apply it. Any guest may ask to book any home. A home with such a preference takes booking requests only, for every guest alike, and the host decides whether to accept. We never use a guest's gender to decide whether they can book, what they are shown by default, or what they pay.
8.3A guest may choose to search only for shared homes with a given preference — a private room in a home, or a bed in a shared room. The search does not offer it for entire homes, and never finds an entire home by it. It is the guest's own choice, and it is off unless they turn it on.
8.4If you set a preference, you are responsible for it being lawful for your home and the way you host — for example, because you or other people will be sharing the home with your guests. By setting a preference you confirm to us that it is. Do not set one if it is not.
8.5Showing a host's preference does not mean we have checked it or that we agree with it.
8.6Your gender, and who sees it. You must give your gender in your profile before you can book or host. If you host, guests see your gender on your profile. If you ask about or ask to book a home whose host has set a women-only or men-only preference, the host sees your gender from when you contact them, before they decide. On any other home, the host sees it only once they have accepted your request, or once a "Reserve now" booking is confirmed.
8.7Showing it changes nothing in 8.2: we ourselves never use anyone's gender to decide anything about a booking. Seeing someone's gender does not make it lawful to treat them differently because of it. Section 6.1 still applies to everyone, and 8.4 to a host who sets a preference.
No discrimination
8.8Hosts choose their guests. A host may turn down a request for any reason that is not about who the guest is — for example the dates, how many people are coming, whether the home suits children or pets (an assistance dog is not a pet: refusing one can be disability discrimination), the house rules, the guest's reviews or cancellation rate, or what the guest wrote. But no one may refuse, cancel or treat a person worse on Travacant because of their race (including colour, nationality, and ethnic or national origin), religion or belief, sexual orientation, disability, pregnancy or maternity, or the age of an adult (everyone must be 18 or over, 4.1), or because of their sex or gender reassignment — except under a host's women-only or men-only preference, where the law allows it (8.4). A guest may take a host's sex into account in choosing where to stay.
8.9No one may say that people are unwelcome because of anything listed in 8.8 — in a listing, house rules, an "About you", or a message. That includes saying a home is only for, or not for, people of a particular race, religion or the like. A women-only or men-only preference is set only with the setting in 8.1, not written into a listing, house rules or profile. A host who has set one may say who else lives in or shares the home, and may refer to the preference in a message.
8.10Tell us if it happens to you, or if you see it. If you think a host, a guest or anyone else on Travacant has treated you worse because of who you are, or you see something on Travacant that breaks 8.8 or 8.9, email us at [CONTACT EMAIL]. We will look into it, and may ask the other person for their side. No one may be treated worse on Travacant for making a report honestly.
8.11What we may do. If we find that someone has broken 8.8 or 8.9, we may warn them, remove a preference or words from a listing or profile, and take the steps in section 11. Before we act, we tell the person what was reported and give them a chance to respond, unless someone's safety needs us to act at once. If we remove anything, we tell them what and why, and they can ask us to look again.
9.1Most cancellations are settled by the guest and the host themselves — in the free-cancellation period, by agreeing, or by the person who asked to cancel choosing the host's standard cancellation policy. Part 2 explains each step.
9.2We decide only in two cases:
9.3When we decide, we decide on the host's behalf. The host has appointed us to do this (section 2.2). We apply the host's cancellation policy for that booking, the valid reasons in Part 2, and these terms. Any refund comes out of the money paid for that booking.
9.4A person at Travacant makes every one of these decisions — none is made automatically. We look at the evidence either of you gives us and at the messages on the booking.
9.5We tell you both what we decided and why.
9.6We will decide within 2 days after the matter comes to us, or after the evidence window closes if it is a dispute. If we cannot, we will tell you both why, and the new date by which we will decide.
9.7Our decision settles how the money paid for that booking is used. It does not take away anyone's legal rights. A guest can still take the host to court about the stay. A host can still take the guest to court. Either of you can challenge our decision in court, and you can also complain to us under section 15.
9.8Part 2 says what happens to a complaint about a stay that is made after the host has been paid.
10.1A strike is a note on your account that you cancelled a confirmed booking late without an accepted reason. Strikes exist because a late cancellation leaves the other person without a stay, or without a guest, at short notice. They apply to guests and hosts alike.
10.2You get a strike when all of these are true:
10.3The cancellation window starts on the day of the host's earliest refund tier — 30 days before check-in on our default policy, and never more than 60 days before check-in. It is judged on the day you asked to cancel, not the day the cancellation was settled, so nobody gets a strike because the other person was slow.
10.4You do not get a strike for cancelling in your free-cancellation period, for a cancellation you and the other person agree, for cancelling before the cancellation window, or where we accepted your valid reason.
10.5A strike does not depend on how much is refunded. You can get part of your money back and still get a strike.
10.6We tell you by email when a strike is recorded, and why.
10.7You can appeal every strike, once. Use your Strikes page to give your reasons and any evidence (photos or PDF documents). A person decides your appeal and tells you the outcome. If your appeal succeeds, the strike is removed: it no longer counts towards the limit in 10.8 or towards your cancellation rate.
10.8Three strikes in 12 months. If you have three strikes that still stand within 12 months, a person at Travacant is told and decides whether to block your account (section 11). It does not happen automatically.
10.9If you win an appeal that takes you below three strikes, we lift any block your strikes caused. Winning a strike appeal never lifts a block or ban made for another reason, such as fraud.
11.1We restrict accounts only on the grounds in this section, and a person at Travacant decides every pause, block and ban.
Pause — while we look into something
11.2If we have reasonable grounds to suspect a serious breach of these terms — for example fraud, false or fabricated information (5.2), a threat to someone's safety, or illegal use of a home — we may pause your account while we look into it.
11.3While your account is paused you cannot book, send messages or post trips. You can still reply to and cancel your existing bookings.
11.4A pause lasts at most 7 days. By the end of it we either restore your account or, if we have found a ground in 11.5, block it. If we do neither, your account is restored automatically when the 7 days end. We email you when the pause starts, with the reason, and when it ends.
Block — after a finding
11.5We may block your account if:
A block lasts until we lift it.
Lifetime ban — fraud or another illegal act
11.6If we find that you committed fraud, or another illegal act, in connection with Travacant, we may ban you for life. You must not open another account.
What we tell you, and how to challenge it
11.7When we block or ban you, we email you at the time it takes effect, saying which ground in this section applies and the facts it rests on — unless the law does not allow us to.
11.8If you think a pause, block or ban is wrong, email us at [CONTACT EMAIL] with your reasons and any evidence. A person will look at it again and tell you the outcome and why, within 7 days. (A strike is appealed separately, under 10.7.)
Hosts — when we end an account for good
11.9If you host, we give you at least 30 days' notice by email, with our reasons, before a lifetime ban or any other permanent end to your account takes effect. Your account stays blocked during the notice.
We give no notice, and the end takes effect straight away, only where:
Either way, we tell you why — which of these grounds applies and the facts it rests on, as 11.7 says.
11.10You can always end your own account instead (section 4.4).
12.1Confirmed stays go ahead. A block does not cancel bookings already confirmed, except as 12.4 says.
12.2While you are blocked you can still reply to a cancellation already under way, and cancel your own booking under the usual rules. You cannot ask to book, accept a new booking, start a new conversation, send messages, or post trips.
12.3If you host, you are paid what you earned on stays that go ahead, under the usual rules in Part 3.
12.4We cancel a confirmed stay only where the reason for the block makes the stay itself unsafe or unlawful, and only before check-in is confirmed. If we do:
A pause (11.2) is never a reason to cancel a stay; only a finding is.
13.1We change these terms only for one of these reasons:
13.2We email you at least 15 days before a change takes effect, saying what is changing. This applies to every user, whether you host or not.
13.3We give shorter notice only where the law requires a change sooner, or where we must act urgently to protect users or Travacant from fraud, malware, spam, data breaches or other security risks. We still tell you as soon as we can.
13.4A change never applies to a booking already made. Each booking stays on the version of these terms, and the host's cancellation policy, that applied when it was made.
13.5If you do not agree to a change, you can close your account before it takes effect, at no cost (section 4.4). Bookings already made carry on under the terms they were made on. If you keep using Travacant after the change takes effect, the new terms apply to you from then on.
13.6We keep every earlier version of these terms on the site, with the dates it applied.
13.7Transferring these terms. We may transfer our rights and duties under these terms to another business — for example, a company set up to run Travacant. We will tell you before it happens. If you are unhappy, you can close your account. A transfer will not reduce your rights under a booking already made.
14.1If we break these terms, or fail to use reasonable care and skill, we are responsible for loss you suffer that is a foreseeable result. Loss is foreseeable if it was obvious it would happen, or if, when you accepted these terms, both of us knew it might happen.
14.2We are not responsible for loss we did not cause, or that was not foreseeable.
14.3The stay is the host's (section 2). We make no promise about a home or a stay — that it will be as described, safe or suitable — and we do not answer for what a host or a guest does. This does not reduce our responsibility for our own service under 14.1.
14.4We take no deposit, decide no claim about damage, and make no promise to pay for damage to a home or to anyone's belongings. A claim about damage is between the host and the guest, and each keeps their legal rights.
14.5Nothing in these terms limits our responsibility where the law does not allow it to be limited. That includes responsibility for:
14.6We try to keep Travacant working, but we cannot promise it will always be available or free of faults. If a fault on our side causes you loss, 14.1 applies.
14.7Your responsibility. If you break these terms, you are responsible for loss to us or to other users that is a foreseeable result.
15.1To complain about Travacant, email [CONTACT EMAIL] with "Complaint" in the subject line. Tell us what happened, the booking reference if there is one, and what you would like us to do.
15.2We will reply to say we have your complaint within 3 days, and send our answer, saying what we decided and why, within 14 days.
15.3A complaint about a stay, or about money on a booking, follows the cancellation and dispute steps in Part 2. A complaint about how someone behaved goes to [CONTACT EMAIL] (section 6.3).
15.4If you are not happy with our answer: we are not a member of any alternative dispute resolution scheme, and we are not required to use one. You can get free advice from Citizens Advice, and you can go to court (section 16).
16.1These terms, and any dispute about them, are governed by the law of England and Wales.
16.2If you live in Scotland or Northern Ireland, you also keep the benefit of any rules of the law where you live that cannot be set aside by agreement.
16.3You can bring proceedings in the courts of England and Wales. If you live in Scotland or Northern Ireland, you can also bring proceedings in the courts where you live. We will bring proceedings against you only in the courts of the part of the UK where you live.
16.4If a court decides that part of these terms cannot be relied on, the rest still applies.
16.5If we do not insist straight away that you do something these terms require, we can still insist on it later.
For guests — booking, paying, cancelling and disputes.
1.1A booking is an agreement between you and the host for a stay. The host supplies the stay — the home, or the room or bed in it, on the dates booked. We arrange the booking on the host's behalf and take your payment for the host (Part 1, sections 2.1 to 2.3). We are not a party to the agreement for the stay.
1.2You also have an agreement with us, for our booking service. It is these terms. The Travacant fee is what you pay us for it (section 6).
1.3The agreement for the stay is made up of: the listing as it was when you booked — its description, photos, what it includes, its house rules and the host's cancellation policy; the dates, the rooms and the number of guests you booked; the price you were shown at the payment step; anything you and the host agreed in writing in the booking's conversation before you booked; and these terms.
1.4There is no legal 14-day "cooling-off" right to cancel a stay booked for set dates. The law that gives that right for many things bought online does not apply to accommodation booked for a specific date. Your ways to cancel a stay are the ones in sections 15 to 22.
1.5Nothing in this part takes away your legal rights (Part 1, section 3.4).
2.1On the listing you see the host's profile — their first name, photo, gender and the rest of it (Part 1, section 4.6).
2.2Every host on Travacant is a private person, not a business. We do not accept hosts who host as a business at present.
2.3We arrange the booking on the host's behalf; the host provides the stay (section 1 and Part 1, section 2).
2.4Because your host is a private person, some of your legal rights as a consumer may not apply to the stay, because those rights apply only when you buy from a business.
2.5Whether a host is a business depends on the facts, not only on what the host tells us. If a host who is in fact running a business has described themselves as a private person, you still have the rights you would have against a business.
2.6The host is responsible for what they tell us about themselves being true (Part 1, section 5).
2.7The home's full address is given to you with the check-in details after your booking is confirmed (section 11.1).
3.1Each home is booked in one of two ways, shown on its button: "Reserve now" (you can book straight away) or "Request to book" (the host approves first). The host chooses which.
3.2"Reserve now". You go to the payment step. Nothing is reserved for you until you complete it.
3.3"Request to book". You send the host a request for your dates at the price shown. Sending a request does not commit you to anything, and nothing is taken from your card.
3.4A home whose host has stated a women-only or men-only preference takes booking requests only, from every guest alike. Part 1, section 8 explains.
3.5When the booking is made. However you book, the booking — and your agreement with the host — is made when you complete the payment step and we confirm it to you. The payment step ends with a button that reads "Book and agree to pay £X", where £X is your total, and under it we say: "By choosing 'Book and agree to pay', you agree to Travacant's Terms and ask us to make this booking now. Once it's confirmed, our booking service is complete, so you can't cancel it on its own — you can still cancel the booking under the host's cancellation policy above." By choosing it, you agree to pay that total on the timing in section 7, you accept these terms as they stand at that moment, and you ask us to provide our booking service straight away (section 15.5). We record which version of these terms you accepted, and when. From then the host's cancellation policy applies (subject to your free-cancellation period, section 16).
3.6If the dates stop being free, or the home stops taking bookings, before you complete the payment step, no booking is made and nothing is taken.
3.7You must be 18 or over to book (Part 1, section 4.1).
3.8What the host sees about you. The privacy notice lists everything a host can see about you. In particular:
4.1Where a host accepts offers, you may offer a different total for your dates — for the whole home, or for a single room or bed. Your offer is for the accommodation and the cleaning. The Travacant fee is added to it at your rate (section 6), and before you send the offer we show you the total you would pay if it is accepted.
4.2There is a lowest offer. A host may set how far below their usual price they will consider, and no offer may be more than 40% below it. We show you the lowest offer you can make.
4.3The host has 24 hours to accept, decline or counter your offer, and you have the same to answer a counter-offer. An offer not answered in time lapses.
4.4A host may send you an offer for a home you have saved with dates. You can accept, decline or counter it in the same way.
4.5An accepted offer is not yet a booking, and making or accepting an offer takes nothing from your card. When an offer is accepted, you have 24 hours to complete the payment step at the agreed price; the booking is made when you do (section 3.5).
5.1Before you take any step to book, we show you one total: the accommodation, any cleaning fee and the Travacant fee, with each part listed beneath it.
5.2The total for your dates is the host's price for each night you stay (a host may charge more for Friday and Saturday nights, and may set different prices for particular dates), plus the host's cleaning fee for the stay, plus the Travacant fee. If you book separate rooms or beds, it is the price of each one you choose.
5.3Before you choose dates, a home shows a "from" total: the price of the home's minimum number of nights at its usual weekday price, with the cleaning fee and the Travacant fee included, and the number of nights it is for. The total for the dates you pick may be different.
5.4Prices are in pounds sterling. The total includes everything you pay through Travacant for the stay, including any tax. Nothing is added to it through Travacant afterwards.
5.5The total can change until you book — for example, if the host changes their prices, or your Travacant fee rate changes (section 6). If it changes, we show you the new total before you commit. Once your booking is made, its price does not change unless you agree new dates (section 12).
6.1The Travacant fee is what you pay us for our booking service — finding the home and making the booking. The service is complete once your booking is confirmed (section 15.5); what we do after that we do as the host's agent (Part 1, section 2.4). It is shown as its own line in every price. It is not insurance, and it does not buy any promise about the home or the stay.
6.2The fee is a percentage of the accommodation and cleaning:
Example: two nights at £95 and a £35 cleaning fee come to £225. At 16% the Travacant fee is £36.00 and the total is £261.00. At 8% the fee is £18.00 and the total is £243.00.
6.3Who is a travacanter. For now, you are a travacanter while either you have a published listing on Travacant with at least one date open from today, or a booking on your listing has been confirmed and has not yet ended.
6.4Which rate applies to your booking. The rate is the one that applies to you, the person paying, at the moment the price for your booking is worked out — when you press "Reserve now", when you send a booking request, or when an offer is accepted. If you are not signed in, we show you prices at 16%; once you sign in, we show you your own rate. If your status changes after the price is worked out, the price of that booking does not change — except that new dates are priced at your rate at the time you ask for them (section 12).
6.5If a booking is cancelled, the Travacant fee is refunded in the same share as the rest of what you paid — in full whenever everything you paid is refunded. Sections 15 to 22 explain cancelling.
7.1How you pay. You pay through our payment provider, Stripe, with a card or another payment method offered at the payment step (in these terms, "your card"). At the payment step your card is saved for the booking.
7.2"Authorised" and "charged". When your card is authorised, your bank sets the amount aside on your card, but it is not taken. When you are charged, the money is taken.
7.3When money is taken depends on how far ahead your check-in is. Before you confirm, we tell you which of these applies to your booking, with the amount and the date or time. We tell you again when the booking is confirmed, and your booking page shows it until the charge is made.
(a) Check-in within 30 days. Your card is authorised when the booking is confirmed, and you are charged after your free-cancellation period (section 16) ends. We tell you: "Your card will be authorised now. You'll be charged £X after your free-cancellation period ends on [date, time]. Cancel before then and nothing is taken."
(b) Booked so close to check-in that there is no free-cancellation period. You are charged in full when the booking is confirmed. We tell you: "Your card will be charged £X now — a booking this close to check-in has no free-cancellation period."
(c) Check-in more than 30 days away. Your card is saved and nothing is taken yet. You are charged 30 days before check-in, or when the host's full-refund period ends if that is sooner — but never before your free-cancellation period has ended. We tell you: "Your card is saved and nothing is taken yet. You'll be charged £X on [date] — [30 days before check-in / when the host's full-refund period ends]. Cancel before then and nothing is taken."
(d) Check-in more than 30 days away, but the host's full-refund period has already ended when you book. Your card is saved and nothing is taken yet; you are charged after your free-cancellation period ends. We tell you: "Your card is saved and nothing is taken yet. You'll be charged £X after your free-cancellation period ends on [date, time]. Cancel before then and nothing is taken."
7.4Payments are taken once a day, in the early hours of the morning, UK time. So where we say you will be charged after a time, the charge is made at the first of these runs after it; where we say on a date, it is made in the early hours of that date.
7.5If you cancel before the time or date we told you, nothing is taken. If your card had been authorised, we ask your bank to release the amount set aside; how soon that shows on your card is up to your bank.
7.6The amount charged is the total of your booking — or, if you have agreed new dates, the new total (section 12).
7.7Changing your card. While nothing has been authorised or charged on your booking, you can replace the saved card from the booking's page.
7.8The date in (c) and (d) is worked out from the cancellation policy your booking keeps (section 17.2), so a change the host makes to their policy after you book does not move it.
8.1You must make sure the payment can be taken when it is due — that the card has enough funds and has not expired.
8.2If we cannot authorise your card or take a payment, we tell you and try again. Each notice says how many tries are left. While nothing has been authorised or charged, you can change the card (section 7.7); changing the card does not add tries.
8.3If the payment fails three times in all, the booking is cancelled. Anything set aside on your card is released and nothing is charged. We tell you and the host, and the dates go back on sale.
8.4A booking cancelled because its payment failed is not treated as a cancellation by you or by the host.
9.1Your payment is made to the host's own account with Stripe (Part 1, section 2.3), so your card statement shows the host's name — usually their first name — followed by "TRAVACANT" — for example, ALICE\ TRAVACANT*.
9.2The payment carries our contact details, not the host's. If you do not recognise a payment from Travacant, please contact us at [CONTACT EMAIL] first — we can usually tell you what it is for.
10.1A host may set house rules. They are shown on the listing, under "Good to know".
10.2By booking, you agree to follow the house rules shown on the listing when you booked, and to stay with no more people than the number of guests you booked for.
10.3A house rule cannot add to the price, and cannot take away your rights under these terms or the law. If a house rule conflicts with these terms, these terms apply.
10.4How you must behave on Travacant, including at a stay, is also dealt with in Part 1, section 6.
11.1Check-in details — the address, how to get in, the wifi — are released to you on your booking 3 days before check-in, unless the host has chosen a different number of days. Some hosts send their arrival details to you themselves instead.
11.2Your check-in time is the one on the listing, or a different time you and the host agree on the booking. If the listing has a flexible check-in and you have not agreed a time, we treat check-in as 15:00 on your arrival date, UK time.
11.3Only you, the guest who made the booking, can confirm that you have arrived. You can do it from your check-in date, on the booking's page. The host cannot confirm it for you, and neither do we.
11.4What confirming does. When you confirm, the host's share of your payment is released to them, and if your payment has not yet been taken, it is taken then. Only confirm once you have arrived and been able to get in.
11.5If you do not confirm, the host's share is released once 24 hours have passed since your check-in time — at our first daily run after that — unless a cancellation or a dispute is open on the booking, in which case it waits.
11.6If something is wrong when you arrive — you cannot get in, or the home is not as described, not safe, or not available:
12.1You or the host may propose new dates for a confirmed booking, on the booking's page. On Travacant this is done through the cancellation steps, once the free-cancellation period of the person asking has ended (section 16.10): choose "Cancel booking", then "Reschedule to new dates".
12.2New dates are priced at the host's prices for those dates, at your Travacant fee rate at the time you ask (section 6) — so the total can go up or down. Before you propose new dates, and before you accept dates the host proposes, we show you the new total and when your card would be charged.
12.3The other person has 48 hours from when the change is first asked for to accept, decline or propose something else; proposing something else does not restart the 48 hours. If dates are accepted but the price for them has changed since they were proposed, the acceptance does not go through and the dates must be proposed again.
12.4Before your card has been authorised or charged, the new total replaces the old one, and you are charged on the timing in section 7 for the new dates — which may be sooner: if the new check-in is within 30 days, at our next daily run.
12.5While your card is authorised but not yet charged, dates cannot be changed.
12.6After your card has been charged, only new dates that cost the same or less can be agreed. The difference is refunded to the card you paid with. Dates that cost more cannot be agreed once you have paid.
12.7If new dates are not agreed, your booking stays as it was. The person who asked for new dates may withdraw the request at any time before it is agreed; and if 48 hours pass from the request with no agreement, it ends. Either way, nothing changes: your booking carries on as it was, and nothing is charged or refunded because of the request. A request in which the person who asked has also proposed a refund is a request to cancel, not for new dates — section 19 explains (19.8 to 19.11).
13.1We take no deposit, decide no claim about damage, and make no promise to pay for damage (Part 1, section 14.4).
13.2You are responsible to the host for damage that you, or anyone staying with you, cause to the home or its contents, beyond ordinary wear and tear, as the law provides.
13.3Deposits. A host may ask for a deposit only if the listing says so before you book — for example, in its house rules. Any deposit is paid to, held by and returned by the host; we have no part in it. You do not have to pay a deposit you were not told about before you booked.
13.4A disagreement about damage or a deposit is between you and the host. Each of you keeps your legal rights, including going to court (Part 1, section 16).
14.1The person who books is the guest for that booking, and is responsible for it — paying, cancelling, confirming arrival, and making sure everyone staying keeps to the house rules and these terms. Everyone who stays counts towards the number of guests booked.
14.2You can invite the people travelling with you into the booking's conversation, by the email address of their Travacant account, up to the number of guests booked. They can read and write in the conversation with the host. They cannot change the booking, make offers, cancel, or confirm arrival — only you can. You or the host can remove them, and they can leave. The host sees each of them by first name — or by nickname, if they have not given a first name — and never by surname or email address (as for you, section 3.8).
15.1You cancel on the booking's page. While your free-cancellation period runs (section 16) you see only "Cancel free". After it, until check-in is confirmed, you see "Cancel booking". The day you send your request, or open a dispute, is the day you asked (section 17.6).
15.2What happens depends on when you cancel, and why:
| When, and why | What happens | Section |
|---|---|---|
| In your free-cancellation period | You cancel at no cost | 16 |
| After it, for a reason that is not in section 18 | You ask to cancel and propose what you get back, or new dates. The host can agree. You can take the host's cancellation policy instead at any time. If you do not agree, section 20 says what happens | 17, 19, 20 |
| For one of the valid reasons in section 18, with evidence | A dispute, which we decide | 18, 21 |
| The host cancels | You get back everything you paid, or new dates if you agree to them | 22 |
| After check-in is confirmed | The booking can no longer be cancelled or refunded through Travacant | 23 |
15.3Asking to cancel does not cancel your booking straight away (except in your free period). Your booking stays confirmed until the cancellation is settled — by agreement, by the host's cancellation policy, or by our decision — and the conversation tells you both when it is. While a request to cancel or a dispute is open, no payment is taken from your card and the host is not paid. If the booking then carries on, the timing in section 7 picks up again.
15.4How the money comes back. It depends on how far your payment had got when the cancellation is settled:
We tell you in the booking's conversation once the refund has been made. Your bank usually shows a refund about 5 to 10 working days after it is made, and sometimes later. That part is up to your bank.
15.5Our booking service is complete once your booking is confirmed. The law gives you 14 days to cancel many services you agree to online, and our booking service (section 1.2) may be one of them. At the payment step you ask us to provide it straight away, and you accept that once your booking is confirmed it has been fully provided, so you can no longer cancel it separately from your booking. This does not change your rights to cancel the booking itself under sections 16 to 22, and whenever your booking is refunded, the Travacant fee is refunded in the same share as the rest of what you paid (section 6.5). The words you see at the payment step are quoted in section 3.5.
15.6Strikes. Cancelling a confirmed booking late without an accepted reason can earn a strike. Part 1, section 10 explains when, and how to appeal. Cancelling in your free period, a cancellation you and the host agree, and a valid reason we accept do not earn one (Part 1, section 10.4).
15.7How this part fits with Part 1. This part says what each step is and what it does to your money. Part 1, section 9 says how we make every decision in it — on the host's behalf, from the money paid for that booking, by a person, telling you both what we decided and why, and without taking away anyone's right to go to court. Part 1, section 10 covers strikes. We do not repeat them here.
16.1After your booking is confirmed, you have a free-cancellation period, in which you can cancel at no cost. It lasts 24 hours from the moment your booking is confirmed — or 48 hours if you are a travacanter (section 6.3) at that moment. How long your period lasts depends only on your own status, not on the host's. The host has a free-cancellation period of their own (16.8).
16.2It ends early if your stay is close. Your free period always ends, at the latest, at the start of the day your check-in details are released to you (section 11.1 — 3 days before check-in, unless the host has chosen a different number of days), or, if the host does not send check-in details through Travacant, at your check-in time (section 11.2).
Example: you book at 10:00 on a Monday for a check-in on the Friday. Your check-in details are released at the start of Tuesday, 3 days before Friday, so your free period ends at midnight on Monday night — 14 hours after you booked, not 24.
16.3A booking made after that point has no free-cancellation period. Your card is charged in full when the booking is confirmed (section 7.3(b)), and the host's cancellation policy applies from the start (section 17).
16.4We tell you when your free period ends. The listing's cancellation policy shows how long it is for you. Once your booking is confirmed, the booking's page shows the exact time, in UK time: "Cancel free until [day, date, time]".
16.5To cancel in your free period, choose "Cancel free" on the booking's page. Your booking is cancelled straight away, and nothing is taken from your card: if your card was authorised (section 7.3(a)), we ask your bank to release the amount set aside (section 7.5); if it was only saved, there is nothing to release.
16.6Your free period also ends if you confirm check-in (section 11.3), because confirming takes your payment.
16.7While a request to cancel or for new dates is open on your booking — yours or the host's — "Cancel free" is not available, and your free period keeps running. If the open request is your own request for new dates, you can withdraw it (section 19.8) and then cancel free, if your free period has not ended.
16.8The host has a free-cancellation period of their own, set in the same way by the host's own status — so it can be longer than yours, never shorter (Part 3, sections 5.7 and 6.3). If the host cancels in it, you get back everything you paid, or, if nothing has been taken from your card yet, nothing is taken — as whenever a host cancels (section 22.1) — and we tell you in the booking's conversation.
16.9Cancelling in your free period does not earn a strike (Part 1, section 10.4).
16.10While your free period runs, "Cancel free" is the only way to cancel that you see. Asking the host for a refund or for new dates (section 19) opens once your free period has ended. If you want different dates sooner, you can cancel free and book the dates you want — at the prices shown then, and only if they are still free.
17.1Each host sets a cancellation policy for their home. It says how much of what you paid comes back if you cancel, depending on how many days before check-in you ask. A host may use our default policy (17.8) or set their own, in up to four steps. The policy is shown on the listing, under "Cancellation policy", and again at the payment step, before you pay. On the booking's page and in its conversation it is called "the standard policy" or "the standard cancellation policy".
17.2Your booking keeps the policy it was booked under. That is the host's policy as it stood when your booking was confirmed — the one shown to you at the payment step. If the host changes their policy later, the change applies only to bookings made after it. It does not change your refund, or the date your card is charged.
17.3The policy applies to everything you paid — the accommodation, the cleaning fee and the Travacant fee, all in the same share. The cleaning fee is part of the price of your stay, so it follows the policy like the rest of the price.
17.4More than 60 days before check-in, every cancellation is a full refund, whatever the host's policy says.
17.5From 60 days before check-in, the host's policy decides. A host may give less back the closer to check-in you cancel, and may make their home non-refundable from 60 days before check-in. The listing shows the policy step by step, ending with the point after which nothing comes back ("No refund").
17.6The day you ask decides your refund. We count whole days from the date in the UK on which you asked to cancel (section 15.1) to your check-in date. How long the host takes to answer, or how long the cancellation takes to settle, does not change it. For example, for a check-in on 31 July, asking on 1 July is 30 days before check-in; asking on 2 July is 29 days.
17.7If you cancel before your card has been charged, nothing is taken (section 7.5) — that is, before the time or date we told you when you booked (section 7.3).
17.8Our default policy. If a host has not set their own policy, their listing says "This host uses Travacant's standard policy", and the policy is this:
| When you ask to cancel | What comes back | On a booking that cost £400 in total |
|---|---|---|
| In your free-cancellation period (section 16) | Nothing is taken | You pay nothing |
| 30 days or more before check-in | Everything | £400 back |
| 20 to 29 days before check-in | 80% | £320 back — you pay £80 |
| 10 to 19 days before check-in | 50% | £200 back — you pay £200 |
| 5 to 9 days before check-in | 20% | £80 back — you pay £320 |
| Less than 5 days before check-in, or on or after the check-in day | Nothing | Nothing back — you pay £400 |
"£400 in total" means the accommodation, the cleaning fee and the Travacant fee together. In every row the Travacant fee comes back in the same share as the rest — at 80%, 80% of the fee. If your card has not been charged yet when you cancel, nothing is taken (17.7).
17.9Before you ask, we show you what the policy gives. When you choose "Cancel booking", we show you, in pounds, what the policy would give back for cancelling that day.
17.10When the policy is used. It decides your refund when you ask to cancel without a valid reason and choose to take it (section 19.4), or when you and the host do not agree and you choose it (section 20). When we decide a cancellation you and the host have not agreed, it is the least you get back (section 20). If the host cancels, you get everything back, whatever the policy says (section 22). If you cancel for a valid reason, section 18 applies.
18.1Some reasons for cancelling are treated differently from a change of plans. If you cancel for one of them and can show evidence of it, we look at the evidence and decide what you get back, instead of the host's policy simply applying. These are the valid reasons, as the booking's page lists them:
18.2How to use one. On the booking's page, choose "Cancel booking", choose the reason, and choose "Open dispute for review". This opens a dispute, which section 21 explains. You cannot open one while another request to cancel or for new dates is open on the booking — if your own request for new dates is open, withdraw it first (section 19.8).
18.3Evidence. You can add evidence when you open the dispute, or within 48 hours after you open it, as photos (JPEG or PNG) or PDF documents, up to 20 MB each. Useful evidence depends on the reason — for example:
These are examples, not a checklist, and giving them does not mean your reason will be accepted.
Who sees your evidence. When you add a file, you choose what kind of document it is. If it is a sick note or another note or letter from a doctor or hospital, or a document about a bereavement, only we see it — the host does not. We see every file you add, and the host sees every other file you add. It works the same way for files the host adds: you see them, except a host's sick note or bereavement document (as described above). You may black out anything in a document that is not needed to show that it supports your reason — for example, medical details beyond the fact of the illness or injury.
18.4No reason is accepted automatically. A person at Travacant looks at the evidence and decides whether it supports the reason (Part 1, section 9). That includes a mismatch with the listing and a home that is unavailable or not fit to stay in.
18.5What we can decide. Whatever we find, we decide what you get back — everything, part of what you paid, or what the host's policy gives — and tell you both what we decided and why (Part 1, sections 9.3 to 9.5). You never get back less than the host's cancellation policy would have given you for cancelling on the day you opened the dispute — even if we do not accept your reason. If the host opened it, you get back everything you paid (section 22.7). If we accept your reason, you do not get a strike (Part 1, section 10.4). Section 21 explains how a dispute runs, including how to withdraw one.
18.6If we do not accept your reason, the cancellation can earn a strike if you asked inside the cancellation window (Part 1, section 10.2).
18.7Giving a reason, or evidence, that you know to be false breaks these terms (Part 1, section 5.2).
18.8You do not need a valid reason to ask the host for a refund or new dates. Choose "No specific reason" and section 19 applies.
19.1Without a valid reason, you can still ask the host to let you cancel, or to move your dates, once your free-cancellation period has ended (section 16.10). On the booking's page, choose "Cancel booking", leave the reason as "No specific reason", and propose one of these:
You can ask at any time from when your booking is confirmed until the host's share of your payment is released — when you confirm check-in (section 11.4), or once the time in section 11.5 has passed.
19.2The host has 48 hours from your request to accept, decline or propose something else. Proposing something else does not restart the 48 hours. If a proposal is declined, either of you may propose something else until the 48 hours end.
19.3You can keep writing to each other in the booking's conversation throughout.
19.4While your request is open, you can take the host's policy instead. Because you asked, you can choose "Accept the standard policy" at any time: your booking is cancelled and you get back what the host's policy gives for the day you asked (section 17). Once a proposal has been declined, you can instead choose "Ask Travacant to decide" (section 20). The host cannot make either choice for you. Taking the policy is a cancellation you asked for, so it can earn a strike (Part 1, section 10.2).
19.5If you and the host agree a refund, your booking is cancelled and you get back the amount agreed. An agreed refund is a share of everything you paid, and the Travacant fee comes back in the same share. For example, if your booking cost £400 in total and you agree £200 back, half of everything comes back — half of the accommodation, of the cleaning fee and of the Travacant fee. The money comes back as section 15.4 says. A cancellation you and the host agree does not earn a strike (Part 1, section 10.4). If your card has only been saved and nothing taken yet, the only refund that can be agreed is everything — cancelling then takes nothing (section 17.7).
19.6If the host asks you to cancel, or to move your dates, you can accept, decline or propose something else in the same way, within 48 hours of their request. When it is the host who wants to cancel, you are offered everything back or new dates — never less (section 22).
19.7If new dates are agreed, your booking moves to them, at the price for the new dates (sections 12.2 to 12.6). It is not cancelled, and it does not earn a strike.
19.8You can withdraw your request for new dates. If you asked for new dates, you can withdraw your request at any time before it is agreed: choose "Withdraw my request for new dates". Your booking then carries on as it was, and we tell the host. Only the person who asked can withdraw it.
19.9If new dates are not agreed within the 48 hours, your booking stays as it was. Nothing is charged or refunded because of the request, and we tell you both. This happens at our first daily run after the 48 hours end (section 7.4).
19.10What counts as a request for new dates. Your request stays a request for new dates only while everything you have proposed in it is new dates. If you also propose a refund, it becomes a request to cancel: you can no longer withdraw it, and if it is not agreed within the 48 hours, section 20 applies. The host proposing a refund does not change what you asked for. If you would rather cancel than move, you can also take the host's policy at any time (19.4).
19.11A request to cancel made under this section cannot be withdrawn. (A dispute opened for a valid reason can be, within its first 48 hours — section 21.) Once you have asked for a refund, your request ends in one of these ways: you and the host agree (a refund, or new dates), you take the host's policy, or we decide (section 20).
20.1This section is about a request to cancel that you and the host have not agreed — yours or the host's, made under section 19. It does not apply to:
A request that began as one for new dates becomes a request to cancel if the person who asked also proposes a refund (section 19.10).
20.2When the 48 hours end without agreement, we tell you both in the booking's conversation. This happens at our first daily run after the 48 hours end (section 7.4). From then on, a proposal still waiting for an answer can no longer be accepted, and neither of you can propose anything new.
20.3The person who asked to cancel then chooses one of two things:
Only the person who asked can choose. If the host asked, you cannot choose for them; if you asked, the host cannot choose for you.
20.4They have 48 hours to choose, counted from when we tell you both that no agreement was reached. The conversation shows the exact time, in UK time. If they do not choose in time, the cancellation comes to us to decide, as if they had asked us — at our first daily run after their time runs out — and we tell you both.
20.5If you asked to cancel, you can ask us to decide sooner — as soon as the host has declined a proposal (section 19.4). You do not have to wait for the 48 hours to end.
20.6What we decide. When a cancellation comes to us, a person at Travacant decides, on the host's behalf, what the guest gets back (Part 1, sections 9.3 and 9.4):
Whatever we decide, the booking is cancelled — we decide how much comes back, not whether the stay goes ahead. Anything above what the policy gives is a share of everything you paid, with the Travacant fee coming back in the same share (section 19.5). The money comes back as section 15.4 says.
Example: your booking cost £400 and the host uses our default policy (section 17.8). You ask to cancel 15 days before check-in and propose £300 back. The host declines, and no agreement is reached. If you accept the standard policy, you get £200 back (50%). If you ask us to decide, you get back at least £200 and at most £400.
20.7We tell you both what we decided and why (Part 1, section 9.5). How soon we decide is in Part 1, section 9.6. Until we decide, nothing is taken from your card and the host is not paid (section 15.3).
20.8Strikes. Taking the standard policy, or our decision, can earn the person who asked to cancel a strike, if they asked inside the cancellation window (Part 1, section 10.2). A strike does not change what you get back.
20.9If you and the host come to an agreement after the 48 hours, you can no longer settle it between you on the site. Say so in the booking's conversation: if the cancellation comes to us, we read the conversation before we decide (Part 1, section 9.4).
21.1A dispute is a request to cancel your booking for one of the valid reasons in section 18, which we decide. You or the host can open one.
21.2How to open one. On the booking's page, choose "Cancel booking", choose the reason, add any evidence, and choose "Open dispute for review" (section 18.2). You cannot open one while another request is open on the booking. Open it before the host's share of your payment is released (sections 11.4 and 11.5): after that, a dispute can no longer get you a refund (section 23).
21.3The day you open the dispute counts as the day you asked to cancel. It fixes the least you can get back (21.8) and whether a strike can follow (21.10), however long the dispute takes.
21.4Evidence: 48 hours, for both of you. For 48 hours after the dispute is opened, you and the host can each add evidence on the booking's page — photos (JPEG or PNG) or PDF documents, up to 20 MB each (section 18.3). Each of you can see what the other adds, except a sick note or other medical note, or a document about a bereavement, which only we see (section 18.3). We see everything. After the 48 hours, no more evidence can be added, but you can both still write in the conversation.
21.5While a dispute is open, no payment is taken from your card and the host is not paid (section 15.3). Your booking stays confirmed until we decide, or until the dispute is withdrawn.
21.6Withdrawing a dispute. The person who opened a dispute can withdraw it during its 48 hours by choosing "Withdraw the dispute" — for example, because you and the host have sorted it out between you. The conversation shows until when. Your booking then carries on as normal, and we tell the other person. If you have agreed a refund or new dates instead, either of you can then propose it (section 19). After the 48 hours — or once we have decided, if that is sooner (21.7) — a dispute cannot be withdrawn. You cannot withdraw a dispute the host opened, and the host cannot withdraw one you opened.
21.7When we decide. Once the 48 hours have ended, a person at Travacant looks at the evidence from both of you and at the booking's messages, and decides (Part 1, sections 9.4 and 9.6). We do not decide before the 48 hours end — unless the stay has already started, or starts before they end. Then we may decide sooner, so that nobody is left without an answer during the stay.
21.8What we decide. We decide two things:
You never get back less than the host's cancellation policy would have given you for cancelling on the day you opened the dispute — even if we do not accept your reason. If the host opened the dispute, you get back everything you paid, whatever we decide about the host's reason (section 22.7). Anything above what the policy gives is a share of everything you paid, with the Travacant fee coming back in the same share (section 19.5).
Example: your booking cost £400, the host uses our default policy, and you open a dispute 25 days before check-in. The policy would give you £320 back (80%), so we decide anything from £320 to £400 — £320 at the least, even if we find that your evidence does not support your reason.
21.9Whatever we decide, your booking is cancelled — a dispute is a request to cancel, and we decide how much comes back, not whether the stay goes ahead. The money comes back as section 15.4 says; if nothing has been taken from your card yet, nothing is taken.
21.10Strikes. If we accept that your evidence supports your reason, you do not get a strike. If we do not, and you opened the dispute inside the cancellation window, you get a strike (Part 1, sections 10.2 to 10.4). The same applies to a host who opens a dispute.
21.11We tell you both what we decided — whether we accepted the evidence, and what you get back — and why (Part 1, section 9.5).
21.12Your rights are not affected. We decide, on the host's behalf, how the money paid for your booking is used. That does not take away your legal rights: you can still take the host to court about the stay, and you can complain to us (Part 1, sections 9.7 and 15).
22.1If the host cancels, you get back everything you paid — the accommodation, the cleaning fee and the Travacant fee — or, if nothing has been taken from your card yet, nothing is taken. That is so whatever the host's cancellation policy says, and however close to check-in it is.
22.2In the host's own free-cancellation period, the host can cancel free (section 16.8). You get back everything you paid, or nothing is taken, as in 22.1.
22.3After that, the host asks to cancel on the booking's page, and can offer you only two things: everything back, or new dates. A host cannot offer you part of your money back on a cancellation they start.
22.4You have 48 hours to answer (section 19.6). You can:
22.5You cannot stop a host from cancelling, but if your booking is cancelled, you get back everything you paid. While their request is open, the host can take the standard policy, which, when the host cancels, gives you everything back. If no agreement is reached in the 48 hours, the host chooses between that and asking us to decide (section 20) — and we cannot give you less than everything.
22.6If the host asked only for new dates and you do not agree them, your booking carries on as it was (section 19.9).
22.7If the host opens a dispute for a valid reason — for example, because the home has become unfit to stay in, or the host is seriously ill — you still get back everything you paid. What we decide is only whether the host's reason is accepted, which decides whether the host gets a strike. You can add your own evidence during the 48 hours, and see the host's — except a sick note or other medical note, or a document about a bereavement, which only we see (section 21.4).
22.8Strikes. A host who cancels can get a strike (Part 1, section 10), as a guest can. It does not change what you get back.
22.9Apart from giving you back everything you paid, we do not pay for another place to stay, or for other costs a host's cancellation causes you. Your agreement for the stay is with the host (section 1.1), and your legal rights against the host — including for loss their cancellation causes you — are not affected (section 2.4; Part 1, sections 9.7 and 14.3).
23.1The host's share of your payment is released when you confirm check-in (section 11.4), or once 24 hours have passed since your check-in time (section 11.5). From then on, that money is the host's.
23.2After that, nothing in this part can cancel your booking or get you a refund through Travacant. The site has no way to take money back from the host, or to refund you, once the host has been paid.
23.3What you can still do:
23.4This is why, if something is wrong when you arrive, you should not confirm check-in, and should raise it within 24 hours of your check-in time (section 11.6) — while the host's share is still held and the steps in sections 15 to 22 can still get you money back.
24.1Nothing in these terms takes away any right you have to ask your bank or card provider to reverse a payment.
24.2It is usually quicker to tell us first, or to use the steps in this part — we can often tell you what a payment was for (section 9.2). You do not have to.
24.3Telling your bank something you know is untrue about a payment for a booking breaks these terms — for example, saying you did not make a payment you did make, or that you did not get a stay you had. It is treated in the same way as giving us false information (Part 1, section 5.2), and Part 1, section 11 says what can follow.
For hosts — appointing Travacant, fees, payouts, your policy and your account.
1.1When you list a home on Travacant, you appoint us as your agent for it. You authorise us to do these things for you:
1.2A booking we make within your settings is your booking. When a guest completes the payment step on a home you have set to "Reserve now", or on a request you approved, the booking is made on your behalf, and you are committed to it as if you had accepted it yourself.
1.3You supply the stay. The agreement for the stay is between you and your guest (Part 2, section 1). You are responsible for:
1.4What we do not do for you. We do not own, inspect, manage or clean any home, and we do not check that a home matches its listing. We take no deposit and deal with no claim for damage: anything you arrange with a guest about damage is between the two of you (Part 2, section 13). We cannot promise you any number of bookings. We do not work out, collect or pay any tax for you. Nothing we do for you is insurance.
1.5We act for you, and we are also paid by the guest. The guest pays us the Travacant fee for our booking service (section 2). We also owe guests duties of our own, under the law and under these terms — for example, to show them the full price and who you are before they pay, and to apply your cancellation policy and these terms as they are written. When we decide a cancellation or a dispute on your behalf, we decide it by the rules in these terms, not simply in your favour. You agree to us acting for you on that basis.
1.6How we do it. We do these things with reasonable care and skill (Part 1, section 2.6).
1.7How long the appointment lasts. It lasts while you have a home on Travacant. Unpublishing your home stops new bookings; it does not cancel bookings already made. Those go ahead, and we keep acting for you on each of them, under these terms, until it is finished. To cancel one, see section 6. A home that has ever had a confirmed booking, even one later cancelled, or a payment cannot be deleted (section 9.2).
1.8How you agree to this part. The first time you publish a home, we ask you to tick a box: "I agree to the host terms, including that Travacant takes bookings for me and charges guests its fee." Your home is not published until you have ticked it. We ask once, not every time you publish, and we record which version of these terms you agreed to, and when. Ticking it is how you appoint us (1.1) and agree to our fee (2.2). You also accepted these terms, all four parts, when you created your account (Part 1, section 3.1).
1.9You decide who stays — on lawful grounds. Every request is yours to accept or decline, and a home set to "Reserve now" takes any guest who books within your settings. You must not refuse, cancel or treat a guest worse because of who they are — their race, religion or belief, sexual orientation, disability, pregnancy or maternity, or age (you may decide whether your home suits children, but not on an adult guest's age), or their sex or gender reassignment except under a women-only or men-only preference the law allows for your home. An assistance dog is not a pet. Nothing in your listing, house rules or profile may say that people are unwelcome because of who they are. Part 1, sections 8.8 to 8.11 set this out, with what we may do if it happens.
2.1What guests pay us. On every booking of your home, the guest pays us the Travacant fee, on top of your price. It is a percentage of your accommodation price and your cleaning fee together:
We keep that fee. It is not taken out of your price, and you do not pay it. It is what the guest pays us for our booking service (Part 2, section 6).
2.2You agree that we may charge guests this fee, and keep it, while we act for you — the box you tick when you first publish a home says so (1.8). We tell you about it here, once, because the pages you see as a host show your own figures — what you will receive — and not the guest's fee.
2.3If a guest gets money back, the Travacant fee is refunded in the same share as the rest of what they paid — in full whenever everything is refunded (Part 2, section 6.5). That part of the refund comes out of our fee, not out of your share.
2.4What you pay: Stripe's payout fee, and nothing else. When your share is paid out to your bank, Stripe charges a fee for the payout. It is Stripe's fee, not ours. We take it from your share and pass it to Stripe, worked out as 0.25% of your share, rounded to the nearest penny, plus 10p. If your share is 10p or less, there is no fee.
2.5We charge you nothing for listing your home, for bookings, or for anything else we do for you. If we ever want to charge hosts anything, we will change these terms first, with notice (Part 1, section 13), and the change will not apply to bookings already made.
2.6When the payout fee is taken, and what your Stripe dashboard shows. We set Stripe's payout fee aside when the guest's card is charged, inside our own fee on that payment, so that your Stripe balance holds exactly what will be paid to your bank. So in your Stripe dashboard, our fee on each payment looks larger than the guest's Travacant fee, by the amount of the payout fee. If a refund or new dates change your share, the payout fee is worked out again on what you keep; if you keep nothing, there is none.
2.7An example. Two nights at £95 and a £35 cleaning fee: your price is £225.
| Guest is not a travacanter (16%) | Guest is a travacanter (8%) | |
|---|---|---|
| Your price — accommodation and cleaning | £225.00 | £225.00 |
| The Travacant fee, paid by the guest | £36.00 | £18.00 |
| What the guest pays | £261.00 | £243.00 |
| Stripe's payout fee: 0.25% of £225 (56p) plus 10p | £0.66 | £0.66 |
| Our fee on the payment, as your Stripe dashboard shows it | £36.66 | £18.66 |
| Paid to your bank | £224.34 | £224.34 |
Whichever rate the guest pays, you receive the same.
2.8Costs we bear, not you. We pay Stripe's charges for processing guests' cards, Stripe's monthly charge for keeping your account active, and Stripe's fee when a guest's bank reverses a payment (a chargeback). Stripe takes that last fee from your Stripe balance first; we pay it back to you, as section 8 explains.
3.1You need a Stripe account, set up through Travacant. Guests' payments are made to your own account with Stripe, our payment provider (Part 1, section 2.3). You set it up from your Payouts page: we open the account for you and send you to Stripe's own setup form, where Stripe checks your identity and takes your bank details directly. We do not hold your bank details.
3.2Stripe's agreement with you. Stripe provides the payment services on your account under the Stripe Connected Account Agreement, which includes Stripe's own terms of service. Stripe shows you that agreement in its setup form and asks you to accept it there. Your home cannot take bookings until you have. That agreement is between you and Stripe, and Stripe may change it under its own terms.
3.3Information shared with Stripe. You must give us and Stripe accurate and complete information about yourself, and about your business if you host as one. You allow us to share that information, and information about your bookings and payments, with Stripe, so that Stripe can provide its services to you and to us. Stripe uses personal information as its own privacy policy explains; our privacy notice explains how we use it.
3.4What being connected to Travacant means for your account.
3.5If Stripe stops your account taking payments or paying out — for example, because it needs more information from you — your home stops taking new bookings until Stripe allows it again, and money due to you stays on your Stripe balance until it can be paid out (section 4.8). Bookings already made are not cancelled because of it.
3.6Your statement name. Guests' card statements show your first name, as it is in your contact details, followed by "TRAVACANT" — for example, ALICE\ TRAVACANT*. We set it on your Stripe account when you set the account up; you do not choose it. So that card statements can print it, we leave out accents and apostrophes, use capital letters, and use no more than the first 10 characters. We also set it on your Stripe account as your business name. Guests see it on their statement, and their bank and the card networks receive it. Payments already made keep the name they were made under.
If your first name cannot be printed — for example, it is written in letters other than A to Z, or has fewer than two letters — or your Stripe account holds no statement name, we ask you for one on your Payouts page. That name must:
These rules also apply if you change the name yourself in Stripe's own dashboard.
If you later change your first name, your statement name does not change — it stays as it was set on your Stripe account.
3.7Who you are. You may host on Travacant only as a private person, not as a business — we do not accept business hosts at present. If you host through a company, or as part of a business you run, do not list your home.
Your full name is the first and last name in your contact details, and you must keep it as your full legal name. There is no separate place to give it: to change it, change your contact details. Until both your first and last name are filled in, your home cannot take bookings.
What we use your full name for:
We do not show your full name to guests on the site (3.9), and we do not send it to Stripe — Stripe asks you for your name itself, in its own setup form (3.1).
3.8The law looks at the facts. Whether you are hosting as a business depends on what you actually do — for example, letting space regularly to make money — not only on what you tell us.
3.9What guests see, and when.
3.10When your home can take bookings. Only once all three are done: Stripe has verified your account and allows it to take payments and pay out (3.2); Stripe holds your statement name (3.6); and your contact details have both your first and last name (3.7). Until then no guest can book it.
4.1Your share. Your share of a booking is your price — the accommodation and the cleaning fee — less anything refunded to the guest. What reaches your bank is your share less Stripe's payout fee (section 2).
4.2Before your share is released. The guest's payment is made to your Stripe account when their card is charged (Part 2, section 7), so it shows on your Stripe balance. Until your share is released, it is not paid out to you, and we may refund the guest from it under these terms.
4.3When your share is released. Whichever comes first:
The check-in time is the one agreed on the booking, or the one on your listing; if your listing has a flexible check-in and no time was agreed, it is 15:00 on the arrival date, UK time.
4.4Only the guest can confirm check-in. Neither you nor we can do it for them. You must not ask a guest to confirm before they have arrived and been able to get in, or make anything depend on their confirming.
4.5What stops your share being released. It is not released while a request to cancel, a request for new dates, or a dispute is open on the booking. Once that ends with the booking going ahead, your share is released as 4.3 says — if the 24 hours have already passed, at our next daily run. If the booking is cancelled instead, your share is what the cancellation leaves you (sections 5 to 7), and it is released when the cancellation is settled — which may be before the dates of the stay.
4.6Your share is then paid to your bank automatically. You do not need to ask. We pay it out at our first daily run once it has been released and Stripe allows it to be paid out (4.7), and we tell you when the payout has started, with the amount and Stripe's payout fee. Each booking is paid out on its own.
4.7Stripe's own wait comes on top. Stripe makes new money available for paying out about 7 days after the guest's card is charged, and we cannot pay out anything before Stripe allows it. Most guests' cards are charged well before check-in, so this makes no difference. But if a guest's card is charged close to check-in, your share reaches your bank about a week after the charge, not a day or so after check-in, plus the time your bank takes.
Example: a guest's card is charged on 2 June and they check in on 5 June. Your share is released on 6 June (or on 5 June, if the guest confirms check-in). Stripe makes the money available around 9 June, so we pay it out at our first daily run after that.
How long your bank then takes to receive a payout is up to Stripe and your bank, not us.
4.8Other things that make a payout wait.
4.9The longest your share waits because of us. Stripe's wait (4.7) and a problem with your Stripe account (4.8) are outside our control. Otherwise:
If we keep your share longer than these terms allow, tell us (Part 1, section 15). Nothing in these terms stops you claiming money we owe you, or going to court.
5.1You choose how much a guest gets back if they cancel. On your home's "Pricing & Availability" page, under "Cancellation policy", choose "Use platform default" — our default policy, set out in Part 2, section 17.8 — or "Customize" and set your own, in up to four steps. Each step says how many days before check-in it starts, and what share of everything the guest paid comes back from then on.
5.2The limits on your policy.
5.3Your policy applies to everything the guest paid — the accommodation, the cleaning fee and the Travacant fee — in the same share. You keep the same share of your price that the guest does not get back.
Example: on our default policy, a guest who paid £261 (your price £225, the Travacant fee £36) cancels 15 days before check-in. The policy gives 50% back: the guest gets £130.50; you keep £112.50, less Stripe's payout fee (section 2.4); we keep £18.00 of our fee.
5.4Guests see your policy before they pay — on your listing, and again at the payment step (Part 2, section 17.1).
5.5Each booking keeps the policy it was booked under. When a booking is confirmed, we keep a copy of your policy as it stands at that moment — or of our default policy, if you use it. Every refund on that booking, and the date the guest's card is charged, follow that copy. You may change your policy at any time. The change reaches only bookings confirmed after you save it. It does not change a booking already made, whether the change is more generous or less.
5.6If we change our default policy, or the limits in 5.2, we tell you first, as Part 1, section 13 says, and the change reaches only bookings confirmed after it takes effect.
5.7The free-cancellation periods come first. Each person on a booking has their own, set by their own status when the booking is confirmed: 24 hours, or 48 hours for a travacanter (Part 2, section 6.3).
Both periods end early if the stay is close — at the latest at the start of the day the guest's check-in details are released, or, if you do not send check-in details through Travacant, at check-in (Part 2, section 16.2).
5.8When your policy decides the refund. It decides what the guest gets back when they cancel without a valid reason and take your policy (Part 2, section 19.4), and it is the least the guest gets back when we decide a cancellation or a dispute (section 7.3). It does not apply when you cancel: then the guest gets back everything (section 6).
5.9The day the guest asks decides. We count whole days on the UK calendar from the day the guest asked to cancel, or opened a dispute, to the check-in date. How long anyone then takes to answer does not change it.
5.10When the guest's card is charged depends on your policy (Part 2, section 7 has every case):
The guest's payment reaches your Stripe balance when it is charged (section 4.2).
5.11If a guest cancels while their card is only saved — nothing yet set aside or charged on it — nothing is taken from it, even where your policy would have kept part of the payment. Because the card is charged no later than the point at which your policy starts keeping money (5.10), this can happen only in a short gap: a booking made more than 30 days ahead but close to or after that point, cancelled after the guest's free-cancellation period ends and before our next daily payment run (Part 2, section 7.4).
6.1If you cancel, your guest gets back everything they paid — the accommodation, the cleaning fee and the Travacant fee — or, if nothing has been taken from their card yet, nothing is taken. That is so whatever your cancellation policy says, and however close to check-in it is. You receive nothing for that booking.
6.2We charge you nothing else for cancelling. There is no cancellation fee, and we take nothing from your other bookings or later payouts because you cancelled. The Travacant fee given back to the guest comes out of our fee, not from you (section 2.3).
6.3In your own free-cancellation period (section 5.7), you can choose "Cancel free" on the booking's page. The booking is cancelled straight away and it does not earn a strike. Your guest gets back everything they paid — or, if nothing has been taken from their card yet, nothing is taken (section 6.1). Because your period can last longer than the guest's, their card may already have been charged when you cancel.
6.4After that, you ask to cancel, by choosing "Cancel booking" on the booking's page, and you can offer the guest only two things: everything back, or new dates. You cannot offer part of their money back. The guest has 48 hours to accept, decline, or propose everything back or new dates themselves. You can keep writing to each other throughout.
6.5How your request ends.
6.6Strikes. A cancellation you ask for inside the cancellation window — which starts at your policy's earliest step: 30 days before check-in on our default policy, and never more than 60 — earns a strike if it ends with the standard policy or with our decision, unless you cancelled for a valid reason we accept (6.8). A strike does not depend on the money. Cancelling in your own free-cancellation period, before the window opens, or with the guest's agreement does not earn one. Strikes, appeals and what three strikes can lead to are in Part 1, section 10.
A cancellation that can earn a strike also counts in the cancellation rate shown on your listing. That rate counts every booking you have hosted on Travacant — your whole history, not a recent period — so a cancellation does not drop out of it after a time; a strike removed on appeal stops counting (Part 1, section 7.6).
6.7The nights are closed on your calendar. When you cancel a booking, its nights are closed on your calendar, and you cannot reopen them: nobody can book them again. There are two exceptions — if you cancelled in your own free-cancellation period (5.7), or for a valid reason we accepted (6.8), you can reopen them whenever you like. This affects only that booking's nights; nothing else about your home is restricted. We tell you which applies when it happens. A guest's cancellation does not close the nights.
6.8Cancelling for a valid reason. If you must cancel for one of the valid reasons in Part 2, section 18 — for example, you are seriously ill or injured, or the home has become unavailable or unfit to stay in — choose that reason when you cancel and add your evidence. That opens a dispute (section 7). Your guest still gets back everything they paid. What we decide is whether your evidence supports your reason: if it does, you get no strike and you can reopen the nights.
6.9Once you have been paid, a booking can no longer be cancelled on the site. After your share is released (section 4.3), neither you nor the guest can cancel it or open a dispute on it there. If you try, the site says: "You’ve been paid for this stay, so it can’t be cancelled or refunded through the site any more. If something went wrong, email us at hello@travacant.com."
6.10Your guest's rights against you. Apart from the full refund, we charge you nothing for cancelling. But your guest's agreement for the stay is with you (section 1.3), and your guest's legal rights against you — for example, to claim the extra cost of finding somewhere else to stay — are not affected by these terms (Part 2, section 22.9).
7.1When we decide. As your agent (section 1.1), we decide on your behalf how the money paid for a booking is used in two cases (Part 1, section 9.2):
Separately, we may cancel a stay ourselves in the one case Part 1, section 12.4 describes.
7.2How we decide. A person at Travacant decides every one; none is decided automatically. We look at the evidence each of you gives us and at the booking's messages, and we apply the cancellation policy that booking keeps (section 5.5), the valid reasons in Part 2, section 18, and these terms. We decide by those rules, not simply in your favour (section 1.5). Any refund comes out of the money paid for that booking — from your share, and from our fee in the same share — and from nothing else of yours.
7.3The least and the most your guest gets back.
7.4When we give the guest more than your policy. We give the guest more than the policy only where what we find supports it, considering:
Example: on our default policy, a guest who paid £261 (your price £225) opens a dispute 25 days before check-in. The policy gives 80% back — £208.80 — so we can decide anything from £208.80 to £261.00. At £208.80 you keep £45.00; at £261.00 you keep nothing; at £230.00 the guest gets back about 88% of what they paid, so you give back the same share of your price and keep £26.72. Stripe's payout fee comes off what you keep (section 2.4).
7.5Evidence, and when we decide a dispute. For 48 hours after a dispute is opened, you and the guest can each add evidence on the booking's page. Each of you can see what the other adds, except a sick note or other note or letter from a doctor or hospital, or a document about a bereavement: only we see those — yours as well as the guest's (Part 2, sections 18.3 and 21.4). If you opened the dispute, you can withdraw it during those 48 hours, and the booking then carries on as normal (Part 2, section 21.6). We do not decide a dispute before its 48 hours end, unless the stay has already started or starts before they end.
7.6What our decision means for you.
7.7We tell you both what we decided and why (Part 1, section 9.5). We decide within 2 days after the matter comes to us, or after the evidence window closes if it is a dispute; if we cannot, we tell you both why and the new date (Part 1, section 9.6).
7.8What our decision does, and does not do. Our decision settles how the money paid for that booking is used, and you agree that we may act on it for you — refunding the guest from your share as we decided. It does not take away your legal rights. You can still take the guest to court about the stay, challenge our decision in court, or complain to us (Part 1, sections 9.7 and 15).
7.9After you have been paid. Once your share is released (section 4.3), a guest can no longer cancel or open a dispute on the site, and is pointed to us by email (Part 2, section 23). Nothing in these terms lets us refund a guest out of money already released to you, unless you agree to it at the time. If a guest complains to us after that, we may ask you about it. A guest's bank can still reverse a payment: section 8 explains what happens then.
8.1What a chargeback is. A guest's bank can reverse a card payment when the cardholder asks it to — a chargeback. Because guests pay into your Stripe account (section 3), Stripe takes the amount reversed, and a fee of its own for the chargeback, from your Stripe balance as soon as the bank starts it. If the bank later decides in your favour, Stripe gives the amount back, but not its fee.
8.2We deal with chargebacks for you. Within 5 working days of Stripe telling us about a chargeback on a booking of your home, we record the reason the guest's bank gives, tell you which of 8.4 and 8.5 applies, and make any payment to you that is due at that point. We decide whether to answer the bank, and if we do, we send Stripe the evidence. You must give us any information about the booking or the stay that we reasonably ask for, in time for us to answer the bank.
8.3Who bears a chargeback depends on the reason the guest's bank gives, as Stripe reports it to us when we deal with it. We record that reason; we do not judge it.
8.4"I didn't make this payment" or "I don't recognise it." If the bank's reason is that the cardholder did not make or authorise the payment, or does not recognise it, that chargeback is ours, win or lose, and you owe nothing for it.
Example (Stripe's payout fee left out to keep it simple): a guest paid £100 — £84 for you, £16 our fee. The bank reverses the £100, and Stripe takes that and its fee (£20 in Stripe's test mode) from your balance: £120. We pay £120 into your balance. If the bank later decides in our favour and gives back £100, we take that £100 back. Either way you keep your £84.
8.5Any other reason — for example, that the stay was not provided or was not as described, or that the guest cancelled and says they were not refunded. That chargeback is yours, as a refund would be — but you never lose more than you were paid, or would have been paid, for that booking:
| £100 booking: £84 yours, £16 our fee; Stripe's fee £20 (test mode) | The bank decides for the guest | The bank decides for you |
|---|---|---|
| Taken from your Stripe balance when the chargeback starts | £120 | £120 |
| Given back by the bank | — | £100 |
| Paid back to you by us | £36 — Stripe's £20 fee and our £16 | £20 — Stripe's fee |
| What you lose | £84 — your share of that booking | nothing |
Your own rights against the guest are not affected.
8.6If the chargeback comes before you have been paid for that booking, your payout for it waits (section 4.8):
8.7If your Stripe balance does not hold enough. What Stripe takes can leave your Stripe balance below zero. Under 8.5, what you owe is due at once: there is no time to pay, no interest and no fee. Stripe takes it from money later paid into your Stripe account, including guests' payments for your later bookings, and while your balance is below zero, nothing can be paid out to your bank. If Stripe cannot recover it and we pay it instead, you owe it to us, on the same basis.
8.88.4 does not apply to a payment that you made, arranged, or knew was made without the cardholder's authority. Such a chargeback is yours under 8.5, and Part 1, section 11 applies.
8.9How we pay you. Every payment we make to you under this section comes from our own Stripe balance into your Stripe account. It is never paid from another host's money, and no fee — the Travacant fee included — pays for it.
9.1You can unpublish your home at any time, from your dashboard. It then stops appearing to guests and takes no new bookings. Bookings already made are not cancelled — they go ahead, and we keep acting for you on them (section 1.7). You can publish it again later.
9.2A home that has ever had a confirmed booking cannot be deleted — even if that booking was later cancelled, and even after every stay has ended. Nor can a home on which a guest's payment was ever started. Unpublish it instead. We keep it because its bookings are the record of what guests paid and what was refunded, for you, for your guests and for us.
9.3A home with no such booking can be deleted from your dashboard — but not while a request for it is waiting for your answer or for the guest's payment. Deleting it cannot be undone. It removes the home, its rooms, its calendar, its photos, and the enquiries and declined or expired requests for it. It does not delete a guest's conversation with you about it: the guest keeps it, it shows the listing as unavailable, and no new messages can be sent in it.
9.4What we keep of a home you cannot delete, and for how long, is in our privacy notice. If your account is closed, we keep such a home for 6 years from its last stay, and then delete it. While it is unpublished, guests looking for a stay cannot see it.
9.5How you stop hosting. You can stop at any time, at no cost: unpublish your home (9.1), delete it if 9.3 allows, and, if you wish, close your account (Part 1, section 4.4). Bookings already confirmed are not ended by any of these — they go ahead, and we keep acting for you on each until it is finished, unless it is cancelled in the usual way (section 1.7; section 6).
10.1Part 1 applies to you as it does to everyone: strikes and appeals (Part 1, section 10), pausing, blocking and banning an account (section 11), your bookings while blocked (section 12) and changes to these terms (section 13). This section adds only what is particular to hosts.
10.2Everything we can do to limit you as a host is in these terms, and we do it only on the grounds they state:
10.3We tell you why, when it takes effect. When we pause, block or ban your account, or unpublish your home under 10.2(b), we email you at the time it takes effect, saying which ground applies and the facts it rests on (Part 1, sections 11.4 and 11.7).
10.4Your home while your account is paused, blocked or banned.
10.5Unpublishing a home without restricting your account. If we find that your listing is seriously untrue — for example, the photos are not of your home, or it describes rooms or facilities that do not exist — or that letting your home through Travacant would break the law, we may unpublish it until you have put it right, instead of pausing or blocking your account. We tell you why, as 10.3 says, and what would put it right. Your confirmed stays are not affected by this alone.
10.6Ending the whole service for you: 30 days' notice, or none on the grounds in Part 1, section 11.9. Before we end your account for good, we give you at least 30 days' notice by email — except on the grounds Part 1, section 11.9 lists, where the end takes effect straight away. Either way, we tell you why. During any notice, your account stays blocked and your home unpublished (10.4). Ending your account does not end your confirmed bookings: they go ahead unless Part 1, section 12.4 applies, and we keep acting for you on each until it is finished (section 1.7).
10.7If we decide we were wrong. If you challenge a restriction, we answer within 7 days (Part 1, section 11.8). If we decide it should not have been made, we lift it straight away and tell you, and you can publish your home again at once.
10.8Changes to these terms. We give you at least 15 days' notice by email of any change (Part 1, section 13.2) — longer if you need more time to adapt to it, for example to change your prices or your cancellation policy. A change never reaches a booking already confirmed (Part 1, section 13.4; section 5.5). If you do not want to host under the changed terms, you can stop at no cost before the change takes effect (9.5).
11.1Each booking keeps a copy of who hosted it: your full name as it was in your contact details at that moment (section 3.7), that you host as a private person, and your statement name (section 3.6). The copy is taken when the booking is confirmed. Nobody can change it afterwards — not you, and not us — and it stays as it was if you later change your contact details.
11.2Why we keep it: so that you, your guest and we can show who the guest's booking was with.
11.3Who can see it: the booking's guest, you, and the people at Travacant who deal with bookings.
11.4How long we keep it: 6 years from the end of the stay, and then we delete it.
11.5What we keep after you stop hosting. If you unpublish or delete your home, or your account is closed or ended, we keep the records of your bookings — including the copy in 11.1 — and any home that cannot be deleted (section 9.2). You can ask us at [CONTACT EMAIL] for a copy of the records of your bookings at any time, including after your account has ended. How long we keep everything else, and your rights over your personal information, are in our privacy notice.
12.1Where your home appears. Once it is published and has a price, your home appears in the list of homes on Travacant's home page, and on its own page on Travacant. We do not put it on any other website or app, and we have no affiliate scheme. Its page is public, so search engines may show it and anyone may share a link to it.
12.2Which homes a guest sees. A guest sees only homes that match what they ask for:
12.3The order homes are shown in. A guest can sort homes by total price, lowest or highest first. The price used is the all-in price on each home's card — your price for your shortest stay, with cleaning and that guest's Travacant fee (Part 2, sections 5 and 6). If the guest does not choose to sort by price, we do not rank homes at all: they are shown in no deliberate order, and the order can change. Nothing else decides where a home appears — not its ratings or cancellation rate, how often it is favourited or booked, when it was listed, or who its host is. We do it this way so that what a guest sees depends only on what that guest asks for.
12.4Nobody can pay for a better place. Nothing you or anyone else pays us — the Travacant fee included — changes where a home appears.
12.5Every host is treated alike. We give no home better treatment — in where it appears, in fees or in these terms — because of who owns it, including any home that we, or someone connected with us, may list.
12.6Your photos and descriptions stay yours. You give us permission, free of charge, to show, copy, resize and store what you upload about your home, and to use it on Travacant, so that we can advertise your home and take bookings for you. That is all it allows. It does not let us use your photos or your home's description in our own adverts or in other material about Travacant, and we do not use your photos, or reviews of your home, in our adverts. The permission lasts while your home is on Travacant and for as long as we keep it under section 9.4 or 11.5; it does not stop you using your own content anywhere else. You must have the right to everything you upload — for example, photos you took or have permission to use — and it must not break anyone else's rights. Posts and comments you make where anyone on Travacant can see them are dealt with in Part 1, section 4.5.
12.7You are free to offer your home elsewhere — on other websites, or directly — at any price and on any terms. We do not restrict it. You must keep your Travacant calendar right, so that nights booked elsewhere are not booked here too (section 1.3). A stay booked on Travacant is paid only through Travacant (Part 1, section 6.2).
12.8Information about your bookings. What information about your bookings and your guests you can see, what we can see, and what we share with others — Stripe included (section 3.3) — is set out in our privacy notice. In particular, from when a guest asks to book or reserves your home (Part 2, section 3.8):
What we collect, why, who sees it, how long we keep it and your rights.
In short: Travacant is run by [TRADING ENTITY], which is responsible for your personal information. Email us at [CONTACT EMAIL] about anything in this notice.
1.1Travacant is a website, travacant.com, where people find homes to stay in and host guests in their own homes. When it is open, Buddy Up is the part of Travacant where people find other travellers to share a trip with; it is closed at launch. It is run by [TRADING ENTITY]. In this notice "we", "us" and "our" mean [TRADING ENTITY].
Travacant is the trading name of [FULL LEGAL NAME], of [ADDRESS FOR SERVICE].
1.2We are the "controller" of your personal information. That means we decide why and how it is used, and we are responsible for it under UK data protection law (the UK General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018). Section 4 explains the few cases where another organisation — Stripe, or a host — makes its own decisions about information it receives.
1.3How to contact us. Email [CONTACT EMAIL], or write to [REGISTERED ADDRESS]. Use the same address for anything about your personal information, including the rights in section 7.
1.4We are registered with the Information Commission (until 30 September 2026, the Information Commissioner's Office), the UK's data protection regulator, under registration number [ICO REGISTRATION NUMBER].
1.5This notice covers travacant.com. It does not cover Stripe's own pages and forms (Stripe's privacy policy does — section 4.3), or any other website you follow a link to, such as a place a Buddy Up member links to.
1.6How this notice is laid out. Each section starts with a short summary. The detail follows it. Section 5 is written mainly for hosts, but guests may find it useful too.
In short: what you give us when you sign up, fill in your profile, verify your identity, book or host (or use Buddy Up, when it is open); what other people say to or about you on Travacant; and what Stripe and Google tell us. We do not use analytics or advertising trackers, and we never see your full card number.
Buddy Up is closed at launch. If it is open and you use it, we collect what is listed below. We still hold what members gave us while it was open, and section 6.3 says how long we keep it.
Before you can book or host — or post a Buddy Up trip, if Buddy Up is open — we ask you to verify your identity. You upload a photo of a passport, driving licence or national identity card, and a selfie.
We ask for your gender before you can book or host — and before you post a Buddy Up trip, if Buddy Up is open. You can choose Female, Male, Non-binary, Other, or Prefer not to say.
In short: mostly to provide the service you signed up for. Some things the law requires, such as showing guests who their host is. Some things we do because we have a good reason that does not override your rights — keeping people safe, stopping fraud, letting people see who cancels late, showing guests and hosts each other's profiles before a booking, showing hosts and guests each other's gender, and using posts and comments people make publicly on Travacant in our adverts — and you can object to those. We never use your photos, ratings or reviews in our adverts. We do not rely on your consent for anything, and we send no marketing emails.
3.1The law only lets us use personal information when one of a few reasons applies. We rely on three:
3.2What we do, with what, and why the law allows it.
| What we do | Information used | Why the law allows it |
|---|---|---|
| Run your account and sign you in | sign-in details, profile | contract |
| Make sure everyone using Travacant is 18 or over | date of birth | contract — our Terms are only for adults |
| Check your identity before you book or host (or post a Buddy Up trip, if it is open) | identity documents (2.5) | legitimate interests: people stay in, host in and share each other's homes, so each needs to know the other is a real person who is who they say; and to stop fake accounts and fraud |
| Record which version of our terms you agreed to, and when | that record (2.1) | legitimate interests: being able to show later which terms applied, including if either of us makes a legal claim |
| Show each side the other's profile before any booking — a host's to anyone looking at their home, a guest's to a host they contact, or who starts a conversation with them after they save the host's home: first name, photo, verified or not, when they joined, completed stays, rating, cancellation rate and "About you" (4.4) | profile, ratings, cancellation rate | legitimate interests: someone staying in another person's home, or welcoming a stranger into theirs, can see who they are dealing with, and how reliable they have been, before they commit. A host sees a guest's profile only once that guest has contacted them, or once the host starts a conversation after the guest saved their home — the save button says so. The photo and "About you" are optional |
| Ask your gender before you book or host, and show it: a host's to guests on their profile; a guest's to the host before they decide only on a home with a women-only or men-only preference, otherwise once the host accepts (2.6) | gender | legitimate interests: someone staying in another person's home, or welcoming a stranger into theirs, can know who they will be sharing it with — for many people, part of feeling safe and comfortable — and, on a women-only or men-only home, the host needs it to decide. You choose the answer, "Prefer not to say" included, and we never use it ourselves to decide anything |
| Arrange and run bookings — enquiries, requests, offers, confirmations, arrival details, changes of date | bookings, messages, listings | contract — with the guest; and with the host, who appoints us to take bookings (Terms, Part 3) |
| Answer what you send us from the contact page, and keep a record of it | the enquiry (2.1); your account's email address | contract where it is about your account or a booking; legal obligation where you use it to exercise your data protection rights or complain about how we use your information (UK GDPR Art. 12; Data Protection Act 2018 s.164A); otherwise legitimate interests: answering people who contact us, and being able to show later what was asked and answered |
| Take payments, make refunds and pay hosts, through Stripe | payment references; your email address (to Stripe) | contract |
| Keep a host's full name, let a guest with an enquiry or booking on the home read it, and keep a copy of it on each booking | the name, and the copy | legitimate interests: the guest's agreement for the stay is with the host, so they are entitled to know who that is; and being able to show later who a booking was with — including if either of them makes a legal claim |
| Put a host's first name (or, where it cannot be printed, a name they give) on guests' card statements and on the host's Stripe account as its business name, and our own contact details on that account | statement name — from the first name | contract — with the host |
| Send you messages, notifications and emails about your account, bookings, trips and listings | your email address; what the message is about | contract |
| Warn you about a sign-in from a new device | IP address, device description | legitimate interests: keeping your account secure |
| Handle requests to cancel or change dates, disputes and complaints, and decide them under our Terms | bookings, messages, your reasons and evidence | contract; for health information and police references, also section 3.4 |
| Record cancellation strikes; show booking cancellation rates; handle appeals and reports; pause, block or ban accounts | strikes, appeals, reports, our records about your account | legitimate interests: keeping Travacant safe and reliable, enforcing our Terms, and letting people see how often someone has cancelled late before they rely on them |
| Publish ratings | ratings | legitimate interests: helping people choose who to book or travel with, from genuine experiences |
| Tell a host when you save their home or add dates to it, and open a conversation with them | when you only save a home, nothing that names you ("A guest") — but the host may then start a conversation with you, and sees your profile there, as the save button says; when you add dates, your first name and the dates | legitimate interests: letting a host offer you those dates |
| Use posts and comments you make where anyone on Travacant can see them in our adverts and other material about Travacant — never your photos, ratings or reviews (3.7) | the words of the post or comment; at most your first name or nickname with them | legitimate interests: showing people what Travacant is like through what its members choose to say publicly on it. You can stop it at any time, and we will (3.7) |
| If Buddy Up is open, run it — show trips and members' profiles to members, and apply women-only and men-only trips | trip posts; name or nickname, photo, age, gender, interests | contract — the Buddy Up service in our Terms, Part 4 |
| Record which person at Travacant decided what, when and why | our decision records | legitimate interests: being able to show how and why each decision about you was made, answer complaints, and defend legal claims |
| Deal with a chargeback — a guest's bank reversing a payment | the chargeback, the booking, its messages | legitimate interests: defending claims against us and our hosts |
| Show roughly where homes are on a map | the home's postcode, turned into a point within about 1 km | legitimate interests: guests can see the area without the address being revealed |
| Keep the business and tax records the law requires | bookings, payments, refunds, payouts | legal obligation: the tax rules on keeping business records, for the periods in section 6.2 |
| Answer the police, a court or a regulator, or deal with a legal claim | what is needed | legal obligation where a law requires us to; otherwise legitimate interests in preventing crime and defending legal claims |
| Keep the site secure and working | technical records of visits and errors | legitimate interests: keeping the site secure and working, and finding and fixing faults |
3.3Where we rely on legitimate interests, you can object (section 7). We will then stop, unless our reasons are compelling enough to outweigh yours, or we need the information for a legal claim. You can ask us for our assessment of any legitimate interest named above.
The law gives extra protection to some kinds of information — including anything about your health — and to information about crimes.
3.5Consent and marketing. We do not rely on your consent for anything at present. We send no marketing emails — every email we send is about your account, a booking, a trip or a listing. If we ever want to send you marketing, we will ask you first, separately, and you will be able to say no or change your mind at any time.
3.6If we want to use your information for a new purpose, we will update this notice and tell you before we start.
We never use your photos — including a photo in a post — or your ratings and reviews in our adverts.
In short: companies that run the site for us; Stripe, which handles every payment; the other people on a booking or a trip, who see what they need; and the police, courts or regulators where the law requires. We never sell your information, and we never give it to advertisers to target you. The only personal information that can appear in our adverts is a public post or comment, as section 3.7 explains. The table in 4.4 shows exactly what other users can see, and when.
We do not sell personal information. We do not give it to advertising companies, or use it to target adverts at you or anyone else. The one exception is section 3.7: a post or comment you made publicly on Travacant may appear in an advert of ours, and the website or service that shows the advert then shows it too.
They use your information only on our instructions, to provide their service to us.
| Company | What it does for us | What it handles |
|---|---|---|
| Supabase | our database, our sign-in system and our file storage | everything in section 2 |
| Vercel | hosts the website and runs our daily jobs | every visit to the site passes through it, including your IP address |
| Resend | sends our emails | your email address and what the email says — which may include booking details, and, for a new-device warning, the IP address |
Stripe handles every payment and payout. It uses some information for its own purposes as well — for example to prevent fraud and to meet its own legal duties — and for those it is responsible itself, under Stripe's privacy policy: https://stripe.com/privacy.
| Who | What they can see | When |
|---|---|---|
| Anyone, signed in or not, on a home's page | the host's profile: their first name — never their surname or a nickname; their profile photo and gender; whether their identity is verified, the month they joined, how many stays they have completed, and their "About you"; their star rating and number of ratings, and booking cancellation rate over every booking they have had; whether they host privately or as a business; the home's description, photos, town or city, rules and prices, any women-only or men-only preference, and its position on a map — a random point within about 1 km of the home, not the address | while the home is published |
| Anyone | ratings, once revealed — the stars and the comment | when both people have rated, or 14 days after the first rating |
| Anyone who has the web address | your profile photo and any photos on your Buddy Up trips. A profile photo you replace stays at its old address | from upload |
| A host, when you message them about their home, or when they start a conversation with you after you save it | your profile: your first name (or, if we have none, "Guest" followed by four characters), your profile photo, whether your identity is verified, the month you joined, how many stays you have completed, your star rating and number of ratings, your booking cancellation rate as a guest, and your "About you"; your gender only if the home has a women-only or men-only preference (2.6); your messages; and the dates, number of guests and price you ask about. Never your surname, email address, phone number, date of birth, age or identity documents | from your first message, for as long as the conversation exists |
| A host, when you ask to book their home or reserve it | also your first name with your booking and in reviews after your stay; your gender once they accept your request, or once a "Reserve now" booking is confirmed, if they could not see it already (2.6); and your booking cancellation rate as a guest, over every booking you have had, in their request box. Never your surname, email address, phone number, date of birth, age or identity documents | from your request or reservation, for as long as the booking exists |
| A host, when you save their home | that you saved it — with your first name if you signed in with Google, otherwise "A guest"; and, if you add dates, those dates, and a conversation with the host is opened. Through our database interface the host can also read the first word of your name with your dates, but never your email address or surname | when you save it, and when you first add dates |
| A guest, from their first enquiry about a home | the host's full name (2.3) and their statement name — not shown on the site, but readable through our database interface. Each booking keeps a copy of who hosted it | from an enquiry onwards, for as long as that guest has an enquiry or booking on the home |
| A guest with a confirmed booking | the home's full address and arrival details — the arrival guide, the Wi-Fi name and password, house manuals, and where any cameras or weapons are. Nobody else can read them, apart from the host | from the number of days before check-in that the host chooses (3 by default) until the day after check-out |
| Both people on a booking | each other's requests to cancel or to change dates, and the evidence files the other adds — except a sick note, any other note or letter from a doctor or hospital, or a document about a bereavement, which only the people at Travacant who decide can see (3.4) | while the booking exists |
| Both people on a booking | each other's ratings | when both have rated, or 14 days after the first |
| Travel companions a guest adds to a booking's conversation | the conversation and the booking dates — not the price | while they are in it |
| Any signed-in member, on Buddy Up, while it is open | for a trip's organiser: name or nickname, photo, age, gender, interests and introduction, and the trip. For each member of a group still taking members: first name (or nickname), photo, age, gender, ratings and booking cancellation rate | while the trip is open or full |
| Members of a Buddy Up group | the group's messages | while they are members |
A host receives your information to host your stay, and is responsible under data protection law for how they use it. They must use it only for your stay.
The people who run Travacant can see what they need to do their job: identity documents until they are reviewed; evidence in disputes; reports and appeals; payment and payout records; and, through our database, anything else we store — messages included — when it is needed for a dispute, a report, a complaint, a legal claim or a request from you. The site has no screen for reading people's messages. Every decision a person at Travacant makes about you is recorded with their name.
We share information with the police, a court, HMRC, the Information Commissioner or another authority when the law requires us to, and where it is needed to bring or defend a legal claim.
If Travacant's business is moved to a company or to someone else, your information moves with it, and this notice continues to apply until you are told otherwise.
In short: this section is mainly for hosts. A host sees what they need to decide on a request and host the stay. A guest sees who the host is before booking, and the address shortly before arriving. The people who run Travacant can see everything we hold, and use it only to run Travacant. Apart from the companies in section 4 that run the site and take payments, nobody receives it. That includes Stripe, which keeps each payment on the host's own Stripe account. Hosts get no combined information about other users. Our Terms for hosts point here (Part 3, section 12.8).
Section 4.4 sets out what a host sees, and when. In short:
The people who run Travacant can see all of the information above, and everything else in section 2, as section 4.5 describes. We use it only for the purposes in section 3. Those are: running bookings and payments, deciding cancellations and disputes under our Terms, keeping Travacant safe, and keeping the records the law requires. We do not sell anyone's information, and we do not use booking information in our adverts. The only personal information that can appear in an advert of ours is a public post or comment (3.7).
A host gets no combined information about other hosts or guests. There are no statistics on searches, visits or bookings across Travacant. What a host can see about other homes is what anyone can see on their pages, including how many people have saved each one.
In short: identity documents are deleted as soon as a person at Travacant has checked them, or after 7 days if nobody has. For a few kinds of record we have set a period, and those are listed below. Most of what you see on the site — your account, your bookings, your messages and reviews — we keep for as long as your account is open. When you close it, we delete your profile, and keep the records of your bookings for 6 years from the end of the stay, without your name and contact details (6.4). Apart from identity documents, nothing is deleted automatically yet: when a period ends, a person deletes the information.
We keep only the result (approved or rejected), the type of document and the date, for as long as your account is open.
Nothing else is deleted automatically.
| Record | How long | From when |
|---|---|---|
| Evidence for a cancellation or dispute — your reasons, and the photos and documents you or the other person upload | 6½ years | the decision on that cancellation or dispute |
| Your appeal against a strike or a review, with any files you add | 2 years — or 6½ years if your account was banned | the decision on the appeal — or the ban |
| Our record of each decision a person at Travacant made about you — who decided, what, when and why | 7 years | the decision |
| The copy, kept on each booking, of who hosted it (section 4.4) | 6 years | the end of the stay |
| Enquiries from the contact page, and our email replies | 2 years — or, if one becomes part of a dispute, a complaint about a booking or a legal claim, as long as that booking's records | when you send it |
| Bookings, payments, refunds, payouts and the Travacant fee — the business and tax records the law requires | As the law requires. If Travacant is run by a company: 6 years. If it is run by one person as a sole trader: at least 5 years after the 31 January deadline for the tax return of the tax year they belong to. Section 1 says which Travacant is. | for a company, the end of the financial year they belong to; for a sole trader, as stated |
We keep a record longer than the table says only where the law requires it, or where it is needed for a legal claim that has been made or is likely — for example, an unresolved dispute or chargeback.
We keep the following while your account is open. Section 6.4 says what happens to each when you close it.
You close your account by emailing us (section 7). There is no button for it on the site.
If you still have a booking to come, or a cancellation, dispute or payment that is not finished, that booking carries on under our Terms until it ends (Terms, Part 1, section 4.4). We finish closing your account once it has.
What we delete. Your profile — your name, nickname, email address, phone number, photos, date of birth, gender, interests and settings, and the result of your identity check (our record of that decision is kept, section 6.2) — your sign-in records, your saved homes and your notifications. If you host, we also delete your "who you are" details, the messages you scheduled, and any home that has never had a confirmed booking or a payment (its guests keep their conversations about it, as section 5.6 says). Anything else we hold about you that is not listed below is deleted too.
What we keep, and for how long.
Done by a person. At launch, a person at Travacant closes accounts by hand, following a written checklist. Nothing on the site does it automatically yet.
In short: you can ask us for a copy of your information, ask us to correct it or delete it, ask us to limit how we use it, object to how we use it, and ask for the information you gave us in a form you can take elsewhere. Email [CONTACT EMAIL]. It is free, and we reply within one month.
You can object at any time to anything we do because we have a "legitimate reason" — each one is marked "legitimate interests" in section 3.2. That includes the identity check, cancellation strikes and booking cancellation rates, ratings, showing your gender to the other person on a booking, using your posts and comments in our adverts, our decision records, and sign-in warnings. Tell us why, in your own situation, you object. We will then stop, unless we can show reasons that outweigh yours, or we need the information for a legal claim. If we decide to carry on, we will tell you why. Some of these are how Travacant keeps people safe — the identity check is the main one — and if we carry on and you still do not agree, you can complain (section 12) or close your account.
For your posts and comments in our adverts, we always stop when you ask, and you do not need to give a reason (section 3.7). For your gender, you can also change your answer to "Prefer not to say" in your profile at any time, and that is what the other person will then see (section 2.6).
We do not rely on your consent for anything (section 3.5), so there is no consent to withdraw.
In short: our database is kept in Switzerland. The servers that run our website, and our email provider, are in the United States, and Stripe also handles information in the United States and India. The UK recognises Switzerland's data protection law as adequate. For the other countries, each company is bound by safeguards UK law approves. You can ask us for a copy of any of them.
| Company | Where it handles your information | The safeguard |
|---|---|---|
| Supabase — our database, sign-in and file storage | Stored in Zurich, Switzerland. Supabase is a Singapore company, and it and its own suppliers may reach the information from other countries to run and support the service | Switzerland: the UK treats it as adequate. Anywhere else: the UK Addendum to the EU standard contractual clauses, which is part of Supabase's data processing agreement |
| Vercel — runs our website | The United States (Washington, D.C.), where our website's code runs unless we choose another region. Pages and images are also delivered from servers near you | Vercel is certified under the UK Extension to the EU–US Data Privacy Framework (the "UK–US data bridge"), which the UK treats as adequate for certified companies. |
| Resend — sends our emails | The United States | The UK–US data bridge (Resend is certified), and the UK Addendum to the EU standard contractual clauses in Resend's data processing agreement |
| Stripe — payments and payouts | The United States and India, among others | The UK–US data bridge (Stripe, LLC is certified), and the EU standard contractual clauses with the UK's International Data Transfer Addendum. Stripe explains its own transfers in its privacy policy |
Other services. If you sign in with Google, you deal with Google directly, under Google's privacy policy; we send Google nothing. We have not yet checked in which countries postcodes.io and OpenStreetMap (section 4.6) handle the postcode or your IP address.
To get a copy of a safeguard, email [CONTACT EMAIL]. Each one is also published on the company's own website.
In short: the decisions that matter most — checking your identity, deciding a dispute or a cancellation for a serious reason, pausing, blocking or banning an account — are made by a person at Travacant. One serious decision is made automatically: a booking is cancelled if the guest's card is refused three times. You are warned before it happens, and you can ask a person to look at it. Some smaller things also happen automatically; 9.3 explains them.
What "a person decides" means here. The person looks at the case itself — the evidence, the messages, what happened — before deciding. They do not simply confirm what the system suggests.
A booking is cancelled when the guest's card is refused three times.
We do not think any of these is a decision with a serious effect on you, but we explain them, and you can ask a person to look at any of them by emailing [CONTACT EMAIL].
We do not use your information to build a profile of you for marketing, and we use no tool that predicts how you will behave.
In short: we use a few small files ("cookies") to keep you signed in and to remember whether you are travelling or hosting, and Stripe uses some to stop payment fraud. We use no cookies for analytics or advertising, so we do not ask for your consent and there is no cookie banner.
| Cookie or storage | Who sets it | What it is for | How long it lasts |
|---|---|---|---|
sb-…-auth-token (sometimes split into numbered parts) | us, through our sign-in provider, Supabase | keeps you signed in | up to 400 days, renewed while you use the site; removed when you sign out |
sb-…-auth-token-code-verifier | as above | completes a Google sign-in securely | until that sign-in is finished |
| your browser's local storage, on the password-reset page only | as above | holds the one-time sign-in that lets you set a new password | until you sign out |
nav_mode | us | remembers whether you last chose Travelling, Hosting or Buddy Up, so the right menu shows | 1 year |
__stripe_mid and __stripe_sid | Stripe | prevent payment fraud | 1 year, and 30 minutes |
Where Stripe's code runs. Stripe's script loads on every conversation page and the booking-request page, for signed-in users — not only when you pay. It sends Stripe information about your device and how the page is used, to spot fraud, and it may show a "are you human?" check. Stripe uses this only for fraud prevention and security, and never for advertising.
Other sites. Signing in with Google takes you to Google's site, which uses its own cookies. The map's images come from OpenStreetMap's servers. The "View on map" link opens Google Maps only if you click it.
Why no consent is needed. The law lets a website store information on your device without asking where it is strictly necessary for a service you asked for — including to sign you in, to prevent fraud, and to keep a record of choices you made on the site. Every item above is one of those.
If you would rather not have them: you can block or delete cookies in your browser's settings. Without the sign-in cookies you cannot stay signed in, and without Stripe's you may not be able to pay. Without nav_mode, the site shows the Travelling menu each time.
If this changes. We may later add a tool that measures how the site is used. If we do, we will update this section before it runs, say what it stores on your device and for how long, and give you a simple way to say no — or ask you first, where the law requires that.
In short: Travacant is only for adults. You must be 18 or over to use it. We do not knowingly collect information about anyone under 18.
11.1Before you can book or host — or post a Buddy Up trip, if Buddy Up is open — your profile must show a date of birth that makes you 18 or over, and you must have had an identity document accepted (section 2.5). The site will not save a date of birth that makes you under 18.
11.2What we do not check. No age is asked when you create an account. Someone without a date of birth on their profile, or without an accepted identity document, can still save homes and send a host a message — and, while Buddy Up is open, ask to join or accept an invitation to someone else's trip. The person who checks identity documents is not shown the date of birth on the profile.
11.3If we learn that someone under 18 has an account, we will close it and delete their information, except anything the law requires us to keep. If you think a child is using Travacant, please tell us at [CONTACT EMAIL].
In short: if you are unhappy with how we have used your information, tell us first and we will try to put it right. You can also complain to the UK's data protection regulator, the Information Commission, at any time.
12.1Complaining to us. Email [CONTACT EMAIL] or write to [REGISTERED ADDRESS], and say what went wrong. We will reply to say we have your complaint within 3 days, and send our answer, saying what we decided and why, within 14 days — the same as for any other complaint to Travacant (our Terms, Part 1, section 15).
12.2The Information Commission. On 30 September 2026 the Information Commission took over from the Information Commissioner's Office (the ICO) as the UK's data protection regulator. You can complain to it about how we use your information. It recommends that, in most cases, you raise your concern with us first.
12.3You can also go to court if you think your data protection rights have been broken.
13.1We will update this notice when what we do changes. The date at the top says when it last changed.
13.2Before an important change applies — a new use of your information, a new kind of company receiving it, or a change to how we check identity — we will tell you by email. For a new use, we tell you before we start.
13.3This notice is information, not a contract. You are not asked to agree to it, and nothing we do relies on your agreeing to it (section 3.5). Where you agree to our Terms, we link to this notice, but we do not ask you to agree to it.
13.4Earlier versions. If you would like a copy of an earlier version of this notice, email [CONTACT EMAIL].