Booking and Payment
In case of a Package Tour
Sto Guarantee
Before you go through the procedure about booking and paying, I would like to tel you about the STO Garant Guarantee Scheme. In order to comply with the legally required warranty, The Offroad Guide uses STO Garant. You can check this via the STO Garant participant page www.sto-garant.nl/en/members. All information about STO Garant can be found on www.sto-garant.nl/en.
If you choose to book a package holiday with The Offroad Guide, the STO Garant guarantee applies. In the warranty scheme you can read what the guarantee entails and which conditions apply. You can find this guarantee scheme on the website of STO Garant
www.sto-garant.nl/en/downloads.
In the event that STO Garant's guarantee applies to your booking, you do not pay the travel sum to The Offroad Guide, but to the third-party account of 'Stichting Derdengelden Certo Escrow', a payment service provider registered with De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB)/The Dutch Central Bank and the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM). This foundation for third-party funds guarantees your travel sum until after your trip. If services are not provided (in full and/or on time) due to financial inability of The Offroad Guide, STO Garant will carry out the guarantee. In the guarantee scheme you can read how you can claim this in that case.
Before you go through the procedure about booking and paying, I would like to tel you about the STO Garant Guarantee Scheme. In order to comply with the legally required warranty, The Offroad Guide uses STO Garant. You can check this via the STO Garant participant page www.sto-garant.nl/en/members. All information about STO Garant can be found on www.sto-garant.nl/en.
If you choose to book a package holiday with The Offroad Guide, the STO Garant guarantee applies. In the warranty scheme you can read what the guarantee entails and which conditions apply. You can find this guarantee scheme on the website of STO Garant
www.sto-garant.nl/en/downloads.
In the event that STO Garant's guarantee applies to your booking, you do not pay the travel sum to The Offroad Guide, but to the third-party account of 'Stichting Derdengelden Certo Escrow', a payment service provider registered with De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB)/The Dutch Central Bank and the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM). This foundation for third-party funds guarantees your travel sum until after your trip. If services are not provided (in full and/or on time) due to financial inability of The Offroad Guide, STO Garant will carry out the guarantee. In the guarantee scheme you can read how you can claim this in that case.
Prior to booking
We can communicate about a trip in many ways;
Life, by phone, by mail, FB, etc. If desired, a quotation can be sent by The Offroad Guide at any time.
Booking a package holiday
A booking must be made by e-mail. Please include the following:
- dates of the trip.
- name of the trip as in the quotation.
- short statement that you agree with the travel agreement and the cancellation policy.
Signing travel agreement
- after your booking email, I will adapt the travel agreement template to our specific agreements and send it to you by e-mail.
- you can digitally sign this and email it back.
- at a later stage we will jointly sign the paper copies.
We can communicate about a trip in many ways;
Life, by phone, by mail, FB, etc. If desired, a quotation can be sent by The Offroad Guide at any time.
Booking a package holiday
A booking must be made by e-mail. Please include the following:
- dates of the trip.
- name of the trip as in the quotation.
- short statement that you agree with the travel agreement and the cancellation policy.
Signing travel agreement
- after your booking email, I will adapt the travel agreement template to our specific agreements and send it to you by e-mail.
- you can digitally sign this and email it back.
- at a later stage we will jointly sign the paper copies.
Payment procedure
After you have received a booking confirmation and invoice from The Offroad Guide, you will receive an invitation with a username and a password from 'Stichting Derdengelden Certo Escrow' by e-mail. You will be asked to log in to the secure area of the Certo Escrow website. After confirmation of the invitation, you can immediately proceed to a deposit of 30% of the agreed travel sum. Only after receipt of the deposit by Certo Escrow does The Offroad Guide consider the trip as actually booked and can proceed to make payments for, for example; cars, motorcycles, bicycles, shelter and the like. Two weeks later you will receive a request for payment of the remainder of the travel sum. If you book less than 6 weeks before departure, the entire travel sum must be paid in one go. But before then, that is also allowed. For all bookings, the full travel sum must be paid to the 'Stichting Derdengelden Certo Escrow' before departure.
The e-mail address to which the invitation to pay is sent is the same as the one to which you receive mail from us.
The full amount must be in the account of Stichting Derdengelden Certo Escrow before departure. If this is not met, The Offroad Guide reserves the right to cancel the booked trip, applying the cancellation provisions.
The travel sum will only be paid into the account of The Offroad Guide 1 day after the last day of the tour.
Check the details carefully if you are logged in to Certo Escrow, especially the date of the end of the package is important.
After you have received a booking confirmation and invoice from The Offroad Guide, you will receive an invitation with a username and a password from 'Stichting Derdengelden Certo Escrow' by e-mail. You will be asked to log in to the secure area of the Certo Escrow website. After confirmation of the invitation, you can immediately proceed to a deposit of 30% of the agreed travel sum. Only after receipt of the deposit by Certo Escrow does The Offroad Guide consider the trip as actually booked and can proceed to make payments for, for example; cars, motorcycles, bicycles, shelter and the like. Two weeks later you will receive a request for payment of the remainder of the travel sum. If you book less than 6 weeks before departure, the entire travel sum must be paid in one go. But before then, that is also allowed. For all bookings, the full travel sum must be paid to the 'Stichting Derdengelden Certo Escrow' before departure.
The e-mail address to which the invitation to pay is sent is the same as the one to which you receive mail from us.
The full amount must be in the account of Stichting Derdengelden Certo Escrow before departure. If this is not met, The Offroad Guide reserves the right to cancel the booked trip, applying the cancellation provisions.
The travel sum will only be paid into the account of The Offroad Guide 1 day after the last day of the tour.
Check the details carefully if you are logged in to Certo Escrow, especially the date of the end of the package is important.
Why pay the remainder quickly after payment?
Every once in a while I get asked this question and I would like to explain it.
My considerations regarding payment are the following:
Every once in a while I get asked this question and I would like to explain it.
My considerations regarding payment are the following:
- The deposit is 30% so that I can book things for you.
- Previously, the remaining amount could be paid 6 weeks before departure. As a result, in case of cancellation at a late stage where more than 30% of the travel sum is due, I had to hope that I would receive the total amount due.
- I can tackle this issue by payment of the total travel sum at an early stage.
- In itself, it is very common for bookings in the travel world to pay the entire travel sum at the time of booking.
- Because I often experience that the person who represents the group also makes the payments (which is not necessary, by the way), I thought it would be nice if to keep the 30% deposit. This can often be advanced by one person for the entire group and then I can act with regard to reservations.
- Know that your money is credited to Certo Escrow's third-party account and is only paid out to The Offroad Guide one day after the trip has ended. So I pay the whole tour in advance.
Important Notes
- Please note! The rate per person goes down with more participants. This is a discount. This means that if one or more persons of a group cancels/cancel, the rate per person for the remaining participants will increase again. The agreed graduated scale therefore remains in force.
- In the event of bankruptcy of The Offroad Guide, STO will never be able to incur more costs for you than the maximum paid travel sum.
- Any complaints or claims about your trip are independent of this payment method.
- The Offroad Guide's cancellation conditions apply to this method of payment.
- VvKR, STO and Certo Escrow are not and do not have a dispute committee.
- Until the end date of the trip, a customer has the option to stop a transaction by pressing the blue button that freezes the funds of the transaction.
- Certo Escrow zal nooit overgaan tot terugbetaling van de gelden aan de klant voordat beide partijen gehoord zijn.
- This should only be done if the travel organization has (possibly) become financially insolvent! So not in case of a complaint.
- When the customer does this, Certo Escrow will always check in consultation with STO whether the travel organization is financially incapable. If this is not the case , the money will be paid to the travel organization as determined in advance on the day after the tour.
- In the event of cancellation by the participant, Certo Escrow will always contact the travel organization to have the funds released in accordance with the cancellation conditions as laid down in the agreement that the travel organization has concluded with the traveler. The Escrow transaction that the travel organisation, the traveler and Certo Escrow enter into for the financial settlement of the booking has no influence on this.
- Certo Escrow will never refund the money to the customer before both parties have been heard.
