Policies

01

Privacy Policy

This policy sets out what personal information Black Sovereign Stays collects through blacksovereignstays.com, why we collect it, and what happens to it.

What we collect

• Enquiry form details: your name, email address, phone or WhatsApp number, destination, travel dates, number and ages of travellers, departure city, budget range, cabin preference and any notes you write.
• Booking details, if you proceed: passport information, dates of birth, billing address, GST details where you need a business invoice, and any dietary, medical or accessibility requirements you choose to share.
• Correspondence: emails and WhatsApp messages exchanged with us.

Payment card details stay off this website entirely. Card and bank details are handled by our payment gateway and never reach our servers.

Why we collect it

Solely to respond to your enquiry, design and price your itinerary, make the bookings you authorise, and support you while you travel. We sell, rent and trade none of it, and marketing email goes out only where you have separately asked for it.

Who we share it with

Only where delivering your journey requires it, and only the minimum:

• Airlines, hotels, resorts and transport providers you have authorised us to book, including through our booking consolidator.
• Our payment gateway, to process payments you make.
• Our form delivery service and email provider, which transmit and store your enquiry.
• Our accountant and statutory authorities, where Indian tax law requires it.

Some of these providers operate outside India. Where your information travels abroad, it travels for the sole purpose of arranging your journey.

How long we keep it

Enquiries that stay enquiries get deleted after 24 months. Booking records stay for eight years, as Indian tax and company law requires.

Cookies

Cookies stay off this website entirely, and it carries zero advertising or analytics trackers. Fonts load from Fontshare and photographs from Unsplash, and either may log your IP address as part of serving them.

Your rights

You may ask at any time for a copy of what we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it where the law lets us. Write to [email protected] and a response follows within 30 days.

Security

The site runs over HTTPS. Access to your information stays limited to those arranging your travel. Perfect security exists nowhere, so we make no absolute guarantee.

02

Terms of Use

What this website is

This is an informational and enquiry site. Bookings and payments happen off this website entirely. Submitting the enquiry form begins a conversation. A contract exists only once we send written confirmation and you pay against it. A booking exists once we have sent written confirmation and you have paid the amount stated in it.

Accuracy of information

Prices shown as indicative are illustrative estimates for planning only. They are illustrative only. Your binding price arrives in a written quotation. Travel pricing moves constantly with season, availability and exchange rates. Your actual price is the one written in your quotation.

Sample journeys are examples of itineraries we design. They are examples rather than fixed packages, and get sold only once redesigned around you.

Intellectual property

All text, itineraries, design and code on this site belong to Black Sovereign Stays. Photography is licensed from third parties and stays subject to those licences. Reproduction, republication or commercial use requires our written consent.

Our role

We act as a travel agent and itinerary designer. Airlines, hotels, transport operators and experience providers are independent suppliers with their own terms, which apply to your booking alongside ours. Their acts, omissions and failures fall outside our responsibility, though we will always act on your behalf to resolve problems.

Limitation of liability

This site comes as is, without warranties of any kind. To the fullest extent the law permits, indirect or consequential loss arising from use of this website falls outside our liability. Liability that cannot lawfully be limited remains unaffected.

Governing law

Indian law governs these terms. Disputes fall to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of the city in which Black Sovereign Stays is registered.

03

Booking & Payment Terms

Planning fee

Itinerary design begins once a planning fee of ₹15,000 is paid. That fee gets credited in full against your final booking value where you travel with us. Where you choose against proceeding, it stays with us as payment for the design work completed. We confirm the fee with you in writing before requesting any payment.

Quotations

Quotations stay valid for the period stated on them, typically 72 hours, because airfares and room rates move. Every quotation arrives itemised: air, accommodation, transfers, experiences, our service charge, and applicable taxes shown separately.

Deposits and balances

A deposit confirms a booking. The amount varies by supplier, and some airfares and peak-season hotel rates require payment in full at the time of booking. The balance falls due by the date stated in your confirmation, usually 30 to 45 days before departure. Bookings release where payment misses that date.

Goods and Services Tax

Our invoices are raised in accordance with Indian GST law as applicable to travel agents and tour operators. Where we act as an agent, GST applies to our service charge or commission. Where we sell a tour package as principal, GST applies to the package value at the prescribed rate. Your invoice states which treatment applies and shows the tax separately. Input tax credit is available to you only where the treatment and your own registration permit it, which is a question for your accountant.

Tax Collected at Source

Where Tax Collected at Source applies to overseas travel arrangements under the Liberalised Remittance Scheme, we collect it at the rate prescribed at the time of payment, show it separately, and deposit it against your PAN. TCS is a government levy rather than a charge by us, and it stays creditable against your income tax liability when you file. Rates are set by the Government of India and may change.

Third-party suppliers

Airlines, hotels, ground operators, cruise lines, guides and experience providers are independent businesses contracting with you directly. Their own booking conditions apply to your arrangements alongside these terms, and we send you the material ones in writing before you pay. Where a supplier changes, downgrades, withdraws or fails to deliver a service, our role is to press your case and secure the best available remedy. The supplier remains liable for its own performance. Where a supplier becomes insolvent, recovery depends on that supplier’s administrators, on any protection scheme it belonged to, and on your travel insurance, which is a further reason to hold a policy.

Price movement and currency

Your quotation is priced against airfares, room rates and exchange rates on the day it is issued. Once you have paid in full against a confirmed booking, the price is fixed. Between quotation and confirmation, prices move, and a fare or rate can be withdrawn while a quotation is still open. Where an overseas element is contracted in a foreign currency, the rupee amount depends on the rate applying on the day we remit payment to the supplier. We tell you the rate used. Where a supplier imposes a fuel surcharge, a government levy or a tax increase after confirmation, that cost passes to you at cost, evidenced in writing, and you may cancel under the terms below if you would rather withdraw.

Payment deadlines

Every confirmation carries dated payment milestones. Those dates are set by the suppliers holding your booking rather than by us, and they are firm. Where a payment is late, suppliers commonly release the booking automatically and reinstatement is subject to availability at the price then current. We send a reminder ahead of each milestone, and paying on the stated date is the only thing that keeps the booking secure.

Payment methods

Payment goes by bank transfer or through a secure payment link issued by our gateway. Card details are only ever entered on the gateway’s own secure page.

Passports, visas and insurance

Holding a valid passport with sufficient validity and blank pages, and obtaining the correct visas, remains your responsibility. We advise on requirements and can assist with applications, though the decision rests with the consulate and a refusal falls outside our liability. Comprehensive travel insurance is a condition of travelling with us, and we ask you to confirm your policy number before departure. It should cover cancellation and curtailment, medical treatment and repatriation, baggage, and any adventure activity or winter sport in your itinerary. Buy it on the day you pay your first deposit, since a policy bought later covers you for far less of what you have already committed. Travelling uninsured means carrying every cost in this document yourself.

04

Cancellation & Refund Policy

Cancellation by you

Cancellations reach us in writing by email. The date we receive your written notice is the date the cancellation takes effect.

Refunds follow the cancellation terms of the individual airlines, hotels and suppliers holding your booking. Those terms sit in your written confirmation and vary considerably. Many discounted airfares and peak-season hotel rates stay non-refundable from the moment of booking.

Where a supplier refund is available, we pursue it on your behalf and pass it on in full, less the following:

• The ₹15,000 planning fee, which stays non-refundable once design work has begun.
• Our service charge on the cancelled booking, which stays non-refundable.
• Any bank, gateway or foreign exchange charges incurred.

Cancellation or change by an airline

Airlines reschedule, retime and cancel flights, and they change aircraft and seat configurations, at their own discretion. Where that happens, your remedy sits with the airline under its conditions of carriage and under the rules of the country you are departing from. We monitor your bookings, tell you as soon as we are notified, and rebook or claim on your behalf at no additional charge. An airline refund is paid at the airline’s pace, which for many carriers runs to several months, and we pass it to you in full within 7 working days of receiving it. Where a schedule change forces a knock-on cost, a lost hotel night or a missed transfer, that cost is recoverable from the airline or your insurer rather than from us. Deeply discounted and promotional fares are frequently non-refundable and non-changeable from the moment of ticketing, and we flag that in your quotation whenever it applies.

Hotel and accommodation cancellation

Every property sets its own cancellation window, and those windows differ widely even between rooms in the same hotel. A flexible rate typically cancels free until somewhere between 7 and 30 days before arrival. Advance-purchase rates, villa rentals, peak-season stays, festive-period bookings and anything held over New Year are commonly non-refundable in full from the day they are confirmed. Your written confirmation states the exact deadline and penalty for each property, and that document governs. Where a property closes, overbooks or fails to honour a confirmed reservation, we secure comparable or better accommodation and pursue the property for the difference.

Force majeure

Events outside the reasonable control of either of us can make travel impossible or unsafe. Those include war, civil unrest, terrorism, epidemic and pandemic, natural disaster, extreme weather, volcanic ash, fire, flood, airport and airspace closure, air traffic control disruption, industrial action, government order, border closure and the withdrawal of visa facilities. Where such an event affects your journey, we cancel or amend without liability for compensation, and we refund every sum we hold that the suppliers release to us, less costs already irrecoverably committed on your behalf. Amounts a supplier retains sit outside our control. Recovery of those amounts is a matter for your travel insurance, which is the principal reason we ask you to hold a policy from the day you pay your first deposit rather than from the day you depart.

Refund timelines

Where a refund is due, we process it within 7 working days of receiving the funds from the supplier. Supplier refunds themselves commonly take 30 to 90 days, and airline refunds can run longer. We keep you informed of the status throughout.

Refunds return to the original payment method in the original currency. Where a foreign exchange conversion applies, the amount returned reflects prevailing rates and may differ from the amount paid.

Amendments

Changes to a confirmed booking depend on supplier availability and charges, plus an amendment fee of ₹2,500 per booking covering the administrative work. Airline name changes usually count as a cancellation and rebooking.

Cancellation by us

We may cancel a booking where payment misses the due date, or in circumstances beyond our reasonable control including natural disaster, conflict, epidemic, government restriction or supplier insolvency. In such cases we refund all sums we hold that are recoverable from suppliers.

Complaints

Where something goes wrong while you are travelling, contact us immediately. Most problems are solvable in the moment and considerably harder to remedy afterwards. Written complaints reach [email protected] within 28 days of your return, and we acknowledge within 7 working days.