Cancellations and changes
Short version: a 50% deposit confirms your trip and does not come back, because permits and bookings are made in your name. The balance is due 90 days before your first day, and once it is paid, part of it comes back if you cancel 45 days or more ahead. If we cancel for a reason within our control, or a group departure does not fill, you get everything back.
We understand
Why your deposit cannot be returned
We understand that plans change, and that nobody cancels a trip lightly. This is the part of our terms where our hands are most tied, so we would rather explain why before we set it out.
A safari permit in India's tiger reserves is issued by the forest department against a named guest and a single date, and it cannot be transferred. If you withdraw, we cannot give your seat to anyone else — the gate will not admit them — however much notice you give us. Lodge rooms, vehicles and guides are held in your name in the same way, and on trips outside India so are internal flights and boats.
We begin making those bookings as soon as your deposit reaches us, which is why the 50% deposit is not refundable if you cancel.
Paying for your trip
Deposit and balance
A 50% deposit confirms your trip. The balance is due no later than 90 days before your first day; if you book within 90 days of that date, the full price is due when you book.
If you cancel
The refund schedule
| When your written cancellation reaches us | What happens to your money | Of the trip price, back to you |
|---|---|---|
| 90 days or more before your first day | Your 50% deposit is not refundable. The balance is not due yet, so you owe nothing more. If you have already paid the balance early, we refund the balance only — the deposit is still kept | Nothing, apart from a balance you paid early |
| 60 to 89 days | We keep the deposit and half of the balance | 25% |
| 45 to 59 days | We keep the deposit and three-quarters of the balance | 12.5% |
| Fewer than 45 days, or you do not arrive | Nothing comes back | Nothing |
| If we cancel your trip for a reason within our control | Everything you have paid comes back, in full, whenever it happens | 100% |
| If your group departure does not fill | It does not go ahead, and everything you have paid comes back, in full | 100% |
All cancellations must reach us in writing, by email to info@atlaswildexperiences.com, and take effect on the day we receive them, not the day they were sent.
How the money comes back
What to expect once a refund is agreed
- Paid back to
- The same card or account you paid with — the only route our payment providers offer, and the only one that is safe for you
- We start it within
- Three working days of confirming your cancellation in writing
- Your bank then takes
- Typically a further five to ten working days to show it
- Currency
- The one you paid in. We do not carry the exchange-rate movement between the two dates
- Charges
- Bank or card charges we cannot recover are deducted
- Tax
- Refunded in the same proportion as the trip price
- What we need from you
- Your cancellation in writing, by email. Nothing else — we never ask for card details to refund
Moving a date, or missing one
Date changes, no-shows and unused services
We will always try to move your dates rather than lose your trip, and asking early is what makes it possible. While permits have not yet been issued in your name, a move usually costs nothing beyond any difference in price between the two sets of dates.
Once permits have been issued, they carry your name and a fixed date, and the park will not move them. A new date means buying them again, so a change at that point is treated as a cancellation at the same point in the schedule above. Adding or swapping a guest works the same way: someone new needs their own permit, if the park has any left to issue.
We know that is frustrating to hear. It is not a rule we chose — it is how the parks issue permits, and it binds us exactly as it binds you. We will always tell you the cost in writing before you decide, never after.
If you do not arrive, and no cancellation has reached us in writing, it is treated as a cancellation on the day of travel: nothing is refundable. Being delayed is a different thing from not coming, and the difference is one message. Tell us as early as you can, and your permits and your room stay yours for whatever is left of the trip.
Once a trip has begun, there is no refund for a drive, a night or any other service you choose not to use, or for leaving early.
When we have to change things
If we change or cancel your trip
- A minor change
- Occasionally we have to change something — substitute a lodge of an equivalent standard, work around a zone the forest department has closed, or change a guide. If a change is minor, we will tell you and carry on
- A significant change
- If a change is significant and within our control, we will tell you as soon as we know. You can then accept the changed trip, with any difference in what you paid for set right; take a comparable alternative, if we can offer one; or cancel and receive everything you have paid in full
- If we cancel
- If we cancel your trip for a reason within our control, everything you have paid comes back in full. We cannot refund flights or other arrangements you have made separately, so please book flexible fares where you can, and hold travel insurance
Things nobody chooses
Park closures and events outside anyone's control
Some things nobody controls: the monsoon, park closures ordered by the authorities, government or forest department decisions, epidemics, floods, fire, extreme weather, strikes and civil unrest.
If one of these stops a trip that is already confirmed, we will first try to move your dates at no charge. Where that is not possible, you can choose a credit for the full amount you have paid, valid for twelve months, or a refund of everything we are able to recover on your behalf.
This is the one situation where we cannot promise cash back in full, and the reason is simple: a lodge closed by an order still keeps the deposit we paid it. We are not liable for costs such an event causes you elsewhere, such as flights.
Two things worth saying plainly
Insurance, and what a refund is not for
Please hold travel insurance that covers cancellation, medical care and evacuation from the day you book — it is required for trips outside India and strongly recommended in India. Most of what this schedule cannot give back — a fever the week before, a cancelled connecting flight, a family emergency — is exactly what a policy is for, and it costs a fraction of the trip price.
A refund is also not what happens when an animal does not appear. No sighting is promised here or anywhere else on this site; you are booking the permits, the vehicle, the lodge and the person beside you in it, and all four are delivered whether or not a tiger walks out of the sal.