Terms and Conditions

Acceptance

Making a booking with African Polecat Safaris, trading as Polecat Safaris (“the Company”), is taken as acceptance by the customer of these Terms and Conditions.

Booking tours

A. Making a booking

Booking a safari, Zanzibar extension or Kilimanjaro climb is usually an interactive process. Once you’ve told us what you have in mind, we’ll go back and forth with you on the itinerary and the recommended package. This is normal, and it makes sure you book the right trip for you. Nothing is booked or charged until you say yes to an itinerary.

Once this process is complete and you’re ready to go ahead with a quote we’ve agreed on, we’ll send payment details so you can pay a deposit, and then send confirmation of the trip.

We’ll then send you forms to fill in so we can collect details such as inbound flights and dietary needs. Our Registration Form allows certain limited special requests, such as dietary needs, to be written into the contract. We will do our best to honour these requests, and will tell you in advance if we can’t.

However, if a request is made that is not part of our Registration Form, it does not form part of the contract, whatever other communication may have taken place outside the trip documents. At any time between the making of a booking and the delivery of receipt paperwork to the client or client representative, the Company reserves the right to decline to supply the trip.

B. Price guarantee

Once you’ve made your booking and we’ve received your deposit, we guarantee to honour the prices for each individual item shown on your quotation, with the following exceptions:

• Estimated price increases: where we are booking for a period for which we do not yet have prices from the supplier (for example a year in advance of the trip date), we usually include an estimated price increase. This is reassessed by the time final payment is due, and the client or client representative must cover such increases up to a maximum of twice the estimated increase.
• Government-regulated fees and taxes: in Tanzania, we are exposed to unannounced and sudden changes in items such as national park fees, Kilimanjaro park fees and taxes. The client or client representative is responsible for paying any additional charges of this kind.
• Fuel surcharges: we are also occasionally exposed to sudden changes in fuel costs, which we must pass on if our suppliers charge them to us. The client or client representative is responsible for paying any additional charges of this kind.
• Major errors: if there is a major error in our quotation and we have significantly undercharged for a trip, we reserve the right to withdraw our offer.
• Exchange rate fluctuations: very occasionally, our suppliers face a large movement in international exchange rates and add an exchange rate surcharge to their invoices to us. The client or client representative is responsible for paying any additional charges of this kind.

Payment terms

Payments are scheduled as follows:

• Deposit due on camping safari bookings: 10%
• Deposit due on lodge safari bookings: 40%
• Deposit due on tailor-made bookings: 10%–70%, on request
• Final payment is due on arrival (cash accepted and preferred)

Payment can be made by bank wire/transfer, credit card, or online payment (e.g. PesaPal). We will provide our banking details to make this possible.

All payments should be made to company accounts. All company accounts are held in Tanzania; we do not hold any offshore accounts.

We often receive separate payments from different people in a group travelling together, and we accept payments from each of them (a payment link will be sent to each person to make this easier). However, the relevant information should always be passed on through the group leader, who remains financially responsible for the whole trip.

Payment and invoices

All payments and instalments must be paid before your trip start date.

When the client or representative has paid by bank/wire transfer, please email a copy of the bank receipt to the Company. We will confirm receipt of the funds by email.

All costs arising from payment are the client’s responsibility, including the 3.5% surcharge for credit card and online payments, and any wire transfer charges.

Currency

All our quotations are made in US$, Euros, and Tanzanian shillings. Cash is accepted, preferably in US$, though Euros and Pound sterling are also accepted. Customers may pay in any of the currencies above, including by direct bank transfer into our account; we will provide banking details to make this possible.

Tour element modifications

By the Company

The payment duties for the client or client representative described above assume that we can book the trip exactly as quoted. While every effort is made to honour the itinerary, Polecat Safaris reserves the right to make itinerary changes for your suitability.

In the unlikely event of an unscheduled delay, itinerary change, or extension caused by flight delays, bad weather, strikes, civil unrest, or other reasons beyond our control, any resulting expenses (hotel accommodation, meals, flight change fees, etc.) are the responsibility of the client. We strongly recommend all clients take out insurance cover for such events.

Sometimes we are unable to book the trip exactly as quoted, often because a lodge has no rooms available, or because of a serious issue such as a lodge or road being damaged by fire or flooding. If this happens, all payment obligations for the affected element are waived. We do, however, reserve the right to make small modifications during the booking process that have no impact on the contract or on the client’s payment obligations. Such modifications are limited to:

• Replacing up to two lodges/hotels within a trip with lodges the Company defines as interchangeable
• Rearranging the order of lodge/hotel nights within a trip
• Adjusting the number of nights spent at each lodge/hotel
• Moving a transport element from one supplier to another

By the time a trip reaches the final quote stage, most elements are either confirmed as available or already on hold with suppliers, so such changes are fairly uncommon. These conditions exist so that a customer cannot use a small invoice change as an excuse to cancel a whole trip without honouring their obligation to pay cancellation charges.

Any change that reduces the price will be charged at the lower price. Any change that increases the price will either be put to the client or client representative for agreement before the cost is passed on, or the Company will absorb the increase and keep offering the trip at the agreed price.

The client or client representative must accept any changes arising from errors or omissions in the trip paperwork, so please read your quotation carefully. The exception is an error or omission that the group leader could not reasonably have spotted; this will either be absorbed by us, or the change will be declined as described below.

By the client or client representative

If you wish to change your booking after deposits have been paid, we will usually need to charge an amendment fee to cover the extra administration. Itinerary changes can involve a lot of time and administration, so it’s best to avoid them where possible. Any change that involves cancelling an element of the booking will attract the standard cancellation charges.

Changes that add to an existing booking can usually be made without an amendment charge.

Cancellation

Cancelling less than 10 days before the trip forfeits the full trip fee. A refund may be considered in extraordinary, provable circumstances.

Cancelling more than 10 days before the trip date will result in a refund, less bank transaction costs (lodge-based tours are the exception, and follow the lodge’s own cancellation policy).

Exchanges are allowed; no refunds are given for cancelled individual tours. Full travel and flight insurance is required to protect you in the event of a cancellation or change. In some cases, most often bookings made in shoulder season, a credit note against the deposit paid may be offered instead.

Changes and cancellations by the Company

Occasionally a supplier may fail, or be unable to deliver an agreed service: for example, a camp operator being unable to put a mobile camp into the field because of a change in park regulations, a road or border closure, or extreme weather. A more common, but still rare, event is an error made during booking, by us or by our suppliers, that leaves a particular element unavailable. In either case, we will try to substitute an equivalent service without affecting the status of the booking or its payment and delivery terms. Where this isn’t possible, we will ask for your agreement to a more significant change.

Polecat Safaris reserves the right to cancel a trip at any time before departure, in dangerous situations, if terrorism, natural disaster, political instability, or any other reason makes it unviable to run the planned itinerary. Refunding all land payments received releases the Company from any further liability.

The Company is not responsible for incidental expenses arising from your booking, such as visa fees, vaccinations, or non-refundable air tickets.

Insurance

Travel and medical insurance is recommended for all Polecat Safaris guests. Your policy should cover trip cancellation or curtailment, medical expenses arising from illness or accident before or during the trip, evacuation and repatriation in an emergency, death, and loss or theft of baggage, money, or personal effects.

Clients are responsible for arranging their own insurance; African Polecat Safaris is not legally liable if a guest fails to take out adequate cover. All optional sporting activities, including para-sailing, scuba diving, mountain climbing, other water sports, and horse riding, are undertaken at the client’s own choice and own risk. Please check your policy carefully, as many policies exclude injuries sustained during high-risk activities; if you are climbing Kilimanjaro, make sure your policy covers trekking at high altitude. Travel insurance is one of the most important protections for your trip, so make sure it’s in place from the moment you first book, covering the whole period before, during, and after travel.

Tour suitability and inappropriate behaviour

We reserve the right, at our absolute discretion, to end without notice the arrangements of any customer whose behaviour is likely, in our reasonable opinion or that of any operator or authority, to cause distress, damage, danger, or annoyance to any third party or the customer, or to cause damage to property, or is illegal.

Our trips can be physically demanding, and Kilimanjaro climbs especially so. It is your responsibility to give an accurate account of any limits to your mobility, and all other relevant information about your health and fitness, at the time of booking, and to tell us about any change between booking and the start of your trip.

We reserve the right, at our absolute discretion, to end without notice the arrangements of any customer judged, in our reasonable opinion or that of any operator or other person in authority, unable to cope adequately with the demands of the trip. In either of these cases, all our obligations to you under this contract cease, full cancellation charges apply, and we are not liable for any refund, compensation, or costs you incur.

Problems arising during a trip

If problems arise during a trip, please tell the Company, your guide, or its agents as soon as possible, so that corrective action can be taken.

Usually we can act quickly to resolve a problem satisfactorily. Claims about problems the customer suffered in silence, without giving us the chance to fix them and only complaining well after the event, will not be considered.

When raising a genuine complaint after a trip, any evidence you can gather at the time is helpful, especially photographs. Bear in mind that deciding whether a refund is due means we have to negotiate with the supplier concerned after your return, so any concessions you can obtain from them directly can help reach a quicker resolution.

Liabilities and their limitations

Neither African Polecat Safaris nor any person or agent acting for, through, or on behalf of the Company shall be liable for any claims, losses, damages, injuries, death, costs, expenses, delays, or inconvenience arising from a delay or change in schedule, overbooking of accommodation, default of any third party, attacks by wild or domestic animals, epidemics or the threat of one, sickness, lack of appropriate medical care, evacuation, weather, strikes, acts of god or government, lost or misplaced luggage, terrorism or its threat, force majeure, war, quarantine, criminal activity, or any other cause beyond its control, including those arising directly or indirectly from an act or omission, negligent or otherwise, of any person, independent contractor, company, or firm providing goods or services connected to the trip or any optional part of it. The Company does not accept liability for the acts or omissions of tour operators, hotels, carriers, or other parties outside the Company over which it has no control. You are travelling in parts of the world that can be dangerous or difficult.

We expect a certain level of awareness of such issues from our guests, and cannot take responsibility for guests being taken in by scams, or otherwise disrupted or injured by parties not directly involved in the services described in the contract. In short, we expect you to be reasonably streetwise in public places, especially airports and towns. We do not accept responsibility for any services that are not part of our contract: for example, extra services a hotel or other supplier agrees to provide that we haven’t advertised or arranged, or any excursion you buy independently during your trip.

Whether the services we’ve agreed to provide were properly delivered will be judged against our promises to you and the laws and regulations of Tanzania. If the services in question complied with the Tanzanian law that applied at the time, they will be treated as properly provided, even where they wouldn’t have complied with the law of the traveller’s home country, and even where a claim concerns the absence of a safety feature (such as a child seat) that would be taken for granted at home but is not provided as standard in Tanzania.

Additional excursions and activities

We may give you information about activities and excursions available in the area you’re visiting. We have no involvement in these: they are not run, supervised, or controlled by us, and are provided by local operators or other third parties entirely independent of us. They do not form part of your contract with us, even where we suggest a particular operator or help you book. We accept no liability, on any basis, for such activities or excursions, and our acceptance of liability elsewhere in these terms does not apply to them.

We cannot guarantee the accuracy of information about such activities, or about the area you’re visiting in general (except where it concerns services that are part of your contract), or that any excursion outside our contract will take place, as it isn’t under our control. If an activity mentioned in our materials, but not part of our contract, is important to your trip, email us and we’ll advise on the latest known situation. If we become aware of a material change to lodge or area information, or to outside activities, that could reasonably affect your decision to book with us, we’ll pass it on at the time of booking.

Airline and flight issues

If a flight you’ve booked is cancelled, delayed, or downgraded, or you’re denied boarding in circumstances that entitle you to compensation from the airline (e.g. under EC Regulation No 261/2004, the Denied Boarding Regulations 2004), you must claim from the airline directly. Any sum you receive or are entitled to receive under those regulations is the full amount of your entitlement to compensation arising from the event.

A delay that entitles you to cancel a flight does not automatically entitle you to cancel other arrangements, even where they were made alongside your flight. We have no liability to make any payment to you under the Denied Boarding Regulations, as that entitlement is covered by the airline’s own obligations. Your rights under “Changes and cancellations by the Company” and “Liabilities and their limitations” are unaffected by this, except that we are entitled to argue that any sum you receive from the airline is enough to meet any compensation we might otherwise owe you as tour operator.

Transfer problems

If any element of a trip fails, such as a boat, ferry or plane not departing, we will try to rearrange the trip to minimise the impact, but cannot be responsible for any knock-on effects. For legal reasons, we ask customers to check exact times and schedules with local operators directly, though in practice this is rarely needed. Few departures carry a risk of serious knock-on effects, and we design trips to avoid them where we can, flagging any such possibility in advance. In Tanzania, it pays to build a little slack into your schedule; the country is not set up for last-minute or instant changes. Any booking made less than seven days in advance is entirely at the customer’s own risk.

Information

The Company takes no responsibility for loss, damage, or injury arising from a shortfall, error, or omission in information given to the customer during the sale or later delivery of the trip. Specific room requests are usually honoured but cannot be guaranteed. Where a booking has been made incorrectly or double-booked, and the customer cannot stay at the chosen hotel, the Company’s liability is limited to returning the sum paid for that element of the trip.

Health and safety expectations

It is the client’s responsibility to take all necessary and recommended health precautions before travelling. Vaccination requirements vary and change over time; we recommend visiting a local travel health specialist, or checking the CDC’s travel site for general guidance.

Customers should not necessarily expect the same standards of hygiene, security, or service in Tanzania as in more developed parts of the world. One of the most common problems we see is clients not taking adequate health precautions while travelling. Similarly, travellers cannot always expect the health and safety standards they may be used to at home; for example, child seats may not be required or available. If you have particular concerns or requirements in this area, please raise them before your trip; we cannot offer special cancellation terms arising from any shortcoming here.

Terms and conditions of suppliers

Many of the services that make up your trip are provided by independent suppliers under their own terms and conditions, which may limit or exclude their liability to you, usually in line with applicable international agreements. Copies of the relevant terms are available from the supplier concerned.

Customer protection

Our customers come from all over the world, and in the absence of a worldwide bonding agency, we take a practical approach to protecting you against a catastrophic failure of our company:

• We pay all suppliers well in advance of your arrival, so your bookings remain intact even if our company were to fail.
• We hold all other monies (our profit) in a separate bank account until after you’ve returned from your trip.

Everything else should be covered by your travel insurance, which we require all customers to hold from the time of booking, to protect against the need to cancel. This is how we’re able to offer booking security to customers worldwide.

Legal jurisdiction

Tanzanian law applies to this contract and to any dispute, claim, or other matter arising between us. All parties agree that any such dispute must be dealt with exclusively by the courts of Tanzania.

Fraudulent enquiries

Requests for quotations or other information sent to us by a competitor, potential supplier, or their associate, posing as a genuine customer enquiry, will be treated as fraudulent. Any such fraud discovered will be pursued through the courts to the maximum penalty available, including claims for time lost handling the enquiry, and for the competitive advantage gained from the information obtained.

Definitions

Company: African Polecat Safaris, trading as Polecat Safaris, registered in Tanzania. Based in Arusha, Tanzania. Tel/WhatsApp: +255 654 592 688 (WhatsApp). Email: info@africanpolecatsafaris.com. Website: africanpolecatsafaris.com.

Group Leader: for each trip we book, the first customer named on the paperwork. Most of the conversation during the sales process takes place with the group leader, who remains responsible for giving us all necessary information, and for honouring all payments and penalties due on the trip.

Contract: these terms and conditions, forming the agreement between the Company and the Group Leader, also referred to as the “booking” or the “trip.”