Voucher Refund Policy
- Customers sometimes ask for refunds, and although the policy is covered in our Terms & Conditions, we offer more detail below.
- Our Premium Plus voucher is refundable, less a £35 per person fee.
- All of our other vouchers are non-refundable, as clearly stated in our product descriptions.
If your voucher reaches its expiry date before you have flown, it will no longer be valid for use.
However, we will extend vouchers for a further year if you have had at least 4 flight attempts cancelled by unsuitable weather.
Ballooning is highly weather (and wind) dependent, and thus we can never guarantee that you will fly on any particular day. Many passengers do fly at their first attempt, whilst others may be unlucky and have to rebook many times before succeeding.
Irrespective of whether your flight has been cancelled once, twice, or two dozen times, the voucher is not refunded. Passengers accept that the weather is totally out of our control, and we cannot be held liable for flights being cancelled.
Occasionally, customers have asked why they cannot have a refund for a voucher that they have not used. The answer is that our business costs are incurred even if you do not fly. The office staff wages, pilot wages, premises costs, phones and broadband, websites, bank charges, insurances, storage, CAA licences, maintenance, servicing and vehicle costs are just a few of the permanent outgoings even when no flying is taking place! So please don’t imagine that there is no cost to our business if you haven’t used your voucher.
A good analogy is the person who joins the gym after Christmas, but never visits. At the end of their membership, they would not be eligible for a refund, because the gym has been open and available every day, and all of its costs have still been incurred despite the person never using the facilities.
Notwithstanding all of the above, we will provide refunds in accordance with section 8 of our Terms & Conditions, which we copy below for ease of reference:
- Non-refundable. Save as provided for in this paragraph 8, Vouchers are not refundable (except for our Premium Plus vouchers which are refundable less a £35 per passenger fee).
- Cooling Off Period. We will provide a full refund on Vouchers purchased direct from us, provided you notify us of your wish to cancel within 14 days of the date that the Vouchers were purchased. If you make a date booking for a flight attempt within this cooling off period, regardless of whether such date is within this period or later, we will be deemed to have provided a service and even in the event of a subsequent cancellation caused by weather, no refund will be made.
- Other Circumstances. We will refund the cost of the Vouchers less a handling fee of 40% in the following circumstances:
- we notify you that we are unable to offer any bookings for flights for a period of more than 12 months.
- you have a legal right to end the contract because of something we have done wrong; and
- where a medical condition prevents a Voucher Holder from flying, and which is not a pre-existing condition. You must notify us and supply a doctor’s certificate that the Voucher Holder will remain unable to fly at a future date beyond the validity period of the Vouchers. In these circumstances we will refund, less the 40% handling fee. This will also be the case in the event of the death of the Voucher Holder.
