Welcome to HRG Switzerland Online

HRG Switzerland Online

Terms of Use & Privacy Policy

This site is operated by Hogg Robinson Switzerland Ltd. (hereinafter: HRG Switzerland). By accessing and/or making use of this site you are agreeing to be bound by these terms of use as amended from time to time. If you do not agree to the terms of use please do not access or use this site.

1 LIMITS ON USE

PLEASE NOTE: you must not use this site to make travel arrangements on someone elses behalf unless and until you have: (a) drawn their attention both to these terms of use and also the terms set out at the point(s) where personal data is collected (taken together, the “Terms”); and (b) obtained their express permission both to make travel arrangements for them and to provide us with data about them so that we may use that data for the purposes set out in the Terms.
Accordingly, references in these terms of use to “you”, “your” or “yours” are to be taken as references to the traveller, except where stated or where the context requires otherwise.

You must keep your log-in and password details strictly confidential and secure at all times – do not disclose it to anyone or allow anyone else to use it. HRG Switzerland cannot be held responsible for bookings made using log-in and/or password details which you have not kept secure or confidential. If you know, or suspect that someone else knows your log-in and/or password details, and/or is making unauthorised use of this site, please contact us immediately.

You may not use the site or services offered on or through it for personal gain and you may not sell or provide to any third party, or otherwise profit from, any of the services or information (nor any modification, adaptation or analysis of them) available on or through this site. You may only use this site to make travel arrangements if you are over 18 years old.

2 HRG Switzerland ONLY ACTS AS AGENT

Please note: in all transactions we act as agents of the airlines, hotels, car rental companies etc together with any associated suppliers you have chosen to book with. Their respective services will be provided to you on their own terms and conditions - please make sure that you have read and understood them as a change or cancellation may result in cancellation charges or amendment fees. In the case of airline bookings, please refer to the conditions of carriage on the ticket wallet or by contacting the supplier directly.

3 FLIGHT AND OTHER GENERAL BOOKING CONDITIONS

(a) Confirmation of Bookings
As soon as practicable after you have requested an itinerary and it has been sent for ticketing you will receive a confirmation of the itinerary via either post, fax, telephone or e-mail. This confirmation will also show whether an electronic ticket (E-ticket) or paper ticket will be issued. Please check carefully that the confirmation accurately reflects your travel requirements. Please note: any bookings made or services requested are not confirmed until you receive confirmation from us.

(b) Delivery
Where available E-tickets will be utilised. You will be informed at the confirmation stage whether an E-ticket will be applicable to your journey. Paper tickets will be posted to the delivery address you select from your traveller profile. If there is insufficient time to issue a paper ticket, we will arrange for the airline to issue a Ticket On Departure at an additional charge.

(c) Fares
Unless stated otherwise, all fares are quoted inclusive of taxes. Fares are subject to change without prior notice and are not guaranteed until ticket issue.

(d) Flight Reconfirmation
This is not currently necessary within Europe and North America. However, when travelling outside of these areas it would be advisable for the passenger to contact the appropriate airline, where possible 72 hours prior to departure, to reconfirm his/her flight. We cannot accept responsibility for any flight rescheduling or delays en-route.

(e) Passports/Visas/Health Requirements
You must ensure that you comply with the passport, visa and health requirements of the countries you wish to visit and those that you transit, including intermediate stopovers en-route. Many countries require that your passport should be valid for a minimum period of six months from the date of arrival into that country. We do not accept responsibility should you be denied boarding or be deported due to non-fulfilment of the above.

(f) Insurance
We strongly urge you to carry appropriate travel insurance to cover you for cancellation, health, baggage etc. Please be aware that insurance premiums, once paid, are usually non-refundable.

(g) Cancellation
Once you confirm a booking there may be a charge should you wish to cancel. This will vary from a minimum fixed charge up to the value of the ticket (100%). Please ensure you read and understand the rules for the fare you select, which will be outlined at the time of booking. If you are holding a booking for which a ticket has been issued and do not notify us, in advance, of your intention not to travel, there is, on certain fare types, the potential for your reservation to be treated as a 'no-show'. In this event you may lose the entire ticket value.

(h) Amendments
Some confirmed bookings allow you to change your dates of travel without penalty. Certain fare categories do not allow amendment without attracting amendment fees. These conditions will be outlined at the time of booking. Other special fares will sometimes prevent any form of amendment and where such instances apply a complete cancellation, with appropriate charges, may come into force. A new booking would need to be made. You should contact the HRG Switzerland Centre to make any amendments. Amendments will attract the appropriate fees.

You should be aware that certain fare type tickets are not available for reissue and you are strongly advised to have the appropriate insurance cover to protect against total loss of the ticket value.

(i) Refunds
If you need to cancel your journey, you should tell us at the earliest opportunity either by telephone (0848 80 50 90), by e-mail (online.ch@hrgworldwide.com) or through this site. You will have to return all tickets in your possession and we will aim to process any applicable refund within 5 working days of receipt. Certain tickets may need to be returned to the airline for refund verification, and where such instances apply, we do not have any control over the length of time taken to complete the refund procedure. All refunds will be in full less any applicable cancellation charges, etc. Any tickets returned more than 1 calendar year from the date of original issue are classified as expired tickets and have no refund value.

We cannot accept responsibility for non-receipt of any travel documents returned for refund. It is your responsibility to supply proof of postage in the event of such loss.

(j) Lost Tickets
If you lose your tickets any replacement arrangements will be treated as a new booking and will attract the appropriate fees. In such circumstances the original ticket will only be refunded by the airline after completion of the necessary documentation.

(k) Existing Agreement with HRG Switzerland
You or your employer may already have a travel services agreement with HRG Switzerland, which contains booking conditions. In the event of there being any conflict or inconsistency between those booking conditions and the booking conditions set out in this section of these terms of use, the booking conditions in the agreement with HRG Switzerland will prevail.

4 HOTEL BOOKINGS

(a) Guaranteed Reservations
You can reserve a pre-reserved or instant confirmation room at any time (24 hours / 7 days) and will normally receive instant confirmation.

Assistance is available from Monday to Friday 7.30h to 18.00h, excluding public holidays, by calling 0848 805 090. Requests made outside of these hours will be fulfilled on the next working day.

(b) Reservation Requests
If you choose a room that is not pre-reserved or instant confirmation, your request is fulfilled by the HRG Switzerland Online Business Travel Centre. Confirmation of the booking is sent via fax or e-mail.

Assistance is available from Monday to Friday 7.30h to 18.00h, excluding public holidays, by calling 0848 805 090 or if you are outside Switzerland +41 44 755 75 00 (extra charges apply). Requests made outside of these hours will be fulfilled on the next working day.

If you require a guaranteed reservation outside of these hours for a room that is not pre-reserved or instant confirmation, please contact our 24 hour service on +41 (0)900 55 88 22 (extra charges apply).

(c) Charges
All rates are subject to availability. The prices displayed on and through this site are only guaranteed once the reservation has been formally confirmed to you. Prior to this prices and rates are subject to change without notice.

(d) Cancellations
Cancellation policies vary from hotel to hotel. Please check the details of your booking for the specific cancellation policy and ensure that you cancel before this time to avoid charges.

Please note: failure to cancel a room before the policy is invoked will result in a charge being made against your credit card.

If you need to cancel a booking through our 24 hour service, please quote the booking locator shown on your confirmation.

(e) Existing Agreement with HRG Switzerland
You or your employer may already have a travel services agreement with HRG Switzerland which contains booking conditions. In the event of there being any conflict or inconsistency between those booking conditions and the booking conditions set out in this section of these terms of use, the booking conditions in the agreement with HRG Switzerland will prevail.

5 ONLINE SERVICE FEES

The following service fees will apply to bookings made through this site:

Air Tickets (Full Service Airlines)
CHF 25.- per Ticket

Air Tickets (No frills carriers)
CHF 25.- per Ticket

Paper Ticket surcharge
CHF 10.- per Ticket

Hotel Reservations
No service fee in combination with air ticket.
CHF 25.- if Hotel Reservation only

Car Hire Reservations
No service fee in combination with air ticket.
CHF 25.- if Car Reservation only

Refunds (all tickets)
CHF 60.- per Ticket

Express Mail surcharge
CHF 20.- per envelope

Airport Deposit
CHF 20.- per Ticket (additional to airline fees)

Please note: we reserve the right to alter these fees from time to time without notice, but any such alterations will not apply to bookings which we have already confirmed. Altered fees will be posted on this site when they take effect.

6 ACCURACY & SITE CONTENT

Much of the information available on and through this site has been compiled and/or provided to us by a third party which is not a member of our network. We do not accept responsibility for the accuracy of any information which is obtained from any such third party. Furthermore, errors and omissions in the information available on and through this site may occur because of a number of factors which are inherent in any internet-related system and which are not within our reasonable control. For example, information may be affected by machine, software or operator error, or malfunctions in connection with data transmission. In view of this, wherever possible, you should attempt to verify the accuracy of any information obtained from this site before relying upon it.

This is a dynamic site and, as a result, the content and look and feel may change from time to time.

7 LIMITED LICENCE

You are granted a limited licence to download the materials contained on this site to a personal computer, and to print a hard copy of the materials contained on this site, solely for your personal, non-commercial use, provided that all copyright, trade mark and other proprietary notices are left intact.

Save as expressly and specifically permitted in these term of use, all translation, re-transmission, distribution or other use of the materials contained on this site and its databases on any other internet site or other media is strictly prohibited. You are also prohibited from: (a) framing of this site or any part of it on any other site; or (b) mirroring this site on another server; or (c) using automated screen capture or screen scraping technologies to obtain information of any sort from this site.

The grant of this limited licence is conditional upon your agreement to and compliance with all of these terms of use.

Software (if any) made available to download from this site is either owned by or licensed to us. You may only use such software in accordance with the end user licence accompanying that software or, where there is no such licence, you are granted a non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to use the said software for using this site in accordance with these terms of use.

All rights of any sort relating in any way to this site (including, but not limited to, those relating to its content, branding and the services, software and any other materials made available on and through it) which are not granted to you in accordance with these terms of use are hereby expressly reserved to us or, in the case of other brands, names and logos featured on this site, their respective owners.

8 PRIVACY POLICY

Overview: By using this site and the services provided through it you will provide personal data which will be held by us. The Swiss Data Protection Act (DSG) governs the collection and use of personal data and gives you certain rights including the right to see the data that we hold on you (for a small charge) and to have any errors corrected.

HRG Switzerland is firmly committed to your privacy. We will only use the information that we collect about you in accordance with the DSG, these terms of use, your employer’s instructions to HRG Switzerland from time to time, and any terms set out at the point(s) at which data is collected (“Collection Terms”). If there is any inconsistency between the Collection Terms and this Privacy Policy, the Collection Terms will prevail.

This Privacy Policy section of the site terms of use tells you about our information gathering and dissemination practices and should help you understand what we do with any personal information that you provide to us while using the site or using or enquiring about our services.

Your consent: You hereby explicitly consent to the data about you submitted to us through this site and by any other means e.g. telephone or by your employer or their nominee(s) (your data) being collected, processed and transferred across international borders (both inside and outside the EEA) by HRG Switzerland and its sub-contractors/suppliers in relation both to the services provided through this site and any other travel-related services required by your employer (collectively the “Services”) including (amongst other things): (i) the creation, storage and administration of your traveller profile; and (ii) the transfer of your data to airlines, hotels, global distribution and other reservation systems, car hire and other travel suppliers; and (iii) the collection and processing of your data and the transfer of it to your employer or your employer’s nominee(s) as part of their management information and travel monitoring requirements from time to time; and (iv) the transfer of your data to and amongst data storage and other service-providers as necessary for the provision of the services offered on or through this site; and (v) for the purpose of fulfilling your employer's customer satisfaction survey requirements; and (vi) for fraud prevention purposes; and (vii) transferring/disclosing your data to customs and other national authorities as required in relation to your travel arrangements and otherwise as we (HRG) believe in good faith is required by any law(s) or other regulatory/auditing requirement(s).

Accuracy: You must always provide accurate information and you agree to update it as necessary. You also agree that, in the absence of any update, we can assume that the information submitted is correct.

Cookies: This site does utilise cookies, but only to record user preferences when logging in and if applicable to enable a secure interaction with a potential third party procurement system. Please note that if cookies are not enabled, the functionality of this site will be affected.

Deleting, Deactivating and Amending your Personal Information: If you wish to see, delete, deactivate or amend any of your data held on our database you can do so using either the site’s Contact Us facility, or through your HRG Switzerland account manager.

Monitoring: We may monitor your use of this site and your communications with us and our representatives for quality control and other lawful purposes.

Other points to note: We will not send you marketing material unless you have requested it and we will not sell your data to anyone.

Any third parties to whom we pass your data in connection with the Services do not generally use your data except for the purposes for which it is passed on, but we cannot guarantee that this is true in every case.

We do not knowingly enter into agreements with companies that may abuse your data.

Your data may be transferred to a future purchaser of our company and/or its assets, or a company which you or your employer engages to provide you with travel services in place of HRG Switzerland, each of whom may use your personal information on the same basis as we do.

We are only allowed to store your data for only so long as is appropriate. We may therefore delete your data after a reasonable period of time and, if you have not used the Services for some time, you may have to re-enter your data.

9 LINKS

Where this site contains links to third party sites you should be aware that we may not control the sites reached through those links. We are not responsible for the content or privacy practices of sites which we do not control.

The existence of a link on this site does not imply any endorsement or approval of any goods, services, opinions or other material(s) of any sort made available on or through sites which we do not control, nor do we take any responsibility for the opinions of third parties (if any) expressed on or through this site.

10 DISCLAIMER AND LIMITATION OF LIABILITY

(a) Except as may be set out in these terms of use, this site, its content, and any use you choose to make of it, is provided and permitted without any representations or warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, and we disclaim all such representations and warranties so far as permitted by law. We do not warrant that information contained on this site is accurate or up-to-date, or that the services and travel products made available through it represent best value, nor do we warrant that the site (or any part of it) will always be accessible, fully functional or free from errors and viruses. Accordingly, you agree that the only remedy available to you for breach of these terms of use shall be for our breach of contract under these terms of use.

(b)Subject to paragraph (d) below, but otherwise so far as permitted by law, we exclude and are not liable for all loss, damage(s) and liability (whether or not caused by our negligence) for all wasted time, all loss/corruption of data, all loss of profits, opportunities and goodwill, and for all indirect, consequential and punitive loss or damage(s) arising from or in relation to use of this site and/or the information on it, even if it was reasonably foreseeable or we have been made aware of the possibility of such loss/damage(s).

(c) Subject to paragraph (d) below, but otherwise so far permitted by law, our total aggregate liability hereunder in respect of direct loss and damage and other direct liability, howsoever arising, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), statute or otherwise per claim or series of related claims, shall be limited to the maximum of the face value of the booking to which the claim(s) relate(s).

(d) Nothing in these terms of use shall limit our liability for loss or damage for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, nor for any fraudulent misrepresentation made by us or those under our control.

(e) If you are using this site as a consumer then nothing in these terms of use shall in any way limit your statutory rights.

11 SEVERABILITY

If one or more of the provisions of these terms of use are at any time found to be invalid by a court, tribunal or other forum of competent jurisdiction, or otherwise rendered unenforceable, that decision shall not invalidate or void the remainder of these terms of use. These terms of use shall be deemed amended by modifying or severing such provisions as necessary to render them valid, legal and enforceable while preserving their intent, or if that is not possible, by substituting another provision that is valid, legal and enforceable which materially gives effect to their intent. Any invalid or unenforceable provision or provisions shall be severable from these terms of use so that the validity or enforceability of their remaining provisions, or the validity of the provision(s) in question in any other jurisdiction, shall not be affected.

12 ENTIRE AGREEMENT

These terms of use supersede all prior agreements, arrangements and statements between us with respect to your use of this site and constitute the entire agreement between us relating to the same.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, in the event that there is any conflict or inconsistency between these terms of use and any agreement we have made with your company regarding the use of this site and the services offered through it, these terms of use will prevail unless and to the extent mutually agreed in writing between us and except as provided for in paragraphs 3(k) and 4(e).

13 CHANGE OF TERMS OF USE

This site is intended to be available on a 24/365 basis. However, you acknowledge that the Site and/or the service may be closed down (in whole or in part) and/or their facilities/availability limited from time to time for maintenance and/or due to circumstances beyond HRG’s control.

HRG reserves the right to alter or allow to be altered the site from time to time without prior notice but confirm that, in doing so, the site’s service’s functionality will not be materially reduced.

We may alter, adapt or otherwise change these terms of use from time to time (including for security, legal or regulatory reasons, or to reflect updates or changes to the services or functionality of the site) without prior notice. Your use of this site or any service(s) made available on or through it will constitute acceptance of those amended terms of use and you should review them before conducting future transactions or making any further use of this site or the services offered through it.

14 ABOUT US

This site is operated by Hogg Robinson Switzerland Ltd, IATA 81-2 0607 whose registered address is: Altstetterstrasse 124, 8048 Zurich, Switzerland. HRG Switzerland’s VAT Number is 502 967.

Our normal hours of business are 7.30h to 18.00h weekdays excluding Bank Holidays.

You can contact us by ringing 0848 805 090 for enquiries relating to online reservations or enquiries about technical problems; by writing to us at the above address; or by using one of this site’s contact facilities.

15 MISCELLANEOUS

These terms of use shall not constitute or be deemed to constitute a partnership, joint venture or contract of employment between us.

You may not assign, sub-license, sub-contract or otherwise transfer any of your rights or obligations under these terms of use without our prior written consent.

Headings in these terms of use are for convenience only and are not to be taken into account when construing these terms of use.

16 TERMINATION

We reserve the right to block your access to this site and the services offered through it if, in good faith, we believe that you have failed to comply with any of these terms of use. In any event, you will not be permitted to use this site or the services offered through it after our relationship with your company has expired or terminated for any reason.

17 GOVERNING LAW AND LEGAL VENUE

Use of the site is governed by Swiss law, and you agree to submit any claim or dispute arising in relation to, out of, or in connection with this site (and any use you make of it or the services and/or opportunities offered through it) to the exclusive jurisdiction of the ordinary Courts in Zurich, Switzerland, venue being Zurich 1.

Version July 2007
Hogg Robinson Switzerland Ltd.