CANCELLATION AND REFUND POLICY
Earth Abroad Private Limited, trading as Foxpels
CANCELLATION AND REFUND POLICY
Earth Abroad Private Limited, trading as Foxpels
Last updated: March 2026
This policy forms part of the Booking Terms and Conditions and uses the same defined terms. It applies to every journey sold by Earth Abroad Private Limited under the Foxpels brand.
1. How to cancel
1.1 Cancellation must be made in writing to hello@foxpels.com from the email address on the booking. A telephone call does not cancel a booking.
1.2 The effective date of cancellation is the date we receive your written notice. Charges are calculated from that date.
1.3 We acknowledge a cancellation within 48 hours and confirm in writing what is refundable, itemised.
1.4 A cancelled booking cannot be reinstated. Rebooking is a fresh booking at the price then current.
2. Cancellation by you
2.1 Journeys are built months ahead. Accommodation is held, permits are lodged, community preparation begins, and specialist partners commit their time. Those commitments cannot always be released, which is why cancellation carries a charge that rises as departure approaches.
2.2 The following charges apply, as a percentage of the journey price:
| Written cancellation received | Journeys within India | Journeys beyond India |
|---|---|---|
| More than 120 days before departure | 10% | 10% |
| 91 to 120 days | 15% | 15% |
| 61 to 90 days | 20% | 30% |
| 46 to 60 days | 30% | 55% |
| 31 to 45 days | 40% | 65% |
| 16 to 30 days | 50% | 75% |
| 6 to 15 days | 75% | 85% |
| 5 days or fewer, or after the journey has begun | 100% | 100% |
2.3 Where your journey includes a third-party service with its own cancellation terms — an airline, a cruise, a railway, a hotel booked on a non-refundable rate — that provider's charges apply in addition to the scale above, at actual cost, evidenced.
2.4 In addition to the scale, the following are not refundable at any point:
- Permits, access fees and conservation fees already lodged with an authority
- Specialist partner commitments already contracted — a ritual scholar, an expedition guide, a festival authority
- Community preparation already begun, where the community has committed labour, materials or produce to your journey
- Visa fees paid to a consulate
- Tax Collected at Source already deposited with the tax authorities
- Any element identified as non-refundable on your quote at the time of booking
2.5 Where these apply we itemise and evidence them. We do not deduct an amount we cannot show you.
2.6 Group bookings. Where one traveller in a group cancels and the group falls below the minimum, or below the threshold on which a rate was quoted, the journey may be repriced for the remaining travellers, who may accept the new price or cancel under this scale.
2.7 Single occupancy. Where you booked on a shared-room basis and your room partner cancels, a single occupancy supplement becomes payable for the remaining traveller, or a new sharing arrangement is found where possible.
3. Cancellation by us
3.1 We may cancel a confirmed journey where:
- A fixed departure has not reached its minimum of 6 travellers
- A ground partner fails and no equivalent arrangement can be substituted
- We judge that the journey cannot be run safely
- A permit, clearance or access required for the journey is refused or withdrawn
- A force majeure event under clause 20 of the Booking Terms and Conditions prevents it
3.2 Where we cancel for an operational reason under 3.1, you choose between:
- A full refund of everything you have paid us, with no deduction and no administrative charge; or
- A transfer to an alternative departure of the same journey, or to a different journey, with any price difference settled in either direction.
3.3 Where a departure is cancelled for want of numbers, we will tell you no later than 30 days before departure.
3.4 Costs you arranged yourself — flights, visas, vaccinations, connecting travel, accommodation outside the itinerary — are not recoverable from us. This is why we ask you not to book flights until a departure is confirmed to run, and why cancellation cover in your own insurance matters.
3.5 Where we decline your participation on health or fitness grounds under clause 11 of the Booking Terms and Conditions before confirmation, no charge arises and any payment is returned in full. Where a condition emerging after confirmation makes participation unsafe, the scale in clause 2 applies, and this is a circumstance your insurance may cover.
4. Community-initiated withdrawal
4.1 Every Foxpels community partner holds an unconditional right to withdraw from a journey at any time, for any reason, with no financial penalty and no notice requirement. That right is written into every community agreement, it cannot be waived, and we do not attempt to persuade a community out of exercising it.
4.2 The consequence for you is this:
> Where a community partner, ritual authority or regulator withdraws access to a journey, every affected traveller receives a full refund of everything paid to Foxpels — with no penalty, no administrative deduction, and no reduction of any kind.
4.3 This applies however close to departure the withdrawal occurs, including on the day. It applies whether or not we are able to recover our own costs, and it is not conditional on our recovering them.
4.4 We may offer you a transfer to an alternative journey as an option. The full refund remains available whether or not you take it.
4.5 We publish this clause because the withdrawal right is real and you should know it exists before you book. Access to these places is granted, not purchased, and a company that made it contractually enforceable against the people granting it would be a different company from the one described elsewhere on this site.
5. Earth Rare
5.1 Before allocation. An application creates no contract and no payment obligation. You may withdraw it at any time at no cost.
5.2 Allocation offered and not taken. Where we offer a place and you decline it, or do not respond within the period stated in the offer, no charge arises and the place returns to the allocation.
5.3 After allocation is accepted. Earth Rare journeys are capped at 8 to 12 travellers, access is arranged individually with a ritual authority, and a withdrawn place usually cannot be filled. The following applies:
| Written cancellation received | Charge |
|---|---|
| More than 90 days before departure | 25% of the journey price |
| 60 to 90 days | 50% of the journey price |
| Fewer than 60 days | 100% of the journey price |
5.4 The specialist partner fee and any access or clearance cost already committed are non-refundable from the date of allocation, and are stated in the offer of allocation.
5.5 Access withdrawn after allocation. Where a ritual authority or community withdraws access after your place is confirmed, clause 4 applies in full — a complete refund, no deduction.
5.6 Scarcity pricing. Where a journey moves date and you transfer to the new date, the price you have already paid is honoured. Where you cancel and apply again for a later edition, the price then current applies.
6. Earth Study and institutional bookings
6.1 Where an engagement letter or service agreement is in place, its cancellation terms apply and prevail over this policy.
6.2 Where no engagement terms are agreed, the scale in clause 2 applies.
6.3 Costs built specifically for a cohort — specialist access, fieldwork permits, faculty-directed arrangements — are treated under clause 2.4.
7. Force majeure
7.1 Where a force majeure event under clause 20 of the Booking Terms and Conditions prevents a journey from running, we will:
- Recover from our suppliers everything we are able to recover, and pass it to you in full, without retaining any margin on the cancelled journey;
- Itemise and evidence anything we could not recover;
- Issue a credit note for the unrecovered balance, valid for 12 months against any Foxpels journey, transferable to an immediate family member.
7.2 Where a journey is postponed rather than cancelled, you may take the new date at no additional charge other than a difference in the journey price, or convert your payment to a credit note under 7.1.
7.3 A force majeure event is not an opportunity for us to retain money that has not been spent. Where we recover funds from a supplier after a refund has been settled, we will pass the recovery on to you.
7.4 Costs you arranged yourself are not recoverable from us in a force majeure situation.
8. Material change
Where we make a material change under clause 17 of the Booking Terms and Conditions and you choose not to accept it, you receive a full refund with no deduction, or a transfer with the price difference settled either way.
9. Permit or regulatory refusal
9.1 Where a permit or clearance that we or our partners are obtaining is refused, or a site or region is closed by an authority after confirmation:
- If an equivalent arrangement preserving the substance of the journey can be substituted, the journey proceeds.
- If it cannot, the journey is cancelled by us under clause 3 and you receive a full refund or a transfer, at your choice.
9.2 Where the refusal is of a permit personal to you — a visa, or a restricted area permit refused on grounds of your nationality — it is a cancellation by you under clause 2, and the date of refusal is the effective date.
9.3 Where a visa decision has not been received by the departure date and you therefore cannot travel, the booking is treated as cancelled on the departure date and the charge for that date applies.
10. No-show, late joining and discontinuation
10.1 Failure to join a journey on day one without notice is a no-show. The full journey price is forfeited and no services are recoverable.
10.2 Where you join late, we will do what we reasonably can to bring you to the group at your cost. Missed elements are not refunded.
10.3 Where you leave a journey partway through for any reason of your own, no refund arises for the unused portion. We will help you arrange onward travel, at your cost.
10.4 Where you are required to leave a journey under clause 15 or clause 14 of the Booking Terms and Conditions — conduct, or breach of a photography protocol — no refund arises and onward costs are yours.
11. How refunds are paid
11.1 Refunds are made to the person who made the payment, by the route it was received. We do not pay a refund to a third party.
11.2 Refunds are issued within 10 working days of our written confirmation of the amount.
11.3 Refunds on payments received in foreign currency are made in Indian Rupees at the rate prevailing on the date of refund, in line with Indian foreign exchange regulations. Exchange rate movement between payment and refund is not compensated.
11.4 We do not pay interest on money held.
11.5 Bank transfer and remittance charges on a refund are borne by you, except where the refund arises under clause 3 (cancellation by us), clause 4 (community-initiated withdrawal) or clause 8 (material change), where we bear them and you receive the full amount paid.
11.6 Tax Collected at Source is not refundable by us. It sits with the tax authorities against the Permanent Account Number of the person invoiced and is claimed through that person's annual return.
12. Insurance
12.1 This policy governs what Foxpels refunds. It is not insurance.
12.2 Cancellation for a personal reason — illness, bereavement, work, a family emergency, a change of mind — attracts the charges in clause 2 whatever the reason. Recovering those charges is what the cancellation section of your travel insurance is for, and insurance is mandatory on every Foxpels journey.
12.3 Buy your policy at the time you book, not before you travel. A policy bought later will not cover a cancellation for a cause that already existed.
13. Complaints about a refund
Write to the Grievance Officer at hello@foxpels.com. We acknowledge within 48 hours, aim to resolve within 7 days, and will resolve within 30 days at the outside. Clause 23 of the Booking Terms and Conditions sets out the full grievance route.