Cancellation & Refund Policy

1. The whole policy in one table

2. How the two-step payment works, because it decides everything below

What that saved card can and cannot be used for:

• One single charge: the balance for the one experience and the one date you booked.
• One fixed amount: exactly the balance you were shown before paying. Never a different figure.
• One single condition: the date reaching its minimum group size and being confirmed.
• Never a subscription: no recurring payment, no renewal, no membership, no charge for any future event.

3. Free cancellation up to 7 days before

Change your mind for any reason at all, more than 7 days before the date, and you get 100% of what you have paid back: deposit, and balance too if it has already been charged. You do not have to explain yourself.

Use the personal link in your confirmation email, or write to romain@worldxpat.com from the address you booked with. The 7 days are counted from the date of the experience, in Dubai time (GST, UTC+4).

4. Cancelling 7 days or less before the date

Inside the last 7 days, your payment is no longer refundable. We want to be straight with you about why: by that point the date is confirmed, we have committed the venue, the catering and the hosts, and eleven other people have organised their weekend around a table that includes your seat. An empty chair at that stage costs the group, not just us.

You still have two ways not to lose your money:

• Pass your spot to a friend. They must be 18 or over and meet the age range of the experience. Send us their first name, last name, email and WhatsApp number at least 24 hours before the date, and we swap the names over. Free of charge.
• Move it once to the next available date of the same experience, subject to there being a spot. Your full payment follows you. Ask us before the day of the event. We cannot do it afterwards.

Both options go through romain@worldxpat.com. Genuine emergencies exist and we are human. Tell us what happened and we will do what we reasonably can.

5. If your date does not reach the minimum group

Every experience needs a minimum number of people to be worth doing. The exact minimum and maximum are shown on each experience’s page before you book. We make the go / no-go call at the latest 7 days before the date. If your date has not reached its minimum:

1. We contact you by WhatsApp and/or email, with a personal link to your booking.
2. You choose, yourself, on that link:
   • Move your spot free of charge to another available date. Your deposit follows you. Nothing more to pay at that point.
   • Get your deposit refunded in full, back to the card you paid with.
3. You have 48 hours to decide. The deadline is written in the message we send you.
4. If we hear nothing within 48 hours, we move your booking to the next available date of the same experience and keep your deposit against it. We never charge you anything extra, and we never keep your money without a spot attached to it. You can still ask for a full refund at any time before that new date is confirmed. Just email us.

In all of these cases, the balance is never charged. Your card stays untouched from the deposit onwards.

6. If we cancel, postpone or change a date

If we call off a date ourselves, or postpone it, or change it so fundamentally that it is no longer the experience you booked, you choose between a full refund of everything you have paid and a free move to another date. We tell you as soon as we know.

The same applies when a date cannot go ahead for reasons outside our reasonable control: extreme weather, an authority's decision, a venue closure, a public health measure. You are refunded or moved, but we cannot reimburse costs you arranged around the event, such as travel, hotels or time off work.

7. No-shows and late arrivals

If you do not turn up and have not told us beforehand, your payment is not refundable and cannot be moved. Please just message us (even an hour before) if something has come up. It lets us look after the rest of the group, and it means we can talk about your options.

If you arrive late, come anyway. We will not refund the part of the experience you missed, but the crew will still be there.

8. If the balance charge fails

Cards expire, banks refuse charges, accounts run low. If we cannot collect the balance when your date is confirmed, we contact you by email and WhatsApp so you can settle it another way, and we give you at least 48 hours to do so.

If the balance still cannot be collected after that, we release your spot to someone else and refund your deposit in full. You are not penalised for a payment that failed.

9. How refunds are actually made

• Back to the same card, through Stripe. We cannot refund to a different card, to a bank account or in cash. That is a payment network rule, not our preference.
• We start the refund within 2 business days of confirming it, and usually the same day. After that it is in your bank's hands: typically 5 to 10 business days before it shows on your statement.
• We refund the full amount. We never deduct an admin fee, a processing fee or a handling charge.
• Currency: we refund in AED, the currency you were charged in. If your card is in another currency, your bank's exchange rate on the day of the refund may differ slightly from the day you paid. That difference is your bank's, and it is outside our control.
• You get an email confirming every refund we issue.

10. Chargebacks: please talk to us first

If you think you have been charged wrongly, email romain@worldxpat.com before contacting your bank. If a refund is due under this policy, we will simply make it. That is faster for you than a chargeback, which typically takes weeks and costs both sides.

We keep a record of every booking, every authorisation and every charge, and we will provide it if a dispute is ever raised.

11. Your consumer rights

This policy sits alongside your rights under the law of the United Arab Emirates, including UAE Federal Law No. 15 of 2020 on Consumer Protection. Nothing here removes or reduces a right that the law gives you. Where the law gives you more than this page does, the law wins.

12. How to request a cancellation or a refund

Two ways, both easy:

• Your personal booking link: in your confirmation email. When a choice is open to you, you can move or refund your spot yourself, in two clicks, with no account to create.
• Email romain@worldxpat.com from the address you booked with. Tell us your full name, the experience and the date. We reply within 2 business days.

Questions about anything on this page? The Contact page has every way to reach us, and the Reservation Terms & Conditions cover the rest of the agreement.