Privacy Policy

Last Updated: December 20, 2024

1. Introduction

Welcome to Bigtime Travel ("we," "us," "our," or "Company"). We are committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information. This Privacy Policy describes how we collect, use, disclose, store, and protect your information when you visit our website www.bigtimetravel.shop, use our services, book tour packages, communicate with us, or otherwise interact with us in any capacity.

By using our website and services, you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agree to be bound by the terms of this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree with any part of this policy, you should not use our website or services. We encourage you to read this policy carefully and to check this page periodically for any changes or updates.

For the purposes of this Privacy Policy, "personal information" means any information that identifies, relates to, describes, is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer or household.

2. Information We Collect

2.1 Personal Information You Provide

When you book a tour package, fill out our contact form, subscribe to our newsletter, communicate with us via any channel, or create an account on our platform, we may collect the following categories of personal information:

• Identification Details: Full name (first name, middle name, last name), date of birth, gender, nationality, photograph for travel documents, and government-issued ID numbers such as Aadhaar Card number, Passport number, Voter ID, or PAN Card number as required for travel bookings and hotel check-ins.
• Contact Information: Residential or postal address, email address (primary and alternate), phone number (mobile and landline), WhatsApp number, and any other contact details you choose to share with us.
• Travel Preferences and Requirements: Preferred destinations, desired travel dates, number of travelers including children and their ages, accommodation type preferences (budget, standard, luxury), room sharing preferences, dietary requirements (vegetarian, vegan, non-vegetarian, allergies, religious dietary needs), medical conditions or special needs requiring assistance, preferred mode of transport, and any special requests or customizations.
• Payment and Billing Information: Billing name and address, payment method preference, bank account details for refunds (where applicable), and transaction records including amounts paid, dates of payment, and invoice numbers. Please note that we do not store complete credit card or debit card numbers on our systems. All card payments are processed through PCI-DSS compliant third-party payment gateways.
• Communication Records: Copies of emails exchanged between you and our team, records of phone calls (where call recording is permitted and notified), chat transcripts from WhatsApp or website chat, and any written correspondence including letters and forms.
• Social Media Information: If you interact with us through social media platforms, we may collect your public profile information, user ID, and any content you share with us through those platforms.
• Emergency Contact Information: Name, relationship, and contact details of a person to be contacted in case of emergency during your trip, as provided by you during the booking process.

2.2 Information Collected Automatically

When you visit, browse, or interact with our website, certain information may be collected automatically through cookies, web beacons, pixel tags, and similar tracking technologies:

• Device and Technical Information: Internet Protocol (IP) address, browser type and version, operating system and version, device type (desktop, mobile, tablet), device manufacturer and model, screen resolution and color depth, and hardware specifications.
• Usage and Navigation Data: Pages visited, time spent on each page, click patterns, mouse movements, scrolling behavior, referring URL or source, search queries entered on our website, navigation paths through the website, download activity, and interaction with website features.
• Location Data: Approximate geographic location (city or region level) derived from your IP address for analytics, service improvement, and localized content delivery. We do not collect precise GPS location data through our website without your explicit consent.
• Session Data: Session start and end times, pages viewed during a session, duration of visit, frequency of visits, and whether you are a new or returning visitor.

2.3 Information from Third Parties

We may receive personal information about you from third-party sources, including but not limited to:

• Travel Partners: Hotels, airlines, transport operators, and activity providers who share booking-related information necessary to fulfill your travel arrangements.
• Payment Processors: Financial institutions and payment gateway partners who share transaction confirmation and verification data.
• Analytics Providers: Google Analytics and similar services that provide aggregated or anonymized user behavior data.
• Advertising Networks: Third-party advertising platforms that share non-personal or pseudonymized data for targeted advertising purposes.
• Public Sources: Publicly available databases, social media profiles (with your privacy settings permitting), and other publicly accessible sources.

3. How We Use Your Information

We use the personal information we collect for the following specific purposes, each of which is grounded in a legitimate business interest, contractual necessity, or your consent as applicable:

• Service Delivery and Fulfillment: To process your tour bookings, make reservations with hotels and transport providers, arrange guided tours and activities, deliver travel documents (itineraries, vouchers, tickets), and ensure all aspects of your travel experience are executed as agreed.
• Communication and Correspondence: To respond to your inquiries and requests, send booking confirmations and reminders, provide itinerary details and updates, share travel advisories or safety information, deliver customer support responses, and maintain ongoing communication related to your trips.
• Personalization and Recommendations: To analyze your travel preferences, booking history, and browsing behavior to provide personalized tour recommendations, destination suggestions, accommodation options, and activity recommendations that align with your interests and budget.
• Marketing and Promotional Communications: To send you information about new tour packages, seasonal offers, discounted deals, loyalty rewards, travel tips, destination guides, newsletters, event invitations, and other promotional materials through various communication channels including email, SMS, WhatsApp, push notifications, RCS, and OBD calls.
• Customer Relationship Management: To maintain and update your customer profile, track your booking history and preferences, manage loyalty programs or reward points, and provide a consistent and personalized experience across all interactions with us.
• Analytics and Business Intelligence: To analyze website traffic and user behavior, understand trends in travel preferences, measure the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns, conduct market research, and generate business insights that help us improve our services and develop new offerings.
• Customer Support and Dispute Resolution: To handle complaints, process refund and cancellation requests, resolve disputes, investigate service issues, and ensure customer satisfaction with our services.
• Legal and Regulatory Compliance: To comply with applicable Indian laws and regulations including the Information Technology Act 2000 and its amendments, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023, Goods and Services Tax (GST) requirements, Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) requirements for international travel, and to respond to lawful requests from government authorities, courts, or regulatory bodies.
• Fraud Detection and Prevention: To detect, prevent, investigate, and take action against fraudulent transactions, identity theft, unauthorized access attempts, abuse of our services, and other security threats.
• Internal Operations and Quality Assurance: To train our staff, conduct internal audits, monitor service quality, evaluate employee performance, and improve our internal processes and procedures.

4. Notification and Communication Consent

This consent covers the following types of communications that we may send to you:

• Service-Related Notifications: Booking confirmations, payment receipts, itinerary details, travel vouchers, hotel and transport booking references, check-in reminders, departure and arrival alerts, changes to your itinerary, cancellation notifications, refund status updates, and any other information directly related to your booked travel services.
• Promotional and Marketing Communications: Information about new tour packages and destinations, seasonal and festive offers, early-bird discounts, last-minute deals, loyalty program benefits, referral program invitations, travel tips and destination guides, newsletters, blog post notifications, event announcements, and partnership offers.
• Transactional Updates: Payment processing confirmations, EMI or installment payment reminders, account-related notifications, password reset or account verification emails, and policy update notifications.
• Survey and Feedback Requests: Post-trip satisfaction surveys, feedback collection forms, review requests, and research questionnaires designed to improve our services.

The frequency of promotional communications will be reasonable and controlled. You can expect to receive promotional emails no more than 2-3 times per week, SMS messages no more than 4-6 times per month, and WhatsApp messages no more than 2-4 times per month. Service-related notifications will be sent as and when necessary based on your booking and account activity.

These communications may be sent by Bigtime Travel directly or through our authorized communication partners, including My Inbox Media ®, who assist us in delivering messages across multiple digital channels including SMS, email, OBD (Outbound Dialing), Google RCS, and WhatsApp on our behalf.

In addition to the email opt-out method above, you may also:

• Click the "Unsubscribe" link provided at the bottom of every promotional email we send. This will remove you from our email marketing list within 7-10 business days.
• Reply with "STOP" or "UNSUBSCRIBE" to any promotional SMS you receive from us. This will opt you out of SMS communications within 24-48 hours as per TRAI DND regulations.
• Send a "STOP" message via WhatsApp to opt out of WhatsApp communications from us.
• Call us at +91 99448 32197 during business hours and request to be removed from our marketing communication lists.
• Visit our office at Shop No. 13, T Nagar Shopping Complex, Chennai, Tamil Nadu 600017 and submit a written opt-out request.

Please note: Opting out of marketing communications will NOT affect your ability to receive important service-related notifications regarding your active or confirmed bookings. We will continue to send you essential transactional communications related to your travel services even if you opt out of promotional messages. Also, it may take up to 10 business days for your opt-out request to be fully processed across all communication channels.

5. How We Share Your Information

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information to third parties for their marketing purposes. However, we may share your information in the following circumstances:

• Travel Service Partners: We share your personal information (name, contact details, ID numbers, travel dates, preferences) with hotels, airlines, transport operators, tour guides, activity providers, and other travel service partners solely for the purpose of fulfilling your booked travel arrangements. These partners are contractually obligated to use your information only for the specified purpose and to maintain appropriate data security measures.
• Communication Service Providers: We share limited contact information with My Inbox Media and other authorized communication partners who assist us in delivering SMS, email, RCS, WhatsApp, and OBD communications to you on our behalf.
• Payment Processors: We share transaction-related information with banks, payment gateways, and financial institutions to process your payments, issue refunds, and prevent fraud.
• Technology and Analytics Providers: We share anonymized or aggregated usage data with Google Analytics, hosting providers, and other technology service providers who help us operate our website and analyze usage patterns.
• Legal and Regulatory Requirements: We may disclose your information when required by law, regulation, court order, government authority, or legal process, including in response to subpoenas, warrants, or orders from Indian or foreign government agencies.
• Business Transfers: In the event of a merger, acquisition, reorganization, bankruptcy, or sale of all or a portion of our assets, your personal information may be transferred to the acquiring entity as part of the transaction, subject to the new entity honoring this Privacy Policy.
• With Your Consent: We may share your information with third parties for purposes not described above when you have given us explicit consent to do so.

6. Cookies and Tracking Technologies

Our website uses cookies and similar tracking technologies to enhance your browsing experience, analyze website traffic, and understand user preferences. A cookie is a small text file that is placed on your device when you visit our website. We use the following types of cookies:

• Strictly Necessary Cookies: These cookies are essential for the website to function properly. They enable core functionality such as page navigation, secure login, and access to protected areas. These cookies cannot be disabled as the website cannot function without them.
• Analytical Cookies: These cookies help us understand how visitors interact with our website by collecting information about pages visited, time spent, and error messages. We use this data to improve website performance and user experience.
• Functional Cookies: These cookies remember your preferences and choices (such as language, region, or currency settings) and provide enhanced, personalized features.
• Marketing and Advertising Cookies: These cookies are used to track visitors across websites to display relevant advertisements, measure the effectiveness of advertising campaigns, and retarget users who have previously visited our website.

You can control and manage cookies through your browser settings. Most browsers allow you to refuse cookies, delete existing cookies, or alert you when a cookie is being set. However, please note that disabling cookies may affect the functionality of our website and limit your ability to use certain features.

7. Data Security

We take the security of your personal information seriously and implement appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect it against unauthorized access, alteration, disclosure, or destruction. Our security measures include:

• SSL/TLS encryption for all data transmitted between your browser and our website.
• Encrypted storage of sensitive personal information and payment data.
• Regular security audits, vulnerability assessments, and penetration testing.
• Access controls and authentication mechanisms to limit employee access to personal information on a need-to-know basis.
• Employee training on data protection practices and confidentiality obligations.
• Physical security measures for our office premises and paper records.
• Incident response procedures for detecting, reporting, and responding to data breaches.

While we strive to protect your information using commercially reasonable measures, no method of transmission over the Internet or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. We cannot guarantee the absolute security of your information and cannot be held responsible for any unauthorized access, hacking, data loss, or other breaches that occur despite our best efforts.

8. Data Retention

We retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes for which it was collected, including to satisfy legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. Specific retention periods include:

• Booking Records: Retained for a minimum of 5 years from the completion of the trip for tax, accounting, and legal compliance purposes.
• Customer Accounts: Retained for the duration of your account being active plus 3 years of inactivity, after which the account may be deactivated or deleted.
• Communication Records: Retained for 3 years from the date of communication for customer service quality and dispute resolution purposes.
• Marketing Consent Records: Retained for 5 years from the date of consent or until you withdraw your consent, whichever is earlier.
• Website Analytics Data: Retained in anonymized or aggregated form for up to 26 months (in line with Google Analytics default settings).

When personal information is no longer required, we will securely delete or anonymize it in accordance with our data retention procedures.

9. Your Rights

Depending on applicable law, you may have the following rights regarding your personal information:

• Right to Access: You have the right to request information about the personal data we hold about you and to obtain a copy of that data.
• Right to Correction: You have the right to request correction of any inaccurate or incomplete personal information we hold about you.
• Right to Erasure: You have the right to request deletion of your personal information, subject to certain exceptions such as legal obligations, ongoing disputes, or legitimate business requirements.
• Right to Data Portability: You have the right to request transfer of your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format to another service provider.
• Right to Withdraw Consent: Where processing is based on consent, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time without affecting the lawfulness of processing carried out prior to withdrawal.
• Right to Opt Out of Marketing: You have the right to opt out of receiving marketing communications at any time using the methods described in Section 4 of this policy.
• Right to Lodge a Complaint: You have the right to lodge a complaint with the relevant data protection authority if you believe our processing of your personal data violates applicable data protection laws.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at info@bigtimetravel.shop or call us at +91 99448 32197. We will respond to your request within 30 days as required by applicable law. We may require verification of your identity before processing your request.

10. Children's Privacy

Our services are not directed to individuals under the age of 18. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you are a parent or guardian and believe that your child has provided us with personal information, please contact us immediately at info@bigtimetravel.shop and we will take steps to delete such information from our records. However, please note that for tour bookings involving minors, the parent or guardian's information will be collected and the parent or guardian is responsible for providing accurate details about the minor traveler.

11. Third-Party Links

Our website may contain links to third-party websites, including those of our travel partners, payment processors, social media platforms, and advertising networks. These third-party websites have their own privacy policies, which we encourage you to read. We are not responsible for the privacy practices, content, or security of any third-party websites. The inclusion of a link on our website does not imply our endorsement of the linked website or its operators.

12. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We reserve the right to update, modify, or replace this Privacy Policy at any time to reflect changes in our practices, technologies, legal requirements, or other factors. When we make material changes to this policy, we will:

• Update the "Last Updated" date at the top of this page.
• Post a prominent notice on our website for a reasonable period.
• Send an email notification to registered users about significant changes.

Your continued use of our website and services after any changes to this Privacy Policy constitutes your acceptance of the updated policy. We recommend that you review this page periodically to stay informed about how we protect your information.

13. Contact Us

If you have any questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy or our data practices, please contact us using any of the following methods:

We will endeavor to respond to all privacy-related inquiries within 30 business days of receipt. For urgent privacy concerns or data breach notifications, please call us directly for immediate assistance.