1.	POLICY OVERVIEW

 Friends Travel UK is committed to protecting your Personal Information that you share with us. Please take a moment to review this Privacy Policy where you can find more details about how we collect and process your information. By using our website or the services offered by us, you are consenting to our use of such personal information as you provide to us as described herein. If you do not consent to our use of your information, please do not use our services. This Privacy Policy concerns all the information that we collect, use and otherwise process about you as a customer, potential customer or just enquirer. For the purposes of data protection laws, we are the “data controller” of all personal information that we collect, use and/or otherwise process about you under this Privacy Policy.

2. WHAT INFORMATION DO WE COLLECT ABOUT YOU?

The type of information we collect about you depends on the nature of your interactions with us. Depending on the circumstances, we collect any of the following:

Details about you: Your name, email address, address, telephone number, date of birth, your hotel room preferences, loyalty membership details, frequent flyer membership details, payment details, your reasons for travel (such as for a wedding, birthday or anniversary), meal and other travel preferences or dietary requirements and, if necessary, information about your health to the extent that it’s relevant to your fitness to fly, your holiday itinerary or to provide you with special assistance.
Identification documents. If you are travelling on a route requiring Advance Passenger Information, your passport or identity card details including your passport number, the country in which your passport was issued and the expiry date.
Details about the services you arrange with us. Your travel details, including details of your travel itinerary, where you are flying from and to, your booking information including the hotel accommodation, any onward travel details if relevant (for example if you need our assistance for a connecting flight, if you’ve booked transportation or a tour with us), details of experiences or excursions booked through us, your baggage requirements, any upgrade information, your lounge visits, seat preferences, meal preferences or requirements, details of any special assistance you might need from us and any other information relevant to enable us to provide you with the travel or other services that you’ve arranged with us.
Your interactions with us. Information about your interactions or conversations with us and our people, including when you make enquiries, comments, complaints or submit feedback to us (whether formally via email or simply verbally to our people).

3. HOW WE COLLECT INFORMATION ABOUT YOU

How we collect information about you will depend on how you interact with us and what services you arrange with us. Depending on the circumstances, we collect information in any of the following ways:

-When you browse our site or make a telephone enquiry.
-When you book or search for a holiday or other service (such as a flight, hotel, transportation or special assistance) via our website.
-When you fill in part of the booking information on our site but do not complete the booking;
-When you contact us via our call, social media, post, email or instant messenger;
-When you request a brochure, sign up to receive email updates, promotions (for example via any social media channels, email or our site);
-When you provide us with information about an accident, illness or incident that occurred in connection with your holiday;
-When you make a complaint via a third party (such as an airline or hotel); and/or

4. IN WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES DO WE NEED TO COLLECT YOUR SENSITIVE INFORMATION?

In certain circumstances, we will collect information that is deemed sensitive. This is most likely to include:

Information about your health (for example if you ask us to provide you with special assistance during your holiday, or to determine your fitness to fly, or if you specify a meal preference that indicates a medical condition such as celiac disease); and/or
Information about your religion (for example if you specify a meal preference that indicates a particular religion such as a kosher or halal meal).
We seek to limit any sensitive personal data that we collect and, unless we have other specific lawful reasons to use this information (such as in an emergency situation), we will ask for your consent to collect it.

5. HOW WE USE YOUR INFORMATION

-For what purposes do we use your information?

We’ll use your information for a variety of different purposes, some of which will depend on the services that you engage us for. This includes:

To manage your booking with us. We will use your information to provide you with any services that you request or purchase from us. This includes booking your flight, hotel, arranging a tour, transportation, and issuing you with your tickets (on the basis of performing our contract with you), and providing you with any special assistance (where you provide your consent);
To send you service communications and support services. We will use your information to send you any communications relevant to the services you’ve requested or purchased from us. This includes sending you an email to notify you of changes to your itinerary, or providing you with a voucher, ticket or e-ticket. We will also provide you with customer service and support, deal with your enquiries, scheduling changes, complaints, comments or observations shared with us (on the basis of performing our contract with you or on the basis of our legitimate interests to provide you with customer service);
To send you marketing communications. We will use your information to keep you up to date with the latest news, offers, sales, brochures and promotions that we think might be of interest or relevant to you (either on the basis of your consent where we have requested it, or our legitimate interests to provide you with marketing communications where we may lawfully do so);
To provide assistance with online bookings. We collect your information when you fill in the required fields of our online booking forms but do not complete your booking or transaction in order to offer our assistance in case you are experiencing difficulties with our website (where we have your consent to do so);
To personalise your customer experience. We use your information to provide you with a more personalised service. For example tailoring the communications that we send to you with your preferred destinations, serving you only with advertising that we think you might like and/or enhancing your holiday experience (on the basis of our legitimate interests to present you with the right kinds of products and services);
To process your job applications;

-On what grounds will we process your information?

We will use your information for the purposes listed above, either:
For the performance of your contract with us and the provision of our services to you;
To comply with a legal obligation we have;

To protect your vital interests;
With your consent (please see your rights in relation to consent that you provide to us);
For establishing, exercising or defending legal claims; and
For reasons of substantial public interest.

6. WHO WE SHARE YOUR INFORMATION WITH

-Third party suppliers that we work with to provide your booking and our other services to you. We may share your information with third party suppliers that provide us with services in connection with the provision of our services to you. This includes for example: airlines, hotels, tour operators, transport companies, excursion providers, airport authorities, ground handling agencies;
-Airports, immigration / border control and/or other government authorities. Some destinations require airlines and tour operators to provide “Advance Passenger Information” about you to the border/immigration authorities of the country of your travel destination. Advance Passenger Information comprises the basic information contained in your passport that you would be required to present on your arrival. In addition, laws in certain destinations such as the USA and other countries require airlines to provide certain additional advance information about you and your travel arrangements. We will provide this information where we are required to do so.
-Courts or advisors. We share your information with other third parties (including legal, accountants or other advisors, regulatory authorities, courts and government agencies) where necessary to enable us to enforce our legal rights, or to protect the rights, property or safety of our employees or where such disclosure may be permitted or required by law;

7. OUR SITE AND COOKIES

As you may already know, most sites and apps collect certain information automatically in log files about the way in which you interact with them. This might include your IP address, geographical location, device information (such as your hardware model, mobile network information, unique device identifiers) browser type, referral source, length of visit to the site, number of page views, the search queries you make, and similar information.
This information will be collected by us or by a third party site analytics service provider and will be collected using cookies.

As we’ve described above, we use this information to save your settings, such as givе you access to more great features on our website, help improve our functionality and services, run diagnostics, analyse trends, track visitor movements, gather broad demographic information and personalise our services.

Cookies are small amounts of information in the form of text files that we store on the device you use to access our site or our marketing communications. Cookies allow us to monitor your use of our services and improve them. For example, a temporary cookie is also used to keep track of your “session”. Without that temporary cookie you will not be able to purchase holidays or other services via our site.

We also use cookies for site analytics purposes and to monitor how customers interact with and receive our marketing communications (for example if you open the marketing communication and/or click on any of our offers). We use this information to try to improve the relevance and tone of our future communications to ensure we’re serving you as best as we can.

8. HOW WE LOOK AFTER YOUR INFORMATION

We strive to constantly keep our security practices under review to make sure that we’re keeping your information as safe as possible. We use a variety of different technical and operational security measures to protect your information against unauthorised access or unlawful use. For example we:

-Ensure the physical security of our office;
-Ensure the physical and digital security of our equipment, devices and systems by mandating appropriate password protection and access restrictions;
-Ensure appropriate access controls so that access to your information is only granted to those of our people that need to use it in the course of their work;

9. HOW LONG WE KEEP YOUR INFORMATION FOR

We keep your information for as long as is necessary to enable us to provide you with the services that you have requested from us, to comply with any legal obligations that require us to keep information, or for as long as we reasonably require for our legitimate interests, including for example for the purposes of exercising our legal rights or defending ourselves against claims. 

10. CONSENT

What did you provide consent for?

To send you marketing communications. To provide assistance with online bookings when you do not complete your booking or transaction. To provide you with special assistance. To determine your fitness to fly. To specify your meal preference in your booking. To investigate an accident, illness or incident.

What are your rights?

The right to:

-Be informed of the ways in which we use your information;
-Request access to the information that we hold about you;
-Request that we correct or rectify any information that we hold about you which is out of date or incorrect;