Privacy Policy – The Travel Stations

Introduction:

The Travel Stations (hereinafter “TTS”) recognizes the importance of privacy of its users and also of maintaining the confidentiality of the information provided by its users as a responsible data controller and data processer.

This Privacy Policy provides for the practices for handling and securing user’s Personal Information (defined hereunder) by TTS and its subsidiaries and affiliates.

This Privacy Policy is applicable to any person (‘User’) who purchase, intend to purchase or inquire about any product(s) or service(s) made available by TTS through any of TTS’s customer interface channels including its website, mobile site, mobile app & offline channels including call centers and offices (collectively referred herein as “Sales Channels”).

For the purpose of this Privacy Policy, wherever the context so requires “you” or ” “your” shall mean User and the term “we”, “us”, “our” shall mean TTS. For the purpose of this Privacy Policy, the Website means the website(s), mobile site(s), and mobile app(s).

By using or accessing the Website or other Sales Channels, the User hereby agrees with the terms of this Privacy Policy and the contents herein. If you disagree with this Privacy Policy please do not use or access our Website or other Sales Channels.

This Privacy Policy does not apply to any website(s), mobile sites, and mobile apps of third parties, even if their websites/products are linked to our Website. Users should take note that information and privacy practices of TTS’s business partners, advertisers, sponsors, or other sites to which TTS provides hyperlink(s), may be materially different from this Privacy Policy. Accordingly, it is recommended that you review the privacy statements and policies of any such third parties with whom they interact.

This Privacy Policy is an integral part of your User Agreement with TTS and all capitalized terms used, but not otherwise defined herein, shall have the respective meanings as ascribed to them in the User Agreement.

TYPE OF INFORMATION WE COLLECT AND ITS LEGAL BASIS

The information as detailed below is collected for us to be able to provide the services chosen by you and also to fulfill our legal obligations as well as our obligations towards third parties as per our User Agreement.

“Personal Information” of User shall include the information shared by the User and collected by us for the following purposes:

Registration on the Website: Information which you provide while subscribing to or registering on the Website, including but not limited to information about your personal identity such as name, gender, marital status, religion, age, etc., your contact details such as your email address, postal addresses, frequent flyer number, telephone (mobile or otherwise) and/or fax numbers. The information may also include information such as your banking details (including credit/debit card) and any other information relating to your income and/or lifestyle; billing information payment history etc. (as shared by you).

Other information: We may also collect some other information and documents including but not limited to:

·         Transactional history (other than banking details) about your e-commerce activities, buying behavior.

·         Your usernames, passwords, email addresses, and other security-related information used by you in relation to our Services.

·         Data either created by you or by a third party and which you wish to store on our servers such as image files, documents, etc.

·         Data available in the public domain or received from any third party including social media channels, including but not limited to personal or non-personal information from your linked social media channels (like name, email address, friend list, profile pictures or any other information that is permitted to be received as per your account settings) as a part of your account information.

·         Information pertaining to any other traveler(s) for who you make a booking through your registered TTS account. In such a case, you must confirm and represent that each of the other traveler(s) for whom a booking has been made, has agreed to have the information shared by you disclosed to us and further be shared by us with the concerned service provider(s).

·         If you request TTS to provide visa related services, then copies of your passport, bank statements, originals of the filled-in application forms, photographs, and any other information which may be required by the respective embassy to process your visa application.

HOW WE USE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION:

The Personal Information collected may be used in the following manner:

While making a booking

While making a booking, we may use Personal Information including, payment details which include cardholder name, credit/debit card number (in encrypted form) with an expiration date, banking details, wallet details, etc. as shared and allowed to be stored by you. We may also use the information of traveler’s list as available in or linked with your account. This information is presented to the user at the time of making a booking to enable you to complete your bookings expeditiously.

We may also use your Personal Information for several reasons including but not limited to:

·         confirm your reservations with respective service providers;

·         keep you informed of the transaction status;

·         send booking confirmations either via SMS or WhatsApp or any other messaging service;

·         send any updates or changes to your booking(s);

·         allow our customer service to contact you, if necessary;

·         customize the content of our website, mobile site and mobile app;

·         request for reviews of products or services or any other improvements;

·         send verification message(s) or email(s);

·         validate/authenticate your account and to prevent any misuse or abuse.

·         contact you on your birthday/anniversary to offer a special gift or offer.

Surveys:

We value opinions and comments from our Users and frequently conduct surveys, both online and offline. Participation in these surveys is entirely optional. Typically, the information received is aggregated and used to make improvements to the Website, other Sales Channels, services and to develop appealing content, features, and promotions for members based on the results of the surveys. The identity of the survey participants is anonymous unless otherwise stated in the survey.

Marketing Promotions, Research, and Programs:

Marketing promotions, research, and programs help us to identify your preferences, develop programs, and improve user experience. TTS frequently sponsors promotions to give its Users the opportunity to win great travel and travel-related prizes. Personal Information collected by us for such activities may include contact information and survey questions. We use such Personal Information to notify contest winners and survey information to develop promotions and product improvements. As a registered user, you will also occasionally receive updates from us about fare sales in your area, special offers, new TTS services, other noteworthy items (like savings and benefits on airfares, hotel reservations, holiday packages, car rentals, and other travel services) and marketing programs.

In addition, you may look forward to receiving periodic marketing emails, newsletters, and exclusive promotions offering special deals.

From time to time we may add or enhance services available on the Website. To the extent these services are provided and used by you, we will use the Personal Information you provide to facilitate the service(s) requested. For example, if you email us with a question, we will use your email address, name, nature of the question, etc. to respond to your question. We may also store such Personal Information to assist us in making the Website the better and easier to use for our Users.

TTS may from time to time launch reward programs by way of which users may stand to win travel related rewards or other rewards. We may use your Personal Information to enroll you in the rewards program and the status of the same will be visible each time you log in to the Website. Depending on the reward program, each time you win a reward, TTS may share your Personal Information with a third party that will be responsible for fulfilling the reward to you. You may however choose to opt-out of such reward programs by writing to us. For various purposes such as fraud detection, offering bookings on credit, etc., we at times may verify information of customers on a selective basis, including their credit information. Additionally, TTS may share your Personal Information, anonymized and/ or aggregated data to a third party that TTS may engage in to perform certain tasks on its behalf, including but not limited to payment processing, data hosting, data processing, and assessing creditworthiness for offering bookings on credit.

HOW LONG DO WE KEEP YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION?

TTS will retain your Personal Information on its servers for as long as is reasonably necessary for the purposes listed in this policy. In some circumstances, we may retain your Personal Information for longer periods of time, for instance where we are required to do so in accordance with any legal, regulatory, tax, or accounting requirements.

Where your personal data is no longer required we will ensure it is either securely deleted or stored in a way which means it will no longer be used by the business.

WITH WHOM YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION IS SHARED

Service Providers and suppliers:

Your information shall be shared with the end service providers like airlines, hotels, bus service providers, cab rental, railways or any other suppliers who are responsible for fulfilling your booking. You may note that while making a booking with TTS you authorize us to share your information with the said service providers and suppliers. It is pertinent to note that TTS does not authorize the end service provider to use your information for any other purpose(s) except as may be for fulfilling their part of service. However, how the said service providers/suppliers use the information shared with them is beyond the purview and control of TTS as they process Personal Information as independent data controllers, and hence we cannot be made accountable for the same. You are therefore advised to review the privacy policies of the respective service provider or supplier whose services you choose to avail.

TTS does not sell or rent individual customer names or other Personal Information of Users to third parties except sharing of such information with our business/alliance partners or vendors who are engaged by us for providing various referral services and for sharing promotional and other benefits to our customers from time to time basis of their booking history with us.

COMPANIES IN THE SAME GROUP:

In the interests of improving personalization and service efficiency, we may, under controlled and secure circumstances, share your Personal Information with our affiliate or associate entities. This will enable us to provide you with information about various products and services, both leisure- and travel-related, which might the interest you; or help us address your questions and requests in relation to your bookings.

If the assets of TTS are acquired, our customer information may also be transferred to the acquirer depending upon the nature of such an acquisition. In addition, as part of business expansion/development/restructuring or for any other reason whatsoever, if we decide to sell/transfer/assign our business, any part thereof, any of our subsidiaries or any business units, then as part of such restructuring exercise customer information including the Personal Information collected herein shall be transferred accordingly.

BUSINESS PARTNERS and THIRD-PARTY VENDORS:

We may also share certain filtered Personal Information to our corporate affiliates or business partners who may contact the customers to offer certain products or services, which may include free or paid products/services, which will enable the customer to have a better travel experience or to avail certain benefits specially made for TTS customers. Examples of such partners are entities offering co-branded credit cards, travel insurance, insurance cover against loss of wallet, banking cards or similar sensitive information, etc. If you choose to avail any such services offered by our business partners, the services so availed will be governed by the privacy policy of the respective service provider.

TTS may share your Personal Information to a third party that TTS may engage to perform certainly tasks on its behalf, including but not limited to payment processing, data hosting, and data processing platforms.

We use non-identifiable Personal Information of Users in aggregate or anonymized form to build higher quality, more useful online services by performing statistical analysis of the collective characteristics and behavior of our customers and visitors, and by measuring demographics and interests regarding specific areas of the Website. We may provide anonymous statistical information based on this data to suppliers, advertisers, affiliates and other current and potential business partners. We may also use such aggregate data to inform these third parties as to the number of people who have seen and clicked on links to their websites. Any Personal Information which we collect and which we may use in an aggregated format is our property. We may use it, in our sole discretion and without any compensation to you, for any legitimate purpose including without limitation of the commercial sale thereof to third parties.

Occasionally, TTS will hire a third party for market research, surveys, etc. and will provide information to these third parties specifically for use in connection with these projects. The information (including aggregate cookie and tracking information) we provide to such third parties, alliance partners, or vendors are protected by confidentiality agreements and such information is to be used solely for completing the specific project, and in compliance with the applicable regulations.

DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATION

In addition to the circumstances described above, TTS may disclose User’s Personal Information if required to do so:

·         by law, required by any enforcement authority for investigation, by the court order or in reference to any legal process;

·         to conduct our business;

·         for regulatory, internal compliance and audit exercise(s)

·         to secure our systems; or

·         to enforce or protect our rights or properties of TTS or any or all of its affiliates, associates, employees, directors or officers or when we have reason to believe that disclosing Personal Information of User(s) is necessary to identify, contact or bring legal action against someone who may be causing interference with our rights or properties, whether intentionally or otherwise, or when anyone else could be harmed by such activities.

Such disclosure and storage may take place without your knowledge. In that case, we shall not be liable to you or any third party for any damages howsoever arising from such disclosure and storage.

PERMISSIONS REQUIRED FOR USING OUR MOBILE APPLICATIONS

When the TTS app is installed on your phone or tablet, a list of permissions appears and is needed for the app to function effectively. There is no option to customize the list. The permissions that TTS requires and the data that shall be accessed and its use is as below:

Android permissions:

Device & App history: We need your device permission to get information about your device, like OS (operating system) name, OS version, mobile network, hardware model, unique device identifier, preferred language, etc. Basis these inputs, we intend to optimize your travel booking experience, use OS-specific capabilities to drive great in-funnel experiences using components of the device’s OS, etc.

Identity: This permission enables us to know about details of your account(s) on your mobile device. We use this info to auto-fill your email ID’s and provide a typing free in-funnel experience. It helps us map email ID’s to a particular user to give you the benefit of exclusive travel offers, wallet cash-backs, etc. It also allows facilitating your Facebook and Google+ login.

Location: This permission enables us to give you the benefit of location-specific deals and provide you a personalized in-funnel experience. When you launch The Travel Stations app to make a travel booking, we auto-detect your location so that your nearest airport or city is auto-filled. We also require this permission to recommend your nearest hotels in case you are running late and want to make a quick last-minute booking for the nearest hotel. Your options are personalized basis your locations. For international travel, this enables us to determine your time zone and provide information accordingly

SMS: If you allow us to access your SMS, we read your SMS to autofill or prepopulate ‘OTP’ while making a transaction and to validate your mobile number. This provides you a seamless purchase experience while making a booking and you don’t need to move out of the app to read the SMS and then enter it in the app.

Phone: The app requires access to make phone calls so that you can make phone calls to hotels, airlines, and our customer contact centers directly through the app.

Contacts: If you allow us to access your contacts, it enables us to provide a lot of social features to you such as sharing your hotel/ flight/ holidays with your friends, inviting your friends to try our app, send across referral links to your friends, etc. We may also use this information to make recommendations for hotels where your friends have stayed. This information will be stored on our servers and synced from your phone.

Photo/ Media/ Files: The libraries in the app use these permissions to allow map data to be saved to your phone’s external storage, like SD cards. By saving map data locally, your phone doesn’t need to re-download the same map data every time you use the app. This provides you a seamless Map based Hotel selection experience, even on a low bandwidth network.

Wi-Fi connection information: When you allow us permission to detect your Wi-Fi connection, we optimize your experience such as more detailing on maps, better image loading, more hotel/ flights/ package options to choose from, etc.

Device ID & Call information: This permission is used to detect your Android ID through which we can uniquely identify users. It also lets us know your contact details using which we pre-populate specific fields to ensure a seamless booking experience.

Calendar: This permission enables us to put your travel plan on your calendar.

IOS Permissions:

Notifications: If you are opt-in for notifications, it enables us to send across exclusive deals, promotional offers, travels related updates, etc. on your device. If you do not opt for this, updates for your travel like PNR status, booking confirmation, a refund (in case of cancellation), etc. will be sent through SMS.

Contacts: If you are opt-in for contacts permission, it enables us to provide a lot of social features to you such as sharing your hotel/ flight/ holidays with your friends, inviting your friends to try our app, send across referral links to your friends, etc. We will also use this information to make recommendations for hotels where your friends have stayed. This information will be stored on our servers and synced from your phone.

Location: This permission enables us to give you the benefit of location-specific deals and provide you a personalized in-funnel experience. When you launch our app to make a travel booking, we auto-detect your location so that your nearest Airport or City is auto-filled. We require this permission to recommend your nearest hotels in case you are running late and want to make a quick last minute booking for the nearest hotel. Your options are personalized basis your locations. For international travel, this enables us to determine your time zone and provide information accordingly.

CHANGES TO THE PRIVACY POLICY

We reserve the rights to revise the Privacy Policy from time to time to suit various legal, business, and customer requirement. We will duly notify the users as may be necessary.