Privacy Policy

Last updated 10^th January 2024.

We (Essential Travel) will protect and respect your privacy and personal information. This document explains how and why we collect and use it. We may change this page from time to time, to reflect how we are processing your information. We only use your personal information for the purposes listed. If we need to use it for something else, we'll let you know. Any changes we may make to our Privacy Policy in the future will be posted on this page.

 

Contact details (name, address, email, telephone number, age)

●     We need this information to generate quotes for some of our products.

●     Once you have a booking we need to know the booking is yours and send you relevant information about your booking, like an email confirmation or postal confirmation.

●     We need to share some of your details with our insurance underwriters.

Sensitive information (medical information)

●     To provide you with a travel insurance quote, we need to know any pre-existing medical information if you chose a quote or policy for travel insurance with or without pre-existing medical cover.

●     We need to share your policy information with our insurance underwriters, one example being if you make a claim on your policy.

●     Any medical information we collect from you is to provide you with adequate travel insurance, which helps to ensure you have high standards of health care while travelling.

Payment information

●     To take payment for any bookings made and to issue any refunds.

●     We will keep your payment details in a tokenised form. This is secure and means we do not store your card details in a way that can be reused.

Booking information

●     Depending on how you got to our website, we may be contractually obliged to share some of your booking information with our partners. Your personal information is not included for this purpose. For example, we work with Carnival Cruises and they direct you to our website, we will share any bookings made with Carnival Cruises made from their own referral.

Contact history (what you have said to us)

●     To provide you with customer service and any support and information you may need.

 

 

Contact details (name, address, email, telephone number, age)

●     Customer research - tailor, learn and compete. We use online tools to help us learn more about you so we can tailor our ads and banners.

●     We ask for your reviews on our customer experience and our products so we can improve them.

●     If you are a customer who has booked with us before we will share similar products with you to help you travel better unless you have told us not to.

●     If you leave our payment page or product page we may email you to help you back where you left off.

●     To help you manage your personal information, bookings and make paying easier we may create an online account for you.

Online information (IP address and device)

●     To support with customer enquiries.

●     To protect our sites.

Payment information

●     To help you manage your personal information, bookings and make paying easier we create an online account for you. We will keep your payment details in a tokenised form. This is super secure and means we do not store your card details in a way that can be reused.

Booking information

●     We often analyse our historical booking data to learn what products our customers like best.

Contact history (what you have said to us)

●     We record our communications with our customers and use them to improve our customer experience. One example is listening back to some phone recordings for training purposes.

 

 

Contact details (name, address, email, telephone number, age)

●     To send you information by email, SMS, WhatsApp or post about our products and services, special offers and travel tips.

●     To sign you up to any of our competitions or surveys.

●     To talk to you on social media we use Facebook, Twitter and other social media channels.

●     To invite you along to customer research days where we learn about how you interact with our products.

Contact history (what you have said to us)

●     To sign you up to any of our competitions or surveys.

●     To talk to you on social media, we use Facebook, and Twitter and other social media channels.

 

 

Contact details (name, address, email, telephone number, age)

●     To defend any legal claims.

Booking information

●     To defend any legal claims.

We do not knowingly collect any personal information from children under the age of 16. If you are aged under 16 please ask your parent or guardian’s permission before you provide any personal information to us. If you are booking insurance and you provide us with information on a person who is not yourself or a person who is under the age of 16, then you will ensure that you have their consent to provide us with their information or you are able to provide consent on their behalf.

 

As part of processing of your personal data, decisions may be made automatically. We have two examples of doing this.

When booking we use your data to make sure you are who you say you are. If your data is inconsistent with your previous submissions; or you appear to have, on purpose, hidden your true identity we will prevent you from booking with us.

To calculate premiums for pre-existing medical cover. We use a processor to work out a risk score for us. Verisk is the organisation that helps us here and is used across the industry by other insurance providers. Verisk will make some automated decisions about you which will be based on comparing you with other people.

You have a right to challenge these automated systems.

 

We only use and share personal information for the reasons it was originally collected, and for reasons which are directly related to one of our products or services.

We will share your personal data with our partners in order to provide you with the products you have booked with us. We will share the policy information, including the medical information, with our underwriters, one example being if a claim is made. This is essential in order to process the claim.

We may also share your information in the following situations:

●     Where you have specifically asked or agreed for us to do so

●     Where we have your permission to share your email address with partners we work with for marketing

●     If it is required in order to respond to your request

●     If it is required by law or regulation

We work with a large number of partners who use our websites to service bookings. You may find you were directed to our websites from one of these partners, for example a holiday provider or an airline. In these situations we may share booking information with that partner. Often with these partnerships where you are directed from one website to another there are two privacy policies. We make ours visible throughout your booking journey so it is easy to know when we are collecting any of your personal data.

We may share your personal data with other members of the Holiday Extras Group.

We try our best to help you with your trip planning, and one way we do this is to offer relevant products for your trip. Some of the products we offer online are from one or our partners. If you book any of these products we are not collecting your personal information directly and our partner’s privacy policy will apply. If you make a booking with these partners you are still a Holiday Extras customer and we will be shared into your booking information. This is so we can manage our partnership effectively and continue to help you with your trip.

We may share your information with third party service providers who provide services or functions on our behalf. For example, credit card processing, customer service, business analytics, fraud prevention, advertising and to serve you with advertising that is tailored to your interests. But don't worry, these third party service providers are required to protect your personal information in the same way as we do and are not allowed to share or use information for their own purposes.

 

We will take the necessary measures to protect your personal information against unauthorised or unlawful processing and against accidental loss, destruction or damage. When you provide your personal information through our website or our mobile app, it is transmitted across the internet securely using high-grade encryption.

We have high security standards in order to protect your payment card details and are a are a “PCI DSS” (The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) approved organisation.

If we need to disclose your personal information to other businesses, we require that business to have appropriate measures in place to protect your personal information.

Your personal information will be held in our systems, located on our premises or those of an appointed third party. We may also allow access to your information by other third parties who act for us for the purposes described in this Policy or for other purposes approved by you.

 

We’ll hold on to your information for as long as you have your account if you have one. We will need to store your information if you have an upcoming booking as we need be able to provide the services to you and support you with any enquiries if you contact our customer team.

In most cases, we will keep your personal information for seven (7) years following your last trip unless we are required to keep it for longer due to business, legal or regulatory requirements.

If, having registered for any of our services, you do not use them for a time we may contact you to check you’re still happy to receive communications from us or remove your personal information.

Even if we delete your personal information it may persist on backup or archival media for legal, tax or regulatory purposes.

 

Our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site. For more information on how Essential Travel use cookies please read our Cookie Policy.

 

 

You are entitled to see the personal information we hold about you. We will provide this information free of charge but we may charge a fee to cover our costs if the request is extensive.

Please fill in our form with the subject “My data request” including the following required information:

●     your full name; a description of the information that you are requesting, including a date range; all of your email addresses (past and present) used to book with Essential Travel; and

From the date that we receive all of the required information, we aim to complete your request within one month. We will try to do it quicker but we cannot guarantee that this will be the case.

We will pass your request on to any third parties if you would like us to.

 

 

You are entitled to correct personal information we hold about you that is inaccurate. You can do this easily via your account if you have one or via the manage booking links found in your email confirmations.

 

 

In certain circumstances you are entitled to ask us to delete the personal information we hold about you. If you have an account and want to close delete it, please read our FAQs or contact us.

 

 

In certain circumstances you are entitled to request that we move, copy or transfer your personal information.

 

 

In certain circumstances you are entitled to ask us to restrict our processing of your personal information. For example if you believe the personal information we process about you is incorrect you can ask us to stop processing it. We make it super easy for you to update the information we hold about you on any booking you make with us.

 

 

In certain circumstances you are entitled to object to Essential Travel  processing your personal information. For example you can object to being part of our members club and receiving special offers by email. You can update your communication preferences directly from your online account or via the unsubscribe links at the bottom of all marketing emails.

To make enquiries or exercise any of your rights please contact our Customer team, details found in the contact section below.

You can also contact Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) which is responsible for making sure that organisations comply with the law on handling personal information.

 

 

Essential Travel is part of Holiday Extras Cover Limited. Any personal information processed in connection with this Privacy Policy is controlled by Holiday Extras Cover Limited, which, for the purpose of the UK Data Protection Legislation and (for so long as and to the extent that the law of the European Union has legal effect in the UK) General Data Protection Regulation ((EU) 2016/679) or any applicable laws, regulations or secondary legislation relating to privacy or data protection is considered to be the data controller.

If you have any questions or comments about our Privacy Policy, or wish to contact us to exercise any of your rights please contact:

Customer Experience
Holiday Extras
Ashford Road
Newingreen
Hythe
Kent
CT21 4JF

or

Live Chat.

This Privacy Policy shall be governed and construed in all respects in accordance with the laws of England and Wales.