How to write booking terms for a fishing charter

Booking terms are the promise between you and every angler who books: what they pay and when, what they get back if they cancel, and what happens when the weather turns. Write them once, show them before anyone pays, and most arguments never start.

This guide is for UK skippers and guides. It links each rule to where it’s written down, and it isn’t legal advice. If your terms are unusual, or you take big group bookings, have a solicitor read them.

Why you need them

A fishing trip is a leisure service booked for a fixed date, so the 14-day right to cancel that comes with most things bought online doesn’t apply. The same regulations still ask you to tell anglers that before they book, so say it in your terms. What happens when an angler cancels is up to your own terms. Without them, every late cancellation turns into a conversation about what’s fair.

Your terms must be fair and written in plain words. The Consumer Rights Act 2015 says a term that isn’t fair doesn’t bind the angler, and the Competition and Markets Authority’s guidance on unfair terms shows what that means in practice. A good test: could you explain each term to an angler on the pontoon without wincing?

Write your terms

1. Decide how anglers pay: in full when they book, a deposit with the rest later, or on the day.
2. Set how close to the trip an angler can cancel and still get money back.
3. Say what happens when you call a trip off for the weather or the boat.
4. Add the rules of the day, like when to be at the meeting point and who has the last word on safety.
5. Show the terms before anyone pays, and send them with every booking.

How much deposit should you take?

A deposit holds the date while you turn other anglers away. Many skippers take a share of the price when someone books, and the rest a few days before the trip or on the day. Look at what other boats near you charge in our charter price guide before you settle on the price itself.

The deposit you keep when someone cancels late should reflect what it really costs you, such as a day you can no longer fill. If you fill the place again, you’ve lost much less, so give back what you can. A deposit that is most of the price, kept whatever happens, is the kind of term the guidance warns about.

If you take the rest before the trip, say how many days before and how you’ll take it. Anyone booking closer to the trip than that should pay in full.

What if an angler cancels?

Give back more the earlier they cancel. A simple ladder works well:

• a full refund up to a set number of days before the trip
• a smaller refund closer to the trip
• after that, no refund, but they can move to another date

Count the days back to when the trip starts, so there’s no argument about what “a week before” means. Letting anglers move to another date costs you little and keeps the booking, so it’s worth offering even after the refunds stop.

What about no-shows?

Say plainly that an angler who doesn’t turn up, or turns up too late to sail, gets nothing back. Put your meeting time in your terms, and how long you’ll wait.

What if you call it off for the weather?

This is the term anglers read most closely, because it’s the one they can’t control. Offer a new date or a full refund, and let the angler choose. Say how early you’ll tell them, such as the evening before, and who decides that it’s too rough. That should be you.

Don’t offer only a new date. A term that lets a business keep the money for a service it called off is on the Consumer Rights Act’s list of terms that may be unfair. Think of the angler who travelled from the other end of the country and can’t come back. When the trip you sold doesn’t happen, a full refund should always be one of the choices.

The rules of the day

Booking terms are a good place for the things you’d otherwise repeat on every phone call:

• when to be at the meeting point, and how long you’ll wait
• that the skipper has the last word on safety, and can end a trip early
• whether children can come, and from what age
• what’s included, like rods, bait and tackle, and what anglers bring
• what happens to the catch, and any catch limits, like the rules for bass

Keep it short. A page that anglers actually read beats three they scroll past.

Show anglers you’re insured

Anglers want to know you carry passenger liability cover. Say so in your terms, and say what it covers if you’re happy to. Our guide to starting a fishing charter covers what insurance a charter needs.

Booking terms on Gillie

On Gillie, your booking terms are settings, not a page you have to write from scratch. You choose how anglers pay, set the refund steps, and add your own words underneath. Anglers agree to them at checkout, and their booking page keeps the terms as they were when they booked.

When you call off a date, everyone on it can move to a new date for free or take a full refund, whatever your terms say, and Gillie emails them for you.