Last Updated: February 2024

This document explains our privacy and data protection practices in connection with our Website (www.bettertrip.com) and its Services, as well as our use of cookies on this Website.

It is very important that you read this document carefully before using our Website and Services. This Privacy and Cookie Policy constitutes a legally binding agreement between you and Bettertrip.

We guarantee that your Personal Information is protected by all privacy and data protection rights under the Federal Data Protection Act (DPA) in force in Switzerland, as well as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) approved by the European Parliament, just as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and California Online Privacy Protection Act (CalOPPA), applicable in the State of California, United States of America; and by all applicable international privacy and data protection treaties in effect.

By clicking “Agree” in the checkbox when you register on our Website and/or access to and browse thereon and/or use our Services, you are expressly accepting and electronically providing your consent to all the provisions under this Privacy and Cookie Policy. If you do not agree with this agreement, please leave the Website immediately and do not use our Services.

This Privacy and Cookie Policy is incorporated into and subject to our Website Terms of Use and Legal Conditions (“Terms of Use”). The definitions set out in those Terms of Use, as defined in Section 21  shall apply to this Privacy and Cookie Policy.

1. Application of this Policy

This Privacy and Cookie Policy applies to any Personal Information collected from you in accordance with this document when you access and use our Website and Services, including any information collected from you when you contact us by email or on other occasions.

This agreement applies to Information collected from you by us and that identifies you, directly or indirectly, as an individual.

This Policy does not apply to any Information related to you and provided by third parties and/or publicly available with no restrictions. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of third parties.

2. Data Controller and Data Processor

The Website: www.bettertrip.com is owned and operated by Philippe von Haller, with main address at Route de la Fonderie 2, 1700 Fribourg, Switzerland. Email: [email protected] (collectively referred to as “Bettertrip” and/or “We” and/or “Us” and/or “Our”).

For the purposes of  applicable privacy and data protection laws, Bettertrip is the Data Controller and Data Processor of your Personal Information.

3. Consent

By accepting this Privacy and Cookie Policy you expressly agree to grant Bettertrip a non-exclusive, worldwide, temporary, revocable, royalty-free, sub licensable right, to exercise the copyright, publicity, and/or any database rights (but no other rights) you have on your Personal Information, in any media now known or that may be known in the future, with respect to your Personal Information, solely for the purpose of enabling us the use of the Personal Information you provide to us for the use of our Website and Services and to avoid the violation of any rights over that Information.

You have the right to withdraw your consent at any time, in which case you must suspend the use of our Website and  Services.

By accepting this Privacy and Cookie Policy, you expressly agree that Bettertrip is the Data Controller and Data Processor of your Personal Information.

4. Information Collected by Us

The Personal Information collected by us will solely be used in reference to the Services provided by us.

In this Privacy and Cookie Policy, everytime we mention “Personal Information” and/or “Information”, we will be referring to any information about you that we collect when you access and/or create a User Account and/or use our Website and Services.

We will collect your Personal Information as described below:

• Your first and last name, telephone number, postal and email address.

• Payment Methods.

• Information about your device and about your visits and use of our Website including your IP address, geographical location, browser type and version, operating system, referral source, length of visit, page views and Website navigation.

• If you make a Booking using a credit or debit card then we will need the card number, cardholder name, expiry date and CVV number.

• Any survey responses or feedback.

We  also may ask you for your Personal Information in a variety of circumstances, for instance:

• When you make a Booking from our Website.

• When you register with us, subscribe to our newsletter, enter competitions or register for promotions; or

• When you take part in surveys or provide us with feedback.

We will not share, sell, or trade your Personal Information to any third parties. This does not apply to information that is publicly available, which we may collect and display on our Website.

Please keep in mind that we may confirm and validate your Personal Information and any other Information provided by you at any time. In the event that we determine that the Personal Information provided by you is unlawful, erroneous or incorrect (totally or partially), we may suspend or cancel your User Account.

We have the right to file a proceeding if you provide unlawful, erroneous or incorrect Information in addition to using any other legal remedy available according to applicable legislation.

By accepting this Privacy and Cookie Policy, you grant us your consent to collect and use your Personal Information in accordance with this Privacy and Cookie Policy.

5. Use of your Personal Information

We use your Personal Information to provide our Services, for instance, allow you to book any Accommodations available on our Website, as well as use the features available thereon and marketing purposes, in accordance with this Policy and our Terms of Use.

We also use your Personal Information to:

• Administer the Website.
• Improve your browsing experience by personalising the Website.
• Enable your use of the services available on the Website.
• Send statements and invoices to you and track any Booking payment made by you.
• Track your use of the booking process and contact you once via email regarding your experience.
• Send you general (non-marketing) commercial communications.
• Send you email notifications which you have specifically requested.
• Send you marketing communications relating to our business which we think may be of interest to you, where you have specifically agreed to this, by e-mail or similar technology (you can inform us at any time if you no longer require such marketing communications).
• Provide third parties with statistical information about our Users but this information will not be used to identify any individual User.
• Deal with enquiries and complaints made by or about you relating to the website.

We may create aggregated, anonymized, or other anonymous data records from your Personal Information. We make Personal Information into anonymous data by excluding information that makes the data personally identifiable to you (e.g. name, last name, etc) and use or share this anonymous data with third parties for our lawful business purposes, including to analyze and improve our Website and Services.

6. Data Retention Period

We may retain and store your Personal Information until necessary but for a limited period of time that may not exceed one year, since the cancellation of your User Account for any reason.

Please note that in some circumstances, we may retain your Personal Information for longer periods but in an anonymised form. This means we would delete any information which identifies you personally. We may also retain your Personal Information where such retention is necessary for compliance with a legal or regulatory obligation to which we may be subject to.

7. Data Subject Rights

Your rights regarding your Personal Information are the following: 

• Right to be informed

You have the right to be informed about the collection, use and disclosure of your Personal Information. For this reason, this Privacy and Cookie Policy describes and explains how we collect, use and may disclose your Personal Information.

• Right to Data Access and Portability

You may issue queries or ask questions about your Personal Information by email at any time, and we will provide you with such information in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format, or (where technically feasible) to have it ported directly to another data controller, provided this does not adversely affect the rights and freedoms of others.

• Right to Data Rectification

You have the right to ask us to update and/or rectify and/or complete your inaccurate or incomplete Personal Information. Please keep in mind that notwithstanding that all reasonable efforts will be made by us to keep your Personal Information updated, you are kindly requested to inform us promptly of any change, error or inaccuracy in your Personal Information.

• Right to Data Objection or Restriction

You have the right to object or request us to suspend the processing of your Personal Information when you have a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation that causes you to object to the processing because it makes you feel it impacts your fundamental rights and freedoms. Please note that we only process your Personal Information when this is necessary to provide you with our Services and/or when it is necessary to comply with a legal obligation to which we are subject to, as when processing is necessary to protect your interests or those of another person or entity.

• Right to Data Deletion

You have the right to ask us to delete your Personal Information when it is not relevant to the purpose for which we collect it, once the period set forth in Section 6 above has elapsed. We may delete your Personal Information before the expiration of that period, when such information is not necessary, at our sole discretion. However, please note, there may be legal obligations which may prohibit us from deleting all or part of the Personal Information held about you immediately at the time of the request, however, we will process your request at the earliest opportunity whenever the data retention period expires in accordance with Section 6 above. 

8. How to Exercise your Rights

You may exercise the rights described in Section 7 above, at any time, by contacting us at [email protected] or by contacting the competent data protection authority. All communications with us must be through the email address that you have provided when registering your User Account on our Website. Please note that we will verify your identity prior to responding to any request.

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within 7 business days. Please keep in mind that occasionally it may take us longer if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

9. Protection of your Information

We guarantee the privacy and confidentiality of your Personal Information and also guarantee that we have implemented physical and electronic security measures, as well as other appropriate administrative procedures to prevent unauthorized or illegal access by third parties to your Personal Information.

Our privacy and protection practices include, but are not limited to:

• The continuous review and updates of our security policies and controls, as technology changes to ensure ongoing information security.

• Implementation of reasonable and appropriate technical and organizational security measures to protect the Personal Information we process as well as the Content published and/or shared by you on our Website, from unauthorized access, alteration, disclosure, loss or destruction.

• Regular audits of the security measures of our Website, by requesting third party experts to review our security controls against standards in force in Switzerland. These audits help us to further improve our security level.

• All information in transit is encrypted, and where possible specific fields are encrypted at rest using industry recognized cryptographic measures.

Please note that any Content you share publicly on our Website will be considered non-confidential and non-proprietary. However, we also have implemented the adequate measures to avoid any unapproved or unlawful access by third parties to such Content.

Our obligation to protect your Personal Information will survive for the term established in Section 6 above.

10. Information Shared with Third Parties

We do not use and/or share and/or sell and/or exchange and/or publish any of your Personal Information with third parties for any purposes without your express consent.

Please keep in mind that to provide our Services to you, we may share some Personal Information with companies that we hire to perform services or functions on our behalf as our service providers (“Data Processors”). In all cases in which we share your Personal Information with a third party for the purpose of providing you our Services, we will not authorize them to keep, disclose or use your Personal Information with others except for the purpose of providing the services we asked them to provide.

By accepting this Privacy and Cookie Policy, you expressly give us authorization to use and share your Personal Information with our Data Processors, under their corresponding privacy conditions, within the limits set in this document.

We are not responsible for the privacy practices of our service providers or any third party.

11. International Transfer of Information

We are domiciled in Switzerland and provide our Services globally. We process and store your information in Switzerland. Our servers are located in Switzerland. Also, our service providers may process and store your Personal Information in Switzerland and/or any other place. Such service providers are our Data Processors.

If you are located outside Switzerland and choose to provide us with your Personal Information, we will transfer such information to Switzerland for due processing, and our Data Processors may process your Personal Information in our country and/or any place else. You expressly accept and acknowledge that such countries may not have the same data protection laws as your country or the country in which you initially provided your Personal Information. Notwithstanding, we will ensure that our Data Processors are aware of this Privacy and Cookie Policy and we will urge them and make our reasonable efforts to ensure that they implement the necessary measures to comply with the privacy, security and data protection parameters set forth herein.

By accepting this Privacy and Cookie Policy, you have expressly given us authorization to transfer your Personal Information to our servers located in Switzerland and/or to the servers of our Data Processors located in our country and/or any other place, if necessary, to provide you with our Services.

The details of the information that Bettertrip may transfer to its Data Processors are as follows:

• Data Controller: Bettertrip.

• Data Processors: Bettertrip and its service providers.

• Place:
  Bettertrip: Switzerland.
  Data Processors: Switzerland and other countries.
  Data Category: Personal Data referred in Section 4 above.

• Frequency of the Transfer: Each time a User accesses and uses our Website and Services.

• Nature of the Processing: Collection, process and storage.

• Purpose of Data Transfer and Processing: To provide Bettertrip’s services to our Users.

• Data Retention Period: 1 year in accordance with Section 6 above.

12. Information Disclosure

You expressly agree that we may share and/or disclose your Personal Information in accordance with applicable laws and regulations. We should cooperate with law enforcement inquiries, as well as other third parties to enforce laws, such as: intellectual property rights and other rights, to help protect you and all our Users from any crime or fraud. For this reason, and in response to a verified request by law enforcement or other government officials relating to a criminal investigation or alleged illegal or fraudulent activity, we may (and you expressly authorize us to) disclose your Personal Information, user history, bookings information, fraud complaints, and similar information without a subpoena. However, in an effort to respect your privacy, we will not otherwise disclose your Personal Information to law enforcement or other government officials without a subpoena, court order or substantially similar legal procedure, except when we believe in good faith that the disclosure of information is necessary to prevent imminent physical harm, fraud or financial loss; or report suspected illegal or fraudulent activities.

13. Cookies

Cookies are widely used in order to make websites work more efficiently and provide a better service and web features for website’s users. Cookies allow websites to identify and track their users, enabling them to recognize users’ needs and preferences as well as provide them with security features.

Cookies are small text files stored on your Device by your browser. They’re used for many things, such as remembering whether you’ve visited our Website before, so that you remain logged in – or to help us work out how many new Website visitors we get each month. They contain information about the use of your Device but don’t include Personal Information about you.

Cookies, among other things, speed navigation through our Website, keep track of information so that you do not have to re-enter it each time you visit our Website, help us provide you with customized content and allow us to learn about your visit.

We only use our Cookies and other similar technologies on your Device on your prior consent, when you visit our Website.

Please note that we use first party Cookies set up by us, as third-party Cookies set up by our service providers. Our Cookies and their purpose are described below.

1. Consent to Use Cookies

By accepting this Privacy and Cookie Policy you expressly grant to us your consent to use Cookies and other similar technologies on this Website and collect your Personal Information as stated herein.

Please note, when you first visit our Website we will require your consent to continue with the use of Cookies. By clicking “accept” when you access and/or browse on the Website and/or create an User Account and/or use our Services, you will grant your express consent to our use of Cookies and other similar technologies as described hereof.

     2. Cookies Used by Us

• Strictly Necessary Cookies

These Cookies are essential for you to browse on our Website and use our Services. They also allow you to access secure areas on our Website.

These Cookies are required for the operation of our Website. Without them our Services cannot be provided. They do not gather information about you that could be used for marketing purposes.

Please note that these Cookies cannot be restricted or blocked.

• Performance Cookies

These Cookies collect information about how you use our Website and its Services, for instance to know the Accommodations selected and booked by you as well as which sections or pages you visit most often and if you get any error messages when you use our Services on our Website.

Performance Cookies do not gather information that identifies you. All information collected is anonymous and is strictly used to improve how our Website works. These Cookies are not used by us to collect information with any advertising purposes.

These Cookies can be restricted or blocked by you. However, please keep in mind that without these Cookies we cannot learn about the performance of our Website and its Services and/or make relevant improvements.

• Functionality Cookies

These Cookies record information about choices you have made on our Website and allows us to customize our Services to you (e.g.  location or country; language) and tailor the Website to provide enhanced features and content for you. They also ensure what online marketing and experience is relevant to you.

The information collected by these Cookies may be anonymous and they cannot track your browsing activity on other websites.

Functionality Cookies can be restricted or blocked. However, keep in mind that without these Cookies, our Website cannot remember choices you have previously made or personalise your browsing experience.

• Targeting and Advertising Cookies

These Cookies record your visit as well as the pages you have viewed on our Website and your general behaviour on our Website, but usually these Cookies do not know who you are.

Targeting and/or Advertising Cookies are used by us to deliver offers and adverts more relevant to you and your interests. We also use them to limit the number of times you see an advertisement as well as help measure the effectiveness of the advertising campaign. We will use this information to make our Website and the advertising displayed or received by you more relevant to your interests. Please note that we may also share this information with third parties for this purpose who assist us in analytics.

These Cookies can be restricted or blocked. However, keep in mind that without them our offers and online advertisements will be less relevant to you and your interests.

     3. Third Party Cookies

Please note that third parties may also use Cookies on our Website, as for instance advertising networks and providers of external services like web traffic analysis services and similar. Usually, they are likely to be Performance Cookies or Targeting and Advertising Cookies.

We feature services on our Website that are provided by third parties. Therefore you may receive Cookies from the third party whilst using our Services or when you access third-party websites when you are redirected by our Website.

Please keep in mind that we do not control the setting of third party Cookies, so it is recommended to check the third-party website for more information about their Cookies and how to manage them.

     4. Google Analytics and Google Ads

We use Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. Google Analytics uses Cookies, to help us analyze how you use our Website. The information generated by the Cookies about your use of our Website will be transmitted to, and stored by Google, Inc on servers in the United States of America. Google, Inc will use this information on behalf of us as the operator of the Website for the purpose of evaluating your use of our Website, compiling reports on Website activity for Website operators and providing them other services relating to the Website activity and internet usage.

We also use Google Ads to improve our Website advertising. Google Ads uses cookies to provide us with its advertising services.

By accepting this Privacy and Cookie Policy you are giving your express consent for us to use Google Analytics and Google Ads on our Website in accordance with this Policy.

     5. Cookies Purpose

We use Cookies to provide you with our Services through our Website and improve it,  including but not limited to:

• Administer our Website.
• Allow you to use our Website and
• Recognise your location and Device used.
• Know your needs and preferences.
• Analyse the use of our Website.
• For marketing and advertising purposes in accordance with this document.
• Prevent frauds and unlawful activities.
• Improve the security of our Website.

     6. Cookies Control

You may control Cookies usage through your browser settings. The help function in your preferred browser should provide you with the correct information. For further information about Cookies, you may visit the following website: http://allaboutcookies.org.

14. Changes to this Policy

We may amend this Privacy and Cookie Policy, from time to time, in our sole discretion, by posting a revised version on the Website, providing notice on thereon, in accordance with Section 13 of our Website Terms of Use.

15. Questions and Complaints

For any questions, comments, or complaints regarding this Privacy and Cookie Policy you may address us by sending an email to [email protected].