Terms of Service

Part A: Introduction

1. Who we are and what these Terms cover

1.1 Beckon is a messaging app that lets hotel guests and hotels communicate before, during and after a stay, and lets guests share their stay preferences with the hotels they choose ("Beckon" or the "Service").

1.2 The Service is provided by Beckon Travel Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales under company number 17408004 with its registered office at 128 City Road, London, EC1V 2NX ("we", "us", "our").

1.3 These Terms of Service ("Terms") are a legally binding agreement between you and us. They apply to anyone who downloads, accesses or uses the Service, whether as a guest (Part B) or on behalf of a hotel (Part C). Part A and Part D apply to everyone.

1.4 Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle personal information. It forms part of these Terms.

1.5 If you are using Beckon on behalf of a hotel or other business, you confirm that you have authority to bind that business to these Terms, and "you" means that business.

2. Accepting these Terms

2.1 By creating an account or using the Service you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

2.2 You must be at least 18 years old to create a guest account. Hotel users must be authorised employees or contractors of the hotel.

2.3 Where the Service is downloaded from the Apple App Store or Google Play, the store's own terms also apply, including, for the iOS app, Apple's Standard Licensed Application End User Licence Agreement. Apple and Google are not parties to these Terms and have no obligation to provide support or maintenance for the app. If there is a conflict between these Terms and the app store's terms in relation to the app itself, the app store's terms take priority to the extent of that conflict.

3. Changes to these Terms

3.1 We may change these Terms from time to time, for example to reflect changes in the Service, in the law, or in how we operate. We will give you at least 30 days' notice of any material change by email or through the app, unless the change is required by law or is needed urgently for security reasons.

3.2 If you do not agree to a change you may close your account before it takes effect. Continuing to use the Service after that date means you accept the updated Terms.

Part B: Terms for guests

4. Your account

4.1 You need an account to use Beckon. You must give us accurate information and keep it up to date. You are responsible for keeping your login details secure and for everything that happens under your account. Tell us immediately at support@beckon.travel if you think someone else has accessed it.

4.2 One account per person. You may not share your account or create an account for someone else, other than to record preferences for people travelling with you (see clause 6.4).

4.3 The Service is currently free of charge for guests. If we ever introduce paid features for guests we will tell you clearly in advance, and nothing will be charged without your agreement.

5. Connecting with hotels

5.1 You can connect with a hotel by accepting an invitation from that hotel, entering a code or link the hotel gives you, or linking your account to a reservation. Connecting with a hotel lets it see the profile information and preferences you have chosen to share, and lets you and the hotel message each other.

5.2 You decide which hotels to connect with and which preferences to share with each one. You can disconnect from a hotel at any time in the app. Once disconnected, the hotel can no longer see updates to your profile or message you through Beckon, but it may keep a copy of information it already received, subject to its own privacy notice and the law.

5.3 Hotels are independent businesses. They are not our agents, partners or employees, and we do not control them. Each hotel is responsible for how it uses the information you share with it, for the accuracy of anything it tells you, and for the services it provides to you. Your booking and your stay are governed by your contract with the hotel, not by these Terms.

6. Your preferences

6.1 Beckon lets you record and share stay preferences such as bed and room set-up, food and drink, dietary requirements, allergies and intolerances, accessibility needs and special occasions. What you record is up to you. You do not have to share anything you would rather not.

6.2 You are responsible for making sure your preferences are accurate and kept up to date, particularly anything relating to allergies or medical needs.

6.3 Beckon is a communication tool, not a safety system. We do not check, verify or act on your preferences, and we cannot guarantee that a hotel will read, understand or honour them. Sharing a preference through Beckon does not create any obligation on a hotel and does not replace telling hotel staff directly. If you have a serious allergy, intolerance or medical need you must always confirm it directly with the hotel and with restaurant staff at the time of service. We are not responsible for a hotel's failure to act on information you share through the Service.

6.4 If you record preferences for other people travelling with you (for example a partner or child), you confirm that you have their permission to do so (or, for a child, that you are their parent or guardian) and that the information is accurate.

7. Messaging and acceptable use

7.1 You may use Beckon to communicate with hotels about your stay. You must not use the Service to:

• send anything unlawful, abusive, threatening, harassing, discriminatory, defamatory, obscene or otherwise objectionable;
• send spam, unsolicited marketing, chain messages or anything you have no right to send;
• impersonate anyone, misrepresent who you are, or misrepresent your relationship with a hotel;
• upload malware or anything designed to interfere with the Service or anyone's device;
• attempt to gain unauthorised access to the Service, other users' accounts or our systems, or to scrape, copy or reverse engineer the Service;
• infringe anyone's intellectual property, privacy or other rights; or
• use the Service for any purpose other than communicating with hotels about your travel.

7.2 We do not routinely monitor messages, but we may review content where it is reported to us, where we have reason to believe these Terms have been broken, or where the law requires it. You can report abusive or inappropriate messages to us through the app or at support@beckon.travel, and we will review reports promptly. We may remove content and suspend or close accounts that break these Terms.

7.3 You keep ownership of the content you send. You give us a worldwide, royalty-free licence to store, transmit, display and back up your content for the purpose of providing the Service to you and the hotels you connect with. This licence ends when you delete the content or close your account, except for copies held in routine backups for a limited period and copies already delivered to hotels.

8. Notifications

8.1 We send service notifications (such as new message alerts and connection requests) by push notification and email, and we send one-time codes by SMS when you sign in. You can control push notifications in the app or your device settings. Message and data charges from your mobile operator may apply.

8.2 We will only send you marketing about Beckon with your consent, and you can opt out at any time.

9. Closing your account

9.1 You can close your account at any time from the app settings. We will delete your account information and profile in line with our Privacy Policy. Messages and preferences you have shared with hotels may be retained on the hotel's behalf for the period set out in the Privacy Policy, or for longer where the hotel is legally required to keep them.

9.2 We may suspend or close your account if you break these Terms, if we are required to by law, or if your account has been inactive for 24 months (after warning you by email).

Part C: Terms for hotels

10. Hotel accounts and users

10.1 A hotel joins Beckon by completing our onboarding process and accepting these Terms, or by signing an order form that refers to them ("Order Form"). If there is a conflict between an Order Form and these Terms, the Order Form takes priority.

10.2 The hotel is responsible for the people it authorises to use Beckon ("Hotel Users"), for keeping their access up to date (including removing leavers promptly), and for everything they do through the Service. Hotel Users must use their own individual logins. Shared logins are not permitted.

10.3 The hotel must make sure Hotel Users understand and comply with these Terms and with the hotel's data protection obligations described in clause 12.

11. Our service to hotels

11.1 We grant the hotel a non-exclusive, non-transferable licence during the term of the agreement to access and use the Service for the purpose of communicating with its guests and managing their stay preferences.

11.2 We will provide the Service with reasonable skill and care and will use reasonable endeavours to keep it available, but we do not guarantee uninterrupted or error-free operation. We may suspend the Service for maintenance, and will give reasonable notice of planned maintenance where practicable.

11.3 We may update, improve or change the features of the Service from time to time. We will not materially reduce its core functionality during a paid term without giving reasonable notice.

11.4 Where the hotel asks us to connect the Service to its property management system or other software, the hotel is responsible for obtaining any consents or licences needed from the provider of that software and for the accuracy of the data it sends us.

12. Hotel responsibilities

12.1 Data protection. The hotel is the controller of the personal data of its guests that it collects through or receives from the Service, and we act as its processor. Schedule 1 (Data Processing Terms) applies and forms part of these Terms. In particular the hotel must:

• have a lawful basis for everything it does with guest data, and obtain guests' explicit consent (or rely on another valid Article 9 condition) before using allergy, dietary, health, accessibility or other special category data;
• publish a privacy notice that accurately describes its use of Beckon and guest data, and provide us with a link to it for display in the app;
• respond to guests' data protection rights requests and complaints about its own processing;
• limit Hotel User access to guest data to those who need it, and treat allergy and accessibility information with particular care; and
• not use guest data obtained through Beckon for marketing or any purpose unrelated to the guest's stay unless it has a separate lawful basis and has told the guest.

12.2 Guest safety. The hotel is solely responsible for acting on the information guests share, including allergy, dietary and accessibility information, and for its own operational procedures for handling that information. Beckon transmits and stores information; it does not verify it and does not replace the hotel's own checks with guests.

12.3 Acceptable use. The hotel must comply with clause 7.1 and must not send guests unsolicited marketing through the Service, use the Service in breach of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations or equivalent laws, or use it in a way that could damage our reputation or the Service.

12.4 Accuracy. The hotel is responsible for the accuracy of the booking and guest information it provides to us and for keeping it up to date.

12.5 Laws. The hotel must comply with all laws that apply to its use of the Service, including data protection, consumer protection, anti-discrimination and electronic communications laws in each country where it operates.

13. Fees

13.1 Unless a paid agreement says otherwise, the Service is currently provided to hotels free of charge. We may introduce fees for new or existing features on at least 60 days' notice; a hotel that does not wish to pay may terminate under clause 14.2 before the fees take effect.

13.2 Where fees are agreed, they are payable within 30 days of invoice, exclusive of VAT, and we may charge interest on late payments at 4% a year above the Bank of England base rate and suspend the Service after 14 days' notice of non-payment.

14. Term and termination

14.1 The agreement with a hotel starts when the hotel accepts these Terms or signs a paid agreement and continues until terminated under this clause or as set out in the agreement.

14.2 Either party may terminate for convenience on 30 days' written notice, unless a paid agreement provides for a minimum term, in which case termination for convenience takes effect no earlier than the end of that term.

14.3 Either party may terminate immediately on written notice if the other commits a material breach that is not remedied within 14 days of notice, becomes insolvent, or ceases trading. We may suspend or terminate immediately if the hotel's use of the Service poses a security risk or legal exposure to us or to guests.

14.4 On termination, the hotel's access ends, guests will be notified that the hotel is no longer on Beckon, and we will return or delete guest data held on the hotel's behalf in accordance with Schedule 1. Clauses that by their nature should survive (including confidentiality, liability, indemnity, and Schedule 1 obligations relating to deletion) continue to apply.

15. Hotel indemnity

15.1 The hotel will indemnify us against losses, damages, costs (including reasonable legal fees) and claims arising from: the hotel's breach of clause 12 or Schedule 1; any claim by a guest or third party relating to the hotel's use of guest data or its acts or omissions in providing services to guests; and any content the hotel or its Hotel Users send through the Service.

Part D: General terms for everyone

16. Intellectual property

16.1 We (and our licensors) own all intellectual property rights in the Service, including the app, our website, our branding and the underlying software. Nothing in these Terms transfers those rights to you. You may not copy, modify, distribute, sell, lease, reverse engineer or create derivative works from any part of the Service, except as the law allows.

16.2 If you give us feedback or suggestions we may use them without any obligation to you.

17. Third-party services

17.1 The Service relies on third-party services such as app stores, push notification services and hosting providers, and may link to hotel websites and other third-party sites. We are not responsible for the content, availability or practices of third parties.

18. Availability and disclaimers

18.1 We provide the Service "as is" and "as available". To the extent the law allows, we make no warranties about the Service other than those expressly set out in these Terms, and we exclude all implied warranties including as to satisfactory quality, fitness for purpose and non-infringement.

18.2 We do not guarantee that messages will be delivered or read within any particular time, that hotels will respond, or that hotels will act on preferences. The Service is not designed for emergencies. In an emergency, contact the hotel directly or the emergency services.

18.3 If you are a consumer, nothing in this clause affects your statutory rights, including your rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 to receive a digital service that is of satisfactory quality, fit for purpose and as described.

19. Limitation of liability

19.1 Nothing in these Terms limits or excludes liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be limited or excluded.

19.2 If you are a consumer (a guest using the Service for personal purposes): we are responsible for loss or damage you suffer that is a foreseeable result of our breaking these Terms or failing to use reasonable care and skill. We are not responsible for loss that is not foreseeable, for loss caused by a hotel or any other third party, or for any business loss. We are not responsible for a hotel's failure to act on information you share through the Service, or for any consequences of a hotel's acts or omissions during your stay.

19.3 If you are a hotel or otherwise using the Service for business purposes: to the extent the law allows, we will not be liable for any indirect or consequential loss, loss of profit, revenue, business, goodwill or data, or for any loss arising from the acts or omissions of guests or of the hotel's own staff. Our total aggregate liability to a hotel in any 12-month period, whether in contract, tort (including negligence) or otherwise, will not exceed the greater of (a) the fees paid by the hotel to us in that period and (b) £1,000.

19.4 Our liability under Schedule 1 (Data Processing Terms) is subject to this clause 19.

20. Suspension and enforcement

20.1 We may suspend or restrict access to the Service, remove content, or close accounts where we reasonably believe these Terms have been broken, where required by law, or where necessary to protect the Service, other users or the public. We will tell you why unless it would be unlawful or unsafe to do so, and you may contact us to dispute the decision.

21. Confidentiality (hotels)

21.1 Each of us will keep confidential any non-public information received from the other in connection with the Service and use it only for the purposes of the agreement, except where disclosure is required by law or the information is already public. This clause survives termination for 3 years.

22. General

22.1 Entire agreement. These Terms, the Privacy Policy and any Order Form are the entire agreement between us in relation to the Service and replace any earlier agreements or understandings.

22.2 Assignment. You may not transfer your rights or obligations under these Terms without our written consent. We may transfer ours to a successor or affiliate, provided your rights are not reduced.

22.3 Severance. If any part of these Terms is found to be invalid or unenforceable, the rest will continue to apply.

22.4 Waiver. A delay in enforcing these Terms is not a waiver of our rights.

22.5 Third-party rights. No one other than you and us has any right to enforce these Terms under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999.

22.6 Force majeure. We are not responsible for delay or failure caused by events outside our reasonable control, including failures of third-party services or networks.

22.7 Notices. We may send notices to the email address on your account. Notices to us should go to support@beckon.travel or our registered address.

23. Governing law and disputes

23.1 These Terms are governed by the law of England and Wales. If you are a consumer living in Scotland, Northern Ireland or the European Union, you also benefit from any mandatory protections of the law where you live, and may bring proceedings in your local courts.

23.2 Business users agree that the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute.

23.3 If you are a consumer and have a complaint, please contact us first at support@beckon.travel and we will try to resolve it. You may also be entitled to use alternative dispute resolution; we will tell you whether we are willing to participate if we cannot resolve a complaint with you directly.

24. Contact

Beckon Travel Ltd, 128 City Road, London, EC1V 2NX. Company number 17408004 (England and Wales). Email: support@beckon.travel.

Schedule 1: Data Processing Terms

S1. Scope and roles

S1.1 This Schedule applies where we process personal data on behalf of a hotel in providing the Service. The hotel is the controller and we are the processor. "Data Protection Law" means the UK GDPR, the Data Protection Act 2018, the EU GDPR where it applies, and any other applicable privacy law.

S1.2 Details of the processing are:

Item	Description
Subject matter	Provision of the Beckon guest messaging and preference-sharing service
Duration	The term of the agreement plus the deletion period in S1.9
Nature and purpose	Storage, transmission and display of guest communications, booking details and stay preferences so the hotel can communicate with and serve its guests
Types of personal data	Names, contact details, booking references, stay dates, room type, party composition, message content and attachments, stay preferences including (where the guest chooses to share them) special category data such as allergies, dietary requirements, health-related and accessibility information, and dietary preferences that may reveal religious belief
Categories of data subjects	Hotel guests and members of their travelling party; Hotel Users

S1.3 Our obligations as processor

We will:

• process personal data only on the hotel's documented instructions (which include these Terms and the hotel's use of the Service), unless required to do otherwise by law, in which case we will tell the hotel unless the law prevents it;
• tell the hotel immediately if we believe an instruction infringes Data Protection Law;
• ensure staff with access to personal data are bound by confidentiality obligations and receive appropriate training;
• implement appropriate technical and organisational security measures, including those described in section 11 of our Privacy Policy, taking account of the sensitive nature of preference data;
• assist the hotel, taking into account the nature of the processing, in responding to data subject rights requests, and pass on any request we receive directly within 5 working days;
• assist the hotel with security, breach notification, data protection impact assessments and prior consultation with regulators, taking into account the information available to us;
• notify the hotel without undue delay, and in any event within 48 hours, after becoming aware of a personal data breach affecting the hotel's data, and provide the information reasonably needed for the hotel to meet its notification obligations;
• make available the information necessary to demonstrate compliance with this Schedule and allow for and contribute to audits, as set out in S1.8; and
• not sell personal data, use it for our own purposes, or combine it with data from other hotels except in anonymised or aggregated form that does not identify any individual or hotel.

S1.4 Sub-processors

S1.4.1 The hotel gives general authorisation for us to use sub-processors. Our current sub-processors, what each one does and where it processes data are listed in section 7 of our Privacy Policy. At the date of these Terms they are:

• Supabase (database, file storage and authentication, United Kingdom);
• Google Cloud (application hosting on Cloud Run, Secret Manager and Firebase, London, United Kingdom);
• Expo (650 Industries, Inc.) (push notifications and app updates, United States);
• Apple (Apple Push Notification service) and Google (Firebase Cloud Messaging) (delivery of push notifications to devices);
• Postmark (ActiveCampaign, LLC) (account and service emails, United States);
• Twilio (SMS one-time sign-in codes only, United States); and
• Sentry (Functional Software, Inc.) (crash and error reporting, European Union).

We will give at least 30 days' notice before adding or replacing a sub-processor, by updating that list and notifying the hotel's account contact. If the hotel objects on reasonable data protection grounds and we cannot resolve the objection, the hotel may terminate the agreement on notice.

S1.4.2 We will impose data protection obligations on each sub-processor that are no less protective than those in this Schedule and remain liable for their performance.

S1.5 International transfers

S1.5.1 Personal data is hosted in the United Kingdom. Some sub-processors process data in other countries, as set out in S1.4. We intend in future to host personal data for hotels located in the United States in the United States, and will notify affected hotels in accordance with S1.4.1 before doing so.

S1.5.2 We will not transfer personal data outside the UK (or, for EU GDPR data, the EEA) unless the transfer is covered by an adequacy decision or data bridge, or by appropriate safeguards such as the UK International Data Transfer Agreement, the UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, or the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, together with any required transfer risk assessment.

S1.5.3 Where the hotel, or any of its Hotel Users, accesses guest data through the Service from outside the UK or the EEA, the hotel is responsible, as controller, for making sure that access complies with Data Protection Law.

S1.6 Hotel obligations

The hotel warrants that it has, and will maintain, a lawful basis for the processing it instructs us to carry out, including a valid Article 9 condition (normally explicit consent) for any special category data, that it has given guests the information required by Data Protection Law, and that its instructions comply with Data Protection Law.

S1.7 Records and cooperation

Each party will keep the records required of it by Data Protection Law and cooperate with the other, and with regulators, as reasonably required.

S1.8 Audit

S1.8.1 We will provide, on request no more than once a year (or more often following a breach or a regulator's request), a written description of our security measures, copies of any third-party security certifications or audit reports we hold, and responses to reasonable written security questionnaires.

S1.8.2 If that information is insufficient to demonstrate compliance, the hotel (or an independent auditor bound by confidentiality) may audit our relevant systems and records on at least 30 days' notice, during business hours, no more than once a year, in a way that does not compromise the security or confidentiality of other customers' data. The hotel bears its own audit costs.

S1.9 Return and deletion

S1.9.1 During the term, the hotel may ask us for an export of its guest data by emailing support@beckon.travel, and we will provide it in a commonly used, machine-readable format within a reasonable time. On termination, we will provide an export on request made within 30 days and then delete the hotel's data, including from backups within the backup rotation period, unless the law requires us to keep it. On request we will confirm deletion in writing.

S1.9.2 Guests' own accounts and profiles are not the hotel's data and are unaffected by termination of the hotel's agreement.

S1.10 Liability

Each party's liability under this Schedule is subject to clause 19 of the Terms, except that nothing limits either party's liability to data subjects or regulators where Data Protection Law does not permit it to be limited.