Ten clauses follow. They are short on purpose. If a sentence here contradicts something written on another page of this site, the sentence here is the one that holds, except where the cancellation terms at the cancellation terms say otherwise, because those are more specific.
- 1. 1. Who publishes this
- The Briar Review Bookings LLC publishes and maintains thebriarreview.com from 4250 Congress Street, Suite 140, Charlotte, NC 28209. The company is organized in North Carolina and filed with the North Carolina Secretary of State. Correspondence about these terms goes to pierhead@thebriarreview.com; correspondence about a trip goes to casebook@thebriarreview.com or (704) 362-5187.
- 2. 2. What this company is
- An independent travel agency. It arranges reservations with the companies that run tours, stays and transportation. It does not run any of them. It owns no vehicle, no vessel, no lodging and no guided program, and it employs no guide. Any sentence anywhere on this site suggesting otherwise is an error and should be reported to pierhead@thebriarreview.com.
- 3. 3. Nothing here is for sale
- There is no cart, no checkout, no payment page and no card field anywhere on thebriarreview.com. Every figure printed on these pages, from $1,285 to $4,980 per person, is an indication of what a trip of that shape has recently cost through the operators this office works with. A figure is not an offer, and reading it creates no agreement between you and anybody.
- 4. 4. When a booking exists
- Sending the form creates a request and nothing more. The office answers it, puts questions to the operating company, and returns a written figure to you, usually in two to four working days. A booking exists at the moment the operating company issues its own written confirmation naming you. Not when you send the form, not when the office replies, not when you say yes on the telephone.
- 5. 5. Whose rules govern the trip
- The operating company's, in full. Its contract, its deposit schedule, its change fees, its cancellation terms and its liability limits apply to your trip, and you receive that document before you commit to anything. Where its terms and these terms disagree about the trip itself, its terms win, because it is the party you contract with.
- 6. 6. What a comparison on these pages is
- A statement of differences and nothing else. Two places are set beside each other in facts: distance, elevation, walking surface, road quality, what a week costs, how long the transfer runs, what the weather does in each month. No pair on this site is resolved. This office does not tell you which half suits you and will not be drawn into it on the telephone either. A comparison here is not advice, not a recommendation and not a professional opinion about your circumstances.
- 7. 7. Who carries the risk when a trip disappoints
- You and the operating company, between you, under its contract. Weather turns. A road closes. A ferry is pulled for repair. A walking route is rerouted around a landslip. A place you expected to be quiet is full of people. None of that is within this office's control, none of it is a breach by this office, and the remedy for it, where a remedy exists, sits in the operator's terms.
- 8. 8. What this company answers for
- Its own work: taking your request accurately, putting it to the operating company accurately, transmitting what comes back without altering it, and telling you plainly what is not known. If this office makes a factual error in what it passes along and that error costs you money, write to pierhead@thebriarreview.com with the dates and the wording. Errors are fixed and the page is corrected. To the extent North Carolina law permits limits of this kind, liability is limited to the commission this office received on the arrangement in question, and this office is not liable for indirect or consequential loss. Nothing here limits liability that cannot lawfully be limited.
- 9. 9. What you answer for
- The accuracy of what you tell the office: names as they appear on your travel documents, dates, the number of people, and any requirement that affects what can be reserved. Reserving under a name that does not match your documents is a problem no agency can solve later. You also answer for reading the operating company's contract before you commit to it, and for using this site lawfully rather than scraping it, republishing it, or reproducing its photographs and text elsewhere.
- 10. 10. Which law applies
- The law of the State of North Carolina, together with applicable federal law of the United States, without regard to conflict of laws rules. Any dispute arising from use of this site or from an arrangement made through this office belongs in the state or federal courts sitting in North Carolina. If a court finds one clause here unenforceable, the rest stand as written.
Absent by design, not by oversight
- Payment of any kind
- No card, bank or wallet detail is requested, entered, stored or processed on this site. Deposits are paid to the operating company under its own terms, never here.
- A rating, a score or an order of merit
- The sixteen trips are held in eight pairs and neither half of any pair is placed above the other. This company is not a publication, does not evaluate anybody's product, and publishes no such judgment about any place, operator or trip.
- Anything sold on somebody else's behalf as a principal
- This office acts as an intermediary. It never holds itself out as the airline, the ferry line, the hotel, the walking company or the tour operator.
- Insurance, visas and passports
- Not sold, not arranged and not advised on here in any form. Insurance questions belong with a licensed insurance producer, and travel document questions belong with the issuing government.
- A statement about whether a place is safe or whether you are able for something
- Terrain, distance, gradient and surface are described in plain figures so that you and, where relevant, your own doctor can decide. The decision is yours and stays yours.
- A comparative claim about price
- Figures are printed as figures. Nothing on this site asserts that a trip here costs less than what is available elsewhere, and no such claim is made by this office in writing or on the telephone.
Commercial matters this site is often asked about
- Money taken by this office
- None from the traveler. The operating company pays this office a commission after travel has taken place. Your figure is unaffected by whether that commission is paid.
- Refunds
- Not this office's to give, because it never received money from you. Refunds follow the operating company's contract, and the office will make the request on your behalf in writing and pass back what it is told.
- Returns
- There is no product to return. Nothing physical is sold on this site.
- Delivery and shipping
- Nothing is shipped. Confirmations, itineraries and written figures arrive by electronic mail from the office or directly from the operating company.
- Recurring charges
- None exist. There is no subscription, no membership, no dues, no fee for a written figure and no charge for asking a question.
Companies this office is not
Links leave this site occasionally, usually to an operating company's own terms, to a national park authority's conditions of entry, or to a weather service. Those pages belong to other organizations. Their content is theirs, their terms are theirs, and a link is a pointer rather than an endorsement of anything they say or sell.
One further possibility should be stated plainly rather than discovered later. A fare lookup tool may at some point be placed on a subdomain of thebriarreview.com. If that happens, the search results, the fares and the reservation flow inside it will come from a third party operating its own service under its own terms, and the relationship will be disclosed on the page itself before you use it. That tool is not part of this site's arrangements, this office does not set its prices, and nothing above changes because it exists.
Amendments to this document
These clauses are amended when something they describe actually changes: a corrected address, a different commission arrangement, a new statutory requirement in North Carolina. Amendments are not announced by electronic mail and there is no notification list. The version standing on this page at the moment you use the site is the version that governs your use of it, so read it again before sending a request if it has been a while.
Anything unclear in the ten clauses can be put to pierhead@thebriarreview.com in writing, and a plain answer comes back. The form at how a request is handled is for trips rather than for questions of this kind, and common questions of both sorts are answered at the questions people ask.