Privacy Policy

Last updated June 2019

Introduction

This privacy policy ("Privacy Policy") details data used on www.afinehour.com and via customers who make bookings directly with A FINE HOUR via email or over the phone (together, the "Platform").

The data controller for your information is A FINE HOUR Limited (registered address: Ground Floor, 45 Pall Mall, London, SW1Y 5JG) ("A FINE HOUR", "we", "our" or "us"). You can write to us or email us on: [email protected].

We are committed to protecting the privacy of our users and customers. This Privacy Policy is intended to inform you how we gather, define, and use information that could identify you, such as your name, email address, address, other contact details or online identifiers, and other information that you provide to us when using the Platform ("Personal Information"), and how we share that information with third party service providers that perform functions on our behalf, and the organisations (primary luxury hotel operators) who are the ultimate providers of the service (our “Partners”). Please take a moment to read this Privacy Policy carefully.

What information do we collect?

When you use our Platform or contact us, we may collect the following information:

  • Personal Information that you choose to share with us when you register for an account, subscribe to emails, newsletters and alerts and which you provide to us when using our services, including information entered into our booking platform and included in your comments, reviews or survey responses. In the course of making a booking, submitting reviews or otherwise providing feedback, you might voluntarily provide us with sensitive personal data if relevant to the service that you are requesting or reviewing (relating to your health or ethnicity, for example).
  • Where you are utilising our online payment facility, we may store (via ourselves or our appointed payment processor) your credit and debit card details on a secure encrypted basis, as well as the billing address(es) associated with those credit and debit cards.
  • If you choose to communicate with us (for example, through the Platform, live chat, email, telephone, SMS, or social media) we will record the fact that you have contacted us, the content of your and our communication, your contact details, and other unique identifiers including IP address and display name.
  • Information about your visits to and use of the Platform, such as information about the device and browser you are using, your IP address and location, your identifier for advertisers (IDFA), the date and time that you visited, the duration of your visit, the referral source and website navigation paths of your visit and your interactions on the Platform including the services you are interested in. Please note that we may associate this information with your A FINE HOUR account.

It is important that all the Personal Information you give us when you register as a user or otherwise when you use the Platform is correct and accurate. This includes, by way of example only, ensuring that we have your correct contact (including email) details at all times.

If you plan to submit someone else's Personal Information to us, for instance when making a booking on their behalf, you should only provide us with that third party's details with their consent and after they have been given access to information about how we will use their details, including the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy.

Protecting your personal information

The transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. So, whilst we will do our best to protect your Personal Information, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our Platform. Any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your Personal Information we will use strict procedures and security features in relation to that data.

How do we use your personal information?

In general terms, we use Personal Information to provide you with the services and products you request, process payment, provide customer services, deliver our content and ads which we think may be of interest to you, for customer research, to send you marketing and promotional emails and to notify you about important changes to our Platform.

We also use your Personal Information for the following purposes.

To fulfil a contract, or take steps linked to a contract. This is relevant where you book a service via A FINE HOUR. This includes:

  • Sending you information about your requested services (such as appointment reminders) which may include by email, SMS and push notification
  • Facilitating your bookings and taking payments
  • Responding to your questions and concerns
  • Administering your account

As required by A FINE HOUR to conduct our business and pursue our legitimate interests, in particular:

  • To keep our Platform and systems secure and to prevent fraud, security incidents and other crime
  • To verify compliance with our terms and conditions and for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims
  • To notify you about new A FINE HOUR services and special offers we think you will find valuable, for example via email and displaying advertising on third party websites such as Facebook (where consent is not required)
  • To tailor and personalise marketing notifications and advertising for you based on information you provide and your use of our Platform, products and services and other sites
  • To help us monitor, improve and protect our Platform, products and services, and to personalise our Platform, products, services (and those of our partners) for you, based on information you provide and your use of our Platform, products and services and other sites
  • To investigate and respond to any questions or complaints received from you or from others, about our Platform or our products or services
  • To conduct internal research and analysis so that we can see how our Platform, products and services are being used and how our business is performing
  • To conduct market research and consumer surveys
  • To collate and publish reviews and other feedback of products or services offered by our Partners, and use these for advertising campaigns
  • To use customer communications for training, record-keeping and quality control purposes. If you contact our customer experience team, please note that the fact that you have contacted us will be noted

Where you give us consent:

  • To notify you about new A FINE HOUR services and special offers we think you will find valuable, for example via email and displaying advertising on third party websites such as Facebook (where consent is required)
  • To send you information about competitions and surveys and details of promotional offers of our Partners
  • On other occasions where we ask you for consent, we will use the data for the purpose which we explain at that time

For purposes which are required by law:

  • To respond to requests by government or law enforcement authorities conducting an investigation
  • to meet legal, regulatory and compliance requirements

Withdrawing consent or otherwise objecting to direct marketing

Wherever we rely on your consent, you will always be able to withdraw that consent, although we may have other legal grounds for processing your data for other purposes, such as those set out above. In some cases, we are able to send you direct marketing without your consent, where we rely on our legitimate interests. You have an absolute right to opt-out of direct marketing at any time. You can do this by following the instructions in the communication where this is an electronic message, or by contacting us using the details set out below.

  • If you would like to unsubscribe from receiving communications which A FINE HOUR sends you, you can do so by sending an email to [email protected]. In case of email marketing please allow 48 business hours for your email address to be removed from our system.
  • If you would like to unsubscribe from receiving communications which are sent by Partners, please contact the Partner directly. In the case of our Partners, if you need our assistance with this, we will be happy to do what we can to help you.

Sharing personal information with third parties

We treat the security and method of processing your Personal Information very seriously, and we will never sell your Personal Information under any circumstances.

However, we may disclose your Personal Information to selected third parties, including in the following situations:

  • To third party service providers that perform functions on our behalf in relation to the Platform or otherwise in connection with the running of our business and for the provision of A FINE HOUR services (for example, processing credit card payments, website hosting, conducting surveys and market research, providing social media analysis, providing marketing email services, data analysis tools and to manage customer services communications including telephone calls and live chat).
  • To our Partners with whom you book services with via our Platform, where we act as commercial booking agent. Your information is shared with Partners in order that:
  • bookings can be facilitated and, if necessary, contact made in advance of your appointment
  • where you choose to provide comments or express preferences as to how a service is delivered, Partners are made aware of these
  • to Partners in order that they can improve the services they offer to their customers and business operations by providing statistical data regarding customers, both on an aggregated basis and on an individual level.
  • to Media agencies and advertising partners in order to run targeted marketing campaigns
  • to other third parties, for the purpose of facilitating our business and improving our products, content, services or advertising including, by way of example only, sending email communications or publishing reviews of our or our Partners' products and services
  • If we buy, sell or transfer any business or assets or if go into insolvency, bankruptcy or receivership. If this should happen, we may need to disclose your Personal Information to the seller or buyer of such business or assets, as appropriate
  • if we are under a duty to disclose or share your Personal Data to comply with any legal obligation or in order to enforce or apply our terms and conditions and other agreements or protect the rights, property, or safety of our customers, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for fraud protection and credit risk reduction
  • to government authorities, and to other third parties as required or permitted by law, including but not limited to in response to court orders. We also may disclose user information when we have reason to believe that someone is causing injury to or interference with our rights or property, other users of our Platform, or anyone else that could be harmed by such activities.

Your rights in relation to your personal information

In relation to the personal information we hold about you, you may be entitled to ask us:

  • For a copy of your personal information
  • To correct, erase or restrict the processing of your personal information
  • To obtain personal data which you provide to us for a contract or with your consent in a structured, machine readable format and to ask us to transfer this information to another organisation
  • To object to the processing of your personal data in some circumstances (in particular, where we don’t have to process the data to meet a contractual or other legal requirement, or where we are using the data for direct marketing).

Your rights in relation to your personal information are limited in some situations. For example, if fulfilling your request would reveal personal data about another person or if we have a legal requirement or a compelling legitimate ground we may continue to process Personal Information which you have asked us to delete. You also may have the right to make a complaint if you feel your personal information has been mishandled. We encourage you to come to us in the first instance but, to the extent that this right applies to you, you are entitled to complain directly to the relevant supervisory authority.

If you wish to exercise any of the above rights, please contact us at [email protected]. Please note, however, that no information will be provided without verification.

COOKIES

What are cookies?

Cookies are small pieces of text stored in your web browser by websites in order to save information, for example whether you have visited a website before, or if you are a logged-in user of the website, to help deliver a service and collect information about how the service is used.

How do we use cookies?

We use cookies so that we can keep a record of your current shopping basket, and - if you have logged in - so that we can identify your account, and allow you to access and amend your profile and bookings. We also use third-party service providers to track and analyse how customers use our site, so we can improve the services we offer to you, and how we offer them. Those providers use cookies to deliver those services.

If you don't want cookies to be used

Please note that cookies are required for us to track your shopping basket and identify you when you are logged in, and if you disable all cookies these features will not work. You can still browse our website and the services available with cookies disabled.

If you want to remove previously-stored cookies, you can manually delete the cookies at any time, but new cookies may still be added. If you want to permanently disable the use of cookies, please consult a guide for your computer or device and browser (for example, here).

Changes to our Privacy Policy

If we change our privacy policies and procedures, we will post those changes on our Platform to keep you aware of what information we collect, how we use it and under what circumstances we may disclose it.

Retention

We retain your Personal Information for as long as is required to fulfil the activities set out in this Privacy Policy, or for as long as is otherwise communicated to you or as is permitted by applicable law.