Privacy policy.

Effective Date: 05/14/24

IONA TRAVEL, LLC, d/b/a Social Scotland Tours (“we”, “us” or “Iona Travel”) respects your right to privacy and takes active measures to protect any personal information that you choose to share with us. This Privacy Policy describes how your personal information is collected, used, and shared when you visit, book reservations or make a purchase from our website https://betweentrips.com (the “Site”) or through our customer service agents. This Privacy Policy is incorporated by reference into our Terms of Use, available at https://socialscotlandtours.com/terms-of-use-2024 .

We recommend that you read this Privacy Policy in full to ensure you understand how your personal information is used. If you have any questions or concerns about our use of your personal information, please contact us using any of the methods listed in the “Contact Us” section at the bottom of this policy.

If you are using our Services outside the United States, please be aware that your information will be transferred to, stored, and processed in the United States where our servers are located and our central database is operated.

Keep in mind that if parts of our Site connect you with third party online services, those services do not operate under this Privacy Policy. Please review the privacy policies posted on those other online sites to understand their procedures for collecting, using, and disclosing personal information.

PERSONAL INFORMATION WE COLLECT

We collect personal information from you in a variety of ways, described as follows:

Information directly provided by you

When you create an account, book a reservation, make a purchase or attempt to make a purchase through the Site, we will collect certain information from you, including your full legal name, travel preferences, billing address, mailing address, payment information (including credit card numbers), email address, and phone number. 

We may collect other information to assist you with your travel plans including but not limited to, passport number, driver’s license or other government-issued identification number, date of birth, gender, arrival and departure locations and times, airline, hotel or car rental frequent loyalty numbers, known traveler and global entry number, and other related travel information.

We will also collect login details such as username and password when you create an account. We refer to this information collectively as “Order Information.” 

Information about your Travel Companions

When you make a reservation for your minor child or someone else through our Site, we will request personal information about that individual. As a parent or legal guardian of said minor child you hereby consent to providing us with their personal information.  In the event you are making a reservation for someone else through our Site, you should obtain the consent of said individual prior to providing us with their personal information. The information You provide will only be available to view and amend through your account. Should your someone else want to amend or delete their information themselves they can contact us directly as described in the “Contact Us” section at the bottom of this policy.

Information that we collect automatically

When you visit the Site, we automatically collect certain information about your device, including information about your web browser, IP address, time zone and the cookies that are installed on your device. Additionally, as you browse the Site, we collect information about the individual web pages or products that you view, what websites or search terms referred you to the Site, and information about how you interact with the Site. We refer to this automatically-collected information as “Device Information.”

We collect Device Information using the following technologies:

  • “Cookies” are small data files that are placed on your device or computer and often include an anonymous unique identifier. For more information about cookies, and how to disable cookies, visit http://www.allaboutcookies.org

  • “Log files” track actions occurring on the Site, and collect data including your IP address, browser type, Internet service provider, referring/exit pages, and date/time stamps.

  • “Web beacons,” “tags,” and “pixels” are electronic files used to record information about how you browse the Site.

Information we collect when you communicate with us via Social Media

Social Media: If you make use of any of our social media features on our Site or otherwise through a social media provider, we may access information about you via that social media provider in accordance with their privacy policy.

Information we collect when you communicate with us by phone

Call Monitoring and Recording: Calls to and from our customer service teams may be recorded or monitored for quality control purposes, to protect us in the event of a legal dispute and for staff training. Call recordings will be maintained consistent with this Privacy Policy. Any personal information obtained from you during the call will be treated in accordance with the provisions of this Privacy Policy.

Information we collect when you communicate with us through the Site

Any interactions you have with us through our Site, such as chat, may be recorded and monitored for quality control purposes, to protect us in the event of a legal dispute and for staff training. This information will be processed and maintained consistent with this Privacy Policy.

HOW DO WE USE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION?

We use the information we collect for a variety of purposes supporting our business uses, including the following:

We use your Order Information to make reservations on your behalf and to fulfill orders placed through the Site (including creating an account with us, processing your payment information, making travel reservations, and providing you with invoices and/or order confirmations).  This includes sharing your booking information with other parties so we can fulfil your booking.

Additionally, we use your Order Information to:

  • Communicate with you;

  • Provide you with travel confirmations and updates for upcoming trips;

  • Screen our orders for potential risk or fraud; and

  • When in line with the preferences you have shared with us, provide you with information or advertising relating to our products or services. You are able to opt-out of these communications at any time.

We use the Device Information that we collect to:

  1. Help us screen for potential risk and fraud (in particular, your IP address), and

  2. more generally to improve and optimize our Site (for example, by generating analytics about how our customers browse and interact with the Site, and to assess the success of our marketing and advertising campaigns).

  3. To help us recognize you as a previous visitor and remember any preferences that may have been set while your browser was visiting our site.

  4. We may also use this information to display ads and offers that are more relevant to you.

  5. We also may allow our service providers to use this information to, for example, help us understand which emails have been opened by recipients and to track the visitor traffic and actions on our site.

You can contact us about updating or accessing your information through our contact information within the Contact Us section at the bottom of this Privacy Policy.

SHARING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

We share your Personal Information with third parties only when necessary to help provide the services described in "How do we use our personal information" section above. For example, we share your information with travel providers such as airlines, hotels, car rental, activity providers, rail and cruise lines as required in order to make travel reservations on your behalf. In addition, we share Order Information with our online store provider so that they can process your payments for us. We also may share your information with third-party vendors who provide services or functions on our behalf.

We may share your Personal Information with business partners with whom we may jointly offer products or services, or whose products or services may be offered on our Site. You can tell when a third-party business partner is involved in a product or service you have requested because their name will appear, either alone or with ours. If you choose to access these optional services, we will on occasions share information about you, including your personal information, with those partners.

We share your Personal Information with third party services providers who provide data processing services to us (for example, to support the delivery of; provide functionality on; or help to enhance the security of our Online Services), or who otherwise process personal information for purposes such as credit card processing, business analytics, customer service, marketing, distribution of surveys or sweepstakes programs, and fraud prevention. Where third-party service providers have access to data they will only collect information as needed to perform their functions. They are not permitted to share or use the information for any other purpose.

We also use Google Analytics to help us understand how our customers use the Site--you can read more about how Google uses your Personal Information here: https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/ .  You can also opt-out of Google Analytics here:  https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout .

We may share aggregate or anonymous information with third parties, including advertisers. For example, we may tell our advertisers the number of visitors our website receives or the most popular hotels and tours reserved.

Finally, we may also share your Personal Information to comply with applicable laws and regulations, to respond to a subpoena, search warrant or other lawful request for information we receive, or to otherwise protect our rights.

BEHAVIORAL ADVERTISING

As described above, we use your Personal Information to provide you with targeted advertisements or marketing communications we believe may be of interest to you. Please note that we do not have access to or control over cookies or other technologies these third parties may use to collect information about your interests, and the information practices of these third parties are not covered by this Privacy Policy. Some of these companies are members of the Network Advertising Initiative, which offers a single location to opt out of ad targeting from member companies. For more information about how targeted advertising works, you can visit the Network Advertising Initiative’s (“NAI”) educational page at http://www.networkadvertising.org/understanding-online-advertising/how-does-it-work .

You can opt out of targeted advertising using the following links:

    FACEBOOK - https://www.facebook.com/settings/?tab=ads
    GOOGLE - https://www.google.com/settings/ads/anonymous
    BING - https://advertise.bingads.microsoft.com/en-us/resources/policies/personalized-ads

Additionally, you can opt out of some of these services by visiting the Digital Advertising Alliance’s opt-out portal at:  http://optout.aboutads.info/ . Note that if you choose not to receive tailored ads, you will still see online advertisements, but they will be more general and less relevant to you.

DO NOT TRACK

Certain browsers may offer you the option of providing notice to websites that you do not wish for your online activities to be tracked for preference-based advertising purposes (“DNT Notice”). Some browsers are, by default, set to provide a DNT Notice, whether or not that reflects your preference. Providing DNT Notice is often touted as a means to ensure that cookies, web beacons and similar technology are not used for preference-based advertising purposes – that is, to restrict the collection of information your online activities for advertising purposes. Unfortunately, given how preference-based advertising works, DNT Notices may not effectively accomplish this goal. For this and a variety of other reasons, with respect to our Site, we do not alter our Site’s data collection and use practices based on browser based DNT Notices. Rather, if you do not wish to participate in preference-based advertising activities, you should follow the opt-out process identified above.

YOUR RIGHTS

We strive to provide you with choices regarding the personal information you provide to us. We have created mechanisms to provide you with the control over your information and mechanisms to opt out as described in each of the sections above. In addition to those, if at any point you believe the personal information we hold about you is incorrect, you want us to correct or delete that information, or you no longer want us to hold that information or contact you, please let us know through the means indicated in the “Contact Us” section below.

If you are a European resident, you have the right to access personal information we hold about you and to ask that your personal information be corrected, updated, or deleted. If you would like to exercise this right, please contact us through the means indicated in the “Contact Us” section below.

Additionally, if you are a European resident we note that we are processing your information in order to fulfill contracts we might have with you (for example if you make a reservation or place an order through the Site), or otherwise to pursue our legitimate business interests listed above.  Additionally, please note that your information will be transferred outside of Europe, including to Canada and the United States.

You can also access or update certain personal information in the My Account section of our Site. You can request to de-activate your account at any time by contacting us through the contact information listed at the bottom of this policy. After you de-activate an account, you will not be able to sign in or access any of your personal information. However, you can open a new account at any time.

YOUR CALIFORNIA PRIVACY RIGHTS

The California Consumer Privacy Act (California Civil Code Section 1798.83 “CCPA”) provides additional privacy rights to California residents as stated below.

Informative Request. You have the right to know and see what data we have collected about you over the previous twelve months, including:

  • The personal information we have collected about you

  • The categories of sources from which the personal information is collected

  • How any personal information collected is used by us

  • The categories of third parties with who we have shared your personal information.

When requested we will share all information collected in the previous twelve months from the date of request. We do not sell any of the personal information we have collected to you to any third party.

Request to Delete. You have the right to request that we delete the personal information we have collected. Under the law, there are a number of exceptions, that include, but are not limited to when the information is necessary for us or a third party to do any of the following:

  • Complete your transaction

  • Provide you a service we offer

  • Fix our system in the case of a bug

  • Comply with the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act (Cal. Penal Code § 1546 et seq.)

  • Protect your security and prosecute those responsible for breaching it

  • Comply with a legal obligation

  • Engage in scientific, historical, or statistical research in the public interests that adhere to all other applicable ethics and privacy laws

  • Make other internal and lawful uses of the information that are compatible with the context in which you provided it.

Other Rights. You can request certain information about our disclosure of personal information to third parties for their own direct marketing purposes during the preceding calendar year. This request is free and may be made once a year. Additionally, you may appoint an agent to make any above request on your behalf, we may require evidence of such appointment to comply with any requests made by agents. You also have the right not to be discriminated against for exercising any of the rights listed above.

Exercising your rights. To request access to or deletion of your personal information, or to exercise any other data rights under California law, please contact us as per the “Contact Us” section below to submit any requests for the personal information collected.

Responding to Requests. It is our goal to respond to your request for the collected information or the deletion of the information we have collected within 45 days of receiving that request. If we require more time or unable to comply with your request, we will inform you of the reason and inform you of the extension period for completion in writing.  You may learn more about your rights under California’s privacy laws at https://oag.ca.gov/privacy.

DATA RETENTION

When you place an order through the Site, we will maintain your Order Information for our records as required by regulations. Other information is only maintained as needed by operational reasons.

UPDATES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY

We may make changes to this privacy policy from time to time in order to reflect, for example, changes to our practices or for other operational, legal or regulatory reasons. When we make such changes, we will take the appropriate steps to inform you consistently with the significance of the changes, and in accordance with applicable law. You can see the date the policy was last updated by looking at the “Effective Date” shown at the beginning of this Privacy Policy document.

CONTACT US

For more information about our privacy practices, if you have questions, if you would like to submit a privacy related request or if you want to make a complaint, please contact us by e-mail at info@socialscotlandtours.com You may also write us directly by regular mail to Iona Travel, LLC, d/b/a Social Scotland Tours, 68 Harrison Avenue, Ste 605 #554420, Boston, MA 02111.