Question 1

When am I actually charged?

Accepted Answer

Nothing when you send a request — only an authorisation hold. A 25% deposit is taken when the guide accepts, and the balance plus the booking fee 30 days before the hunt. If the guide declines or does not answer within 72 hours the hold releases on its own.

Question 2

Why can I not pay the guide directly?

Accepted Answer

Because a payment record is what makes your review count and what backs the cancellation terms. A guide who asks you to pay them directly is in breach of their agreement with us, and you lose both protections. Tell us if it happens.

Question 3

What happens if the water fails?

Accepted Answer

If the guide cancels, or conditions make the hunt impossible, you choose: a full refund or another date. That is not discretionary. Guides who cancel late and refuse both end up suspended.

Question 4

Can I cancel and get my money back?

Accepted Answer

Full refund up to 30 days out. Half inside 30 days. Nothing inside 7 days, because the guide has turned away other parties for your dates by then.

Question 5

Why does my review say unverified?

Accepted Answer

No payment record ties it to a booking. That usually means the trip was paid outside the platform, or the review was imported from a guide’s own website. It stays visible and labeled, but it scores nothing.

Question 6

Can a guide get my review removed?

Accepted Answer

No. A guide gets one public reply and cannot edit or delete what you wrote. We remove a review only for coordinated submission or if it names a private individual, and we publish the annual removal count.

Question 7

Can a guide pay to rank higher?

Accepted Answer

Not within the rankings, no. A guide can buy a sponsored slot, which sits in a labeled block above the ranked list and is marked Sponsored on every card — you can see exactly what you are looking at. Inside the approved list, order is score and nothing else. Money never moves a guide up by a single point.

Question 8

What are the three tiers?

Accepted Answer

Sponsored comes first, capped at three paid slots per page and labeled. Approved comes next, ordered strictly by score: those operations pay $290 a year for the checking work, and failing a check means no badge and no refund. Basic comes last, free, with no score and no audited outcomes. A hunter can filter to approved only.

Question 9

If approval is paid, does the badge mean anything?

Accepted Answer

The fee buys staff time, not the outcome. We check the license with the issuing agency, read the insurance certificate and audit up to three seasons of logs. Operations fail this and get no badge, having paid. What the fee cannot do is make a bad log look good or a lapsed policy current.

Question 10

Does a sponsor get better treatment in a dispute?

Accepted Answer

No. A sponsor with a chargeback or a pattern of unanswered bookings gets suspended like anyone else, and suspension pulls their sponsored slots with no pro-rata refund. Two of the operations we suspended last season were paying us.

Question 11

Why does a guide have no score?

Accepted Answer

Their documents cleared but they have no verified outcomes yet. New operations are listed honestly with no score rather than given a flattering placeholder.

Question 12

Will my party be combined with strangers?

Accepted Answer

Only if you agree first. A listing states its party range, and a booked party is never merged without being asked. That rule exists because we got it wrong once and a hunter told us in a review.

Question 13

Who handles licenses and tags?

Accepted Answer

You do, unless a listing says otherwise. Many guides will pull nonresident stamps ahead of time if you send license numbers — ask in the thread, it is a common courtesy and it saves an argument at 4am.

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