Terms and Conditions

These terms apply to the Booking Directly website, including its directory, place guides, accounts and planning tools. Please read them before using the site. If you do not agree, do not use the service. You may save or print these terms for your records.

1. Who operates Booking Directly

Booking Directly is the trading name of Fraser Mathieson, a sole trader based in Scotland. “We”, “us” and “our” mean Fraser Mathieson trading as Booking Directly.

Business correspondence address: 10 Ballifeary Road, Inverness, IV3 5PJ, United Kingdom.
Email: hello@bookingdirectly.co.uk.

2. Our service and your booking

We help people discover independent accommodation and places to eat or visit across the UK and Ireland. We provide directory information and links or contact details so you can deal directly with the relevant business.

We do not supply accommodation, act as a booking agent, accept accommodation payments or enter into booking contracts on a host’s behalf. Searching, saving a property, sending an enquiry or adding a stay to a trip does not reserve accommodation. Your booking is with the host or other provider identified in its booking process.

Guests pay no Booking Directly booking fee, and we take no commission on accommodation bookings. A host’s booking provider may charge its own fees. Before paying, check the provider’s identity, total price, taxes and local levies, deposits, cancellation and refund rules, accessibility and any requirements important to your stay. Address booking changes, cancellations, refunds and complaints about a stay to that provider. You can also report concerns about a listing to us.

3. Copyright, database rights and no unauthorised copying

Access to this website is not permission to copy or reuse its material. Except for the permissions and exceptions below, obtain prior written permission from us and, where relevant, the other rights holder before copying, downloading, reproducing, adapting, translating, distributing, selling, licensing, publishing or otherwise reusing any site material. Giving credit or making no money from a use does not, by itself, give you permission.

Protected material may include original descriptions, guides, photographs, illustrations, graphics, branding, page designs, software and the selection or arrangement of directory information. Rights in our original material belong to us; rights in host, contributor and third-party material remain with their respective owners. We reserve the copyright and database rights we hold. We do not claim exclusive ownership of individual public facts or material owned by others.

Subject to the limited permissions and exceptions below, you must not:

• Copy text, photographs, reviews, listings or other material to another website, app, social media account, publication, advertisement or commercial service.
• Scrape, harvest or bulk-download content or contact details, manually or using bots, crawlers, scripts or other automated tools.
• Extract or reuse all or a substantial part of our directory, or repeatedly collect smaller parts to assemble, reconstruct or maintain a database, mailing list, comparison service or competing directory.
• Use site material to build datasets or develop, train, fine-tune, test or validate artificial intelligence or machine-learning models, or supply it to others for those purposes. We expressly reserve our rights against these uses wherever the law allows.
• Frame or mirror the site, embed our images by hotlinking, remove copyright notices or credits, or present our branding or content as your own.
• Bypass access controls, rate limits or other protections to obtain content, or help someone else carry out a prohibited use.

Limited permission for normal use. You may view the site with a browser or accessibility tool and allow the temporary technical copies needed for that use. You may use our built-in saving, planning, sharing, printing and export features for their stated purpose, including keeping a personal trip plan and sharing it privately with your travel companions. Hosts may use the dashboard to manage their own business. These permissions do not allow harvesting listings or republishing our content elsewhere. You may reuse material you independently own, such as your own original photographs, without taking our added text, design or other people’s material.

You may share ordinary links to public pages without misrepresenting a relationship with us. Search engines may index public pages and display ordinary search links and brief snippets in accordance with our published crawler instructions. This permission does not extend to AI training, bulk republication or creating a separate content product.

Legal exceptions and third-party licences. Nothing here restricts a use that applicable law permits and does not allow us to prohibit by contract, or rights you hold under a separate licence. Some maps, images and place data carry open or third-party licences, including OpenStreetMap, Wikidata and Open Government Licence material. Those licences continue to govern the relevant material and take priority over conflicting restrictions here. Follow their attribution and other conditions; they do not automatically license unrelated Booking Directly content.

For other uses, email hello@bookingdirectly.co.uk with the material, intended use, audience and duration. Silence is not permission. We can grant permission only for rights we hold or are authorised to license.

4. Accounts and acceptable use

You must be at least 18 to create an account. Provide accurate details, keep your password secure and tell us promptly about suspected unauthorised access. You are responsible for your own use and access you authorise, but not automatically for activity caused by our failure to keep the service secure.

Do not impersonate anyone, claim a business without authority, send spam, harvest personal information, harass others, upload malicious code or interfere with the site. Use contact details and messaging for genuine enquiries and their stated purposes, not unsolicited marketing.

5. Listings, prices and planning information

Listings may contain information supplied by hosts, contributors or external sources. We take reasonable care with information we publish, but details can change. Rates and calendar information may be indicative or delayed; they are not a confirmed offer of availability. Check current prices, facilities, opening times, admission rules and essential details directly with the provider.

A listing, recommendation or badge is not a guarantee of safety, quality, legal compliance or financial protection. Any check or badge has only the meaning explained alongside it. Maps, routes and itineraries are planning aids: check access restrictions, local conditions, accessibility and current travel information before setting out.

6. Hosts and business listings

If you submit or manage a business listing, you must be its owner or authorised representative. Keep the information, photographs, prices, booking links and availability you provide accurate and current, and tell us about closures or changes of ownership.

You are responsible for your business’s applicable licences, permissions, insurance, safety duties, taxes and consumer obligations, and for explaining booking terms and full charges to guests. Handle guest information lawfully for the relevant enquiry or booking. Our calendars and management tools do not transfer responsibility for bookings, overbooking or guest communications to us.

Free listings and proposed paid plans are described on our host information page. These website terms alone do not create a paid subscription or authorise a charge or automatic renewal. Paid listings or promotions require separate agreed terms explaining price, tax treatment, duration, placement, payment, renewal, cancellation and refunds before commitment. We do not promise a particular number of enquiries, bookings or a particular search position.

7. Material you submit

Submit only material you created or have sufficient permission to provide, including photographs, descriptions, reviews, replies and suggested places. Do not copy material from another booking site, photographer or business without the necessary rights. Obtain any permissions needed from identifiable people and do not publish others’ private information.

You keep your ownership rights. For material you submit for publication, you give us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to store, reproduce, resize, format and display it as reasonably necessary to operate the directory and its related site features. Our hosting and technical providers may handle it for those purposes. This does not transfer ownership or give us an unrestricted right to sell your material or use it in unrelated advertising or AI training.

You may request removal of material you supplied. We will remove it from public display within a reasonable period, subject to any legal requirement to retain it, and stop new uses under this licence. Limited copies may remain in backups until routine deletion or where reasonably needed for legal, security or dispute records. We cannot recall copies others lawfully obtained before removal. Private messages and private trip information are used to provide those features, not licensed for general public display.

8. Reviews and moderation

Reviews must reflect a real personal experience and distinguish opinion from fact. Do not submit invented, purchased or manipulated reviews, review your own business as a guest, or conceal a material connection or incentive. Hosts must not pressure guests to change a review or make a benefit conditional on a positive review. A review connected to a host’s stay invitation is not an independent inspection or a guarantee that every statement is correct.

We may check, decline, correct or remove submissions that breach these terms, infringe rights, mislead users or create a legal or security risk. We do not remove reviews simply because they are critical. Where appropriate, we will explain our decision and allow the affected person to respond. You can ask us to reconsider using the contact details above.

9. Reporting copying or other concerns

If our material has been copied, or something on this site may infringe your rights, email hello@bookingdirectly.co.uk. Identify the original work, relevant page addresses, rights you hold or represent, your contact details and the reason for the complaint. Include supporting evidence where available.

We will assess reports and may restrict access to disputed material while investigating. For unauthorised use of rights we hold, we may request that the use stops and unauthorised copies are removed, restrict access, and seek remedies available through the courts, including an interdict or injunction, damages and recoverable expenses. These terms do not impose an automatic fine or give us rights belonging to someone else.

10. Privacy and external services

Our Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy explain how personal information and cookies are handled. Agreement to these terms is not consent to optional marketing or non-essential cookies.

External websites, maps and booking systems have their own terms and privacy information. We do not control them. A link does not itself mean we endorse every statement or service on the destination website.

11. Availability and account restrictions

We may interrupt or change the site for maintenance, security, legal requirements or improvements, giving reasonable notice of material disruption where practicable. Keep your own copies of important booking details and material you contribute.

We may restrict an account, listing or access where reasonably necessary to address a breach, suspected fraud, infringement or a security or legal risk. We will act proportionately and normally explain the reason and allow an opportunity to resolve the issue; urgent protection or legal restrictions may require immediate action. Contact us to challenge a decision. You may stop using the site and request account closure at any time. Separately agreed paid-service rights remain subject to that agreement and applicable law.

12. Our responsibility

We are responsible for exercising reasonable care and skill in providing our own service. If our breach of these terms or failure to take reasonable care causes reasonably foreseeable loss, we remain responsible to the extent required by applicable law. A loss is foreseeable if it is an obvious result or was reasonably contemplated when the relevant agreement was made.

We are not responsible for an independent provider’s failure to perform its own contract merely because you found it here. This does not exclude responsibility for our own acts or omissions. We do not provide accommodation payment protection or travel insurance.

Nothing in these terms excludes or limits liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or any liability or remedy that the law does not allow us to exclude or limit. Your mandatory consumer rights are preserved.

13. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms for changes in the law, security needs or the service. We will show the updated date and make material changes clear on the site. For material changes affecting an existing account agreement, we will normally provide at least 30 days’ notice by email or a prominent account notice, explaining when they take effect. Urgent legal or security changes may need shorter notice, which we will explain where permitted.

Changes will not retrospectively remove rights or remedies already arising. Where fresh agreement is required, we will ask for it. You may stop using the affected service and close your account if you do not accept a change. Paid agreements remain subject to their agreed change and cancellation arrangements and applicable law.

14. Law, disputes and contact

These terms are governed by Scots law. Consumers retain mandatory protections available under the law of the country where they habitually live, including applicable protections in Ireland. You may bring proceedings in the courts available under applicable consumer jurisdiction rules; consumers are not required by these terms to bring claims only in Scotland. For business users, the Scottish courts have exclusive jurisdiction, subject to mandatory law.

Please contact us about a problem so we can try to resolve it. This does not prevent you from contacting a regulator, obtaining advice or exercising legal rights. If a provision cannot lawfully be enforced, the remaining provisions continue where they can operate fairly and lawfully.

Contact Fraser Mathieson trading as Booking Directly at hello@bookingdirectly.co.uk, or write to 10 Ballifeary Road, Inverness, IV3 5PJ, United Kingdom.