Terms of Service

Last updated: 05 October 2026

Welcome to BookBetterDirect. These terms are the official (and admittedly least cosy) part of our website. They exist to make clear what you can expect from us, and what we expect from you.

1. Who we are

These terms apply to services provided by BookBetterDirect, a sole proprietorship (eenmanszaak) of Sabine Holtkamp, registered with the Netherlands Chamber of Commerce (KvK) under number 42138432, with its business address in The Hague, the Netherlands. Full company and contact details are available in our Imprint.

Continuity: BookBetterDirect was originally founded in Austria as part of WEB-START (est. 2002).

As of 1 October 2026, all services are provided by the Dutch company named above. Agreements concluded before that date are continued by the Dutch company under these terms. If you do not agree with this, you may cancel your agreement by e-mail to hello@bookbetterdirect.com within 30 days of being notified of this change; any prepaid fees for the remaining term will be refunded.

In these terms, “BBD”, “we”, “us” and “our” refer to BookBetterDirect. “You” refers to the person or organisation using our website or services.

2. Scope and definitions

These terms apply to every use of our website and services, and to every agreement between you and BBD, unless we have agreed otherwise in writing.

Website: bookbetterdirect.com and its subpages.
Free Services: everything we offer free of charge, such as the website, the browser extension, the app and free listings.
Paid Services: everything we offer for a fee to accommodation providers, including Receptionista (AI chatbot), visibility packages, premium listings, the BBD Trust Certificate, consulting and training.
Customer: an accommodation provider or other business that purchases Paid Services.
Agreement: these terms, together with our Privacy Policy, our Chatbot Terms (for Receptionista), any data processing agreement, and any quote or order confirmation.

If these documents conflict, the order of precedence is: (1) the signed quote or order confirmation, (2) the data processing agreement, (3) the Chatbot Terms, (4) these terms.

The general terms and conditions of a Customer do not apply, unless we have expressly accepted them in writing.

3. Who our services are for

Travellers may use the Free Services to find direct-booking options and advantages. When a traveller books an accommodation, the booking contract is made directly between the traveller and the accommodation. BBD is not a party to that contract, does not act as a booking agent and does not process guest payments.

Paid Services are offered exclusively to businesses (B2B). By purchasing a Paid Service, you confirm that you act in the course of your business and that you are authorised to bind the business you represent.

You must be at least 16 years old to use our services.

4. Our services

4.1 Free Services

We help travellers discover direct-booking options and help accommodations promote their direct-booking advantages. We provide the Free Services “as they are” and may change, limit or discontinue them at any time.

4.2 Paid Services

The content, scope, price and duration of each Paid Service are described in our quote, order confirmation or on the relevant product page at the time of purchase. Our main Paid Services are:

Receptionista: an AI chatbot for the website of an accommodation. Additional terms apply (see section 7 and the Chatbot Terms).
Visibility packages: optimisation for search engines and AI search (such as structured data, content and technical improvements), as a fixed package or on an hourly basis.
Premium listings and the BBD Trust Certificate: promotion and certification of accommodations that offer direct-booking advantages (see section 8).
Consulting and training on direct bookings, digital strategy and AI.

We perform our services with care and to the best of our ability. Unless expressly agreed otherwise in writing, our obligations are obligations of effort, not of result. We cannot guarantee specific rankings, visibility in search engines or AI systems, or a specific number of bookings, because these depend on third parties outside our control.

5. Prices, payment and invoicing

All prices are in euros and exclusive of VAT, unless stated otherwise. For business customers in other EU countries, the VAT reverse-charge mechanism applies where legally required.
Subscriptions (such as Receptionista) are billed monthly or yearly in advance. One-off services (such as setup fees and visibility packages) are invoiced as stated in the quote. Hourly work is invoiced monthly in arrears, unless agreed otherwise.
Invoices are payable within 14 days of the invoice date, unless stated otherwise. Payment can be made by bank transfer, or by card through our payment processors (such as Stripe or PayPal), whose terms also apply. We never see or store your full card details.
If you pay late, we may send you a reminder and, after the reminder period, suspend Paid Services until payment is received. Statutory commercial interest (wettelijke handelsrente) and reasonable collection costs may be charged.
Bank details: we will never change our bank details by e-mail alone. If you receive a request to pay to a different account, please verify it with us before paying.

Price changes

We may change our prices. For running subscriptions, we will notify you at least 30 days in advance by e-mail. The new price applies from the next billing period. If you do not agree, you can cancel before the new price takes effect.

6. Term, renewal, cancellation and refunds

Monthly subscriptions renew automatically each month and can be cancelled at any time, with effect from the end of the current month.
Yearly subscriptions renew automatically for another year, unless cancelled at least one month before the end of the current term. We will remind you by e-mail before the renewal.
Lifetime deals (if offered) run for as long as we offer the relevant product. If we discontinue the product, we will inform you in good time and, where reasonable, offer a comparable alternative.
You can cancel via your BBD dashboard or by e-mail to hello@bookbetterdirect.com.
14-day satisfaction guarantee: if you are not satisfied with a new subscription, you can request a full refund within 14 days of your first payment, no questions asked. This guarantee does not apply to work already performed on an hourly basis or to custom work that has already been delivered.
We may suspend or terminate an Agreement with immediate effect if you seriously breach these terms, fail to pay despite a reminder, or use our services unlawfully.

7. Receptionista and other AI-based services

Some of our services use artificial intelligence (AI), including large language models from third-party providers.

Accuracy: Receptionista answers guest questions based on the information (knowledge base) that you provide or approve. AI-generated answers may occasionally be incomplete or incorrect. You remain responsible for the correctness of the information about your accommodation, prices and availability, and for checking the knowledge base we set up for you.
No binding commitments: Receptionista provides information only. It does not make bookings, confirm prices or enter into agreements on your behalf, unless expressly agreed otherwise.
Transparency: Receptionista clearly informs guests that they are communicating with an AI system. You will not remove or hide this notice.
Your content: you guarantee that you have the right to use all texts, images and other materials you provide to us, and that they do not infringe the rights of third parties.
Guest data: when Receptionista processes personal data of your guests, you are the controller and BBD acts as processor. A data processing agreement (verwerkersovereenkomst) applies, which we provide on request or as part of your order.

Further details are set out in the Chatbot Terms.

8. Listings and the BBD Trust Certificate

You are responsible for the correctness of the information in your listing, including your direct-booking advantages, and you will keep it up to date.
The BBD Trust Certificate may only be displayed while your certification is valid and while you meet the applicable criteria. We may check compliance and withdraw the certificate if the criteria are no longer met or if the certificate is misused.
When a certification ends, you will remove the certificate, badges and related references from your website and other channels within 14 days.

9. Your obligations

When using our website or services, you will not:

provide false or misleading information, including fake reviews or ratings;
upload unlawful, offensive, discriminatory, sexual or violent content, spam, malware or personal data of others without permission;
infringe the intellectual property or other rights of third parties;
scrape, crawl, data-mine or otherwise access our services in an automated way without our written permission;
copy, resell, sublicense, reverse engineer or decompile our software, except where the law expressly allows this;
circumvent security measures or usage limits, or overload or disrupt our systems;
use our name, logo, trademarks or the Trust Certificate without our prior written consent, except as permitted in section 8.

We may remove content and suspend or block access if you breach these rules.

10. Content you provide

You keep all rights to the content you provide to us (such as texts, images, reviews and knowledge-base information). You grant us a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to use, store, adapt and display this content to the extent necessary to provide our services and, for listings and reviews, to publish it on our website and channels for as long as the Agreement runs.

We are not obliged to monitor user content, but we may remove it if we believe it breaches these terms or the law.

11. Intellectual property

All rights to our website, software, products, designs, texts, databases, trade names and trademarks (including BookBetterDirect and Receptionista) belong to BBD or its licensors.

For Paid Services, you receive a non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use the relevant service for your own business for the duration of the Agreement. Upon full payment, you receive a non-exclusive right to use deliverables created specifically for you (such as texts and structured data) for your own accommodation. Our underlying software, templates, methods and know-how remain our property.

12. Availability and updates

We do our best to keep our services available and secure, but we cannot guarantee uninterrupted or error-free operation. Our services depend in part on third-party hosting, software and networks. We may carry out maintenance, updates and improvements; where possible, we will announce planned maintenance that significantly affects Paid Services in advance.

13. Liability

Our total liability arising from an Agreement is limited to the amount you paid us under that Agreement in the 12 months before the event causing the damage, with a maximum of €2500.
We are not liable for indirect damage, including loss of profit, lost bookings, lost revenue, loss of data or reputational damage.
We are not liable for damage caused by incorrect or incomplete information you provided, by AI-generated answers based on such information, or by services of third parties (such as booking engines, search engines, AI platforms or hosting providers).
For Free Services, we are only liable in the case of intent or gross negligence.
These limitations do not apply if the damage is caused by our intent or deliberate recklessness, or where liability cannot be limited by law.
A claim for damages must be reported to us in writing within 12 months after you became aware, or could reasonably have become aware, of the damage.

14. Indemnification

You indemnify BBD against claims of third parties (including your guests) arising from your use of our services in breach of these terms or the law, or from content you provided, including reasonable legal costs.

15. Privacy

We process personal data in accordance with the GDPR and our Privacy Policy. Where we process personal data on your behalf, our data processing agreement applies.

16. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms from time to time. We will inform Customers with an active Paid Service of material changes by e-mail at least 30 days before they take effect. If you do not agree, you can cancel the affected service before the changes take effect. The current version is always available on this page, with the date of the last update at the top.

17. Final provisions

If any provision of these terms is invalid, the remaining provisions remain in force. We will replace the invalid provision with a valid one that comes as close as possible to its purpose.
You may only transfer your rights and obligations under the Agreement to a third party with our written consent.
Nothing in the Agreement creates a partnership, employment, agency or franchise relationship.

18. Governing law and disputes

These terms and all Agreements are governed by Dutch law. The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) does not apply.

If you have a complaint, please contact us first at hello@bookbetterdirect.com. We aim to respond within 5 working days and will always look for a solution together.

Disputes between BBD and business customers will be submitted exclusively to the competent court in The Hague, the Netherlands. If you use our Free Services as a consumer, you keep the protection of the mandatory consumer law of your country of residence and may also bring proceedings before the courts there.

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