Safety and trust

What our verification means

Before a profile goes live we review the documents the instructor sends us. Identity, qualification and insurance are checked and marked separately on the profile, and we only mark what we have actually looked at.

Be clear about the limits: that check is documentary and made at a point in time. It is not a certification, not an accreditation, and not a guarantee of how good the lesson will be. It does not replace the authorisation only a country's authority can grant.

A qualification shown as unverified is the instructor's own statement, and the profile says so. We can suspend or remove a profile at any time if we have reasonable doubts about its paperwork.

Teaching is regulated, and not the same everywhere

In France, Italy, Austria and Switzerland, among others, teaching skiing for payment without the official qualification is not an administrative slip: it can carry criminal liability. In the United States, Canada, New Zealand or Japan there is no state licence and what counts is the national industry certification.

Each country page sets out which qualification is required there, who issues it and, where one exists, the public register you can check it against yourself.

In some countries we offer a companion role: someone without a qualification who shares the mountain with you without teaching. The platform blocks it at sign-up in every country whose law requires a qualification for this activity. A companion may not teach technique for payment, present themselves as an instructor, or take charge of minors without their guardians.

Your money is held until the lesson happens

You pay when you book, but the instructor does not receive the money then. The amount is held and only becomes theirs once the lesson has taken place.

Payment runs through Stripe. Card details are entered in a Stripe form and never pass through our servers, and we never store them.

• Booking not accepted, or the response window expires: refunded in full, automatically.
• Cancelled by the instructor: refunded in full.
• Cancelled by you: refunded under the conditions that applied to the booking when you made it.
• Resort closed, no snow, or weather that makes the lesson unsafe: treated as beyond anyone's control and refunded.
• If you do not turn up, the lesson counts as delivered.

Talk to the instructor before you commit

You can message any instructor before booking anything. Use it: say what level you are, what you want out of the lesson, who is coming and what worries you. A good instructor will tell you honestly if they are not the right person for it.

Once a booking is confirmed the chat stays open to agree the meeting point and the details. Each resort page suggests meeting points that are easy to find, which is worth more than it sounds at eight in the morning in a car park you have never seen.

On the mountain

Skiing and snowboarding carry risk, and everyone takes part accepting that. Turn up at the agreed point with a valid lift pass and suitable equipment, and follow the instructor's directions and the resort's rules.

The instructor can stop the lesson if continuing would be unsafe, or if a student is under the influence of alcohol or other substances.

Make sure you hold whatever insurance and mountain assistance cover you need. Alpine Pal does not insure the lesson.

Keep the booking on the platform

If someone suggests arranging the lesson outside Alpine Pal to save the commission, say no. Off-platform you lose the held payment, the refund rules and our mediation, and so does the instructor. It can also get the account closed.

If something goes wrong

Write to info@alpinepal.com. We mediate between the two sides and can refund where a complaint is well founded. Tell us the booking, what happened and what you would consider a fair outcome.

If you believe an instructor is teaching without the qualification their country requires, tell us that too. We would rather look into it and be wrong than leave it.