Terms of service

1. What Alpine Pal is, and what it isn't

Alpine Pal is the trading name of Santi Prats Moreu (NIF 46152987Z), a self-employed professional established in Spain. You can write to us at info@alpinepal.com.

Alpine Pal is a meeting place. We connect customers with independent instructors, handle the booking, the payment and the messaging, and take a commission for doing so.

We do not employ the instructors and we do not teach the lessons. The lesson contract is between the customer and the instructor or, where the instructor belongs to a school registered on the platform, between the customer and that school. We are an intermediary in that relationship, not a party to it.

That has a practical consequence: the quality, safety and legality of the lesson rest with the instructor and, where applicable, their school — not with us.

1 bis. Schools

A ski school can register on the platform, invite its instructors and publish a page of its own. We review every school before approving it, but that review is documentary: holding whatever administrative authorisation the school needs to operate, where one is required, is the school's responsibility.

When an instructor belongs to a school, the school sets the price of their lessons and collects the earnings through the platform, on the same commission an independent instructor pays. The relationship between a school and its instructors — employment, commercial or otherwise — is strictly between them: the platform does not pay a school's instructors and does not mediate that relationship.

The school answers for its invited instructors meeting the qualification requirements of the country where they teach. A school instructor being live reflects the school's vetting, not an individual check by us.

A school may also add an instructor who does not have an account yet. In doing so it declares that the person has agreed to the profile being published and holds the required qualification, and it answers for the profile in everything — requests, calendar and conversations with customers — until its holder claims it with their own account. On claiming it the instructor accepts these terms and the profile becomes theirs; the money from lessons already paid remains the school's.

A school may also offer equipment rental — skis, boots, helmets and the like — with its lessons. The equipment is provided by the school, not by Alpine Pal: the school hands it over, prepares it in the sizes given in the booking and answers for its condition. Anything that happens to it during the rental (damage, loss, or a deposit the school asks for when handing it over) is settled between the customer and the school, under the school's own conditions.

2. Your account

You need an account to book or to offer yourself as an instructor. The details you give must be true and kept current, and you are responsible for what happens under your account.

You must be of legal age to register as an instructor. Minors may take lessons, but the booking is made by an adult who takes responsibility for them.

You can close your account whenever you like from your profile. When you do we delete your profile, your chat history, your notifications and your photo. We keep what our tax and accounting obligations require — bookings, payments and invoices — and the reviews you wrote, as section 11 explains. If you are an instructor you cannot close while you still have confirmed lessons ahead, nor while a balance is still owed to you: withdraw it first, and then close. A school is not closed while it is still owed money either. Nothing stops you signing up again later with the same email.

3. Instructors: qualification, insurance and responsibility

Teaching skiing or snowboarding is regulated, and the rules change from country to country. In France, Italy, Austria and Switzerland, among others, teaching for payment without the official qualification is not an administrative slip: it is an offence that can carry criminal liability.

Holding and maintaining the qualification, the professional licence, public liability insurance and any permit required by the country and the resort where you work is your responsibility and yours alone. By submitting your application you declare that you meet those requirements, that the documents you provide are genuine, and you expressly accept that responsibility.

Meeting your tax and social security obligations as a self-employed professional in your country is also on you.

• Keep your qualification valid while your profile is live, and tell us if it expires, is suspended or is revoked.
• Hold public liability insurance appropriate to the activity.
• Follow the rules of the resort where you teach, including any restriction on independent instruction.
• If you stop meeting any of these, stop accepting bookings.

4. What our verification means, and what it doesn't

Two paths lead to a profile on Alpine Pal. An independent instructor sends us their documents and a person checks them before the profile goes live; the qualification is marked as verified only once we have actually checked it, and identity only once Stripe has verified it, when they set up their payouts. An instructor invited by an authorised ski school is vouched for by that school: we review the school, not each of its instructors, and the profile names the school that stands behind them. We do not check insurance: holding valid cover is the instructor's sole responsibility, as stated above.

That check is documentary and made at a point in time. It is not a certification, an accreditation or a guarantee of the quality of the lesson, and it does not replace the authorisation that each country's authority alone can grant.

Qualifications shown as unverified are the instructor's own statement. We label them as such on the profile.

We may suspend or remove a profile at any time if we have reasonable doubts about its documentation.

5. Riding companions

In some countries we offer the companion role: someone without a qualification who shares the mountain with the customer without teaching. It is not available in countries whose law requires a qualification for this activity, and the platform blocks it at sign-up.

A companion may not teach technique for payment, present themselves as an instructor, or take charge of minors without their guardians.

Holding public liability insurance that covers the activity is the companion's responsibility, exactly as it is the qualified instructor's. We do not check it.

6. Bookings

A booking starts as a request: the customer picks resort, date, time and duration, and pays upfront. The instructor has a window, 48 hours by default, to accept or decline.

If the instructor accepts, the booking is confirmed and a chat opens between them to agree the meeting point and the details.

If they decline or let the window pass, the booking lapses and the amount is refunded in full.

The instructor may propose a different time. The customer can accept it, confirming the booking at the new time, or decline it and get their money back.

7. Prices, commission and payments

The lesson price is set by the instructor or, if they belong to a school, by the school: by the hour, as a fixed price for several hours in a row, by fixed slot or as a multi-day pack. Alpine Pal keeps a 10% commission on everything the customer pays, equipment rented with the lesson included — or the higher one the school or the instructor has agreed in writing with Alpine Pal, as point 7 bis explains, or the lower one of the referral programme in point 7 ter — and the rest belongs to the instructor or the school. Each booking keeps the commission it was made under.

All prices on Alpine Pal are final and include VAT: nothing is added at payment. So the price set by the instructor or the school must include any VAT they owe. Alpine Pal's commission also includes any applicable VAT.

Payment is taken through Stripe. Card details are entered in a Stripe form and never pass through our servers or get stored by us.

The amount paid by the customer is held until the lesson has taken place — day by day, for a multi-day pack. From then on it is credited to the balance of the instructor or their school, which they can withdraw to their bank account.

Before withdrawing their balance, the instructor or the school must give their tax details, which Alpine Pal uses to issue the invoice for its commission.

The instructor is responsible for issuing any invoices due to their customers and for declaring their income.

7 bis. How we order results

Lists of instructors, schools and lessons — the search, and the pages of each resort and each country — come in the "Recommended" order unless you choose another. Only those with an available lesson matching what is searched for appear (resort, date, discipline, language, price); among them, that order rests mainly on the average rating of their reviews and on how many there are.

The other orders you can choose do exactly what they say: highest rated, most experienced, lowest or highest price, most reviewed or fastest response.

A school or an independent instructor can agree in writing with Alpine Pal to a higher commission than the standard one. In exchange, they move up somewhat in the "Recommended" order: it counts as half a star more of rating. They never get a fixed or guaranteed place, nothing changes in the other orders, and reviews are not affected: nobody can buy or remove them. The customer pays the same price: the difference comes out of the school's or the instructor's share. An agreement made by a school covers all its instructors and its lessons without a named instructor. While any such agreement exists, we say so beside the lists.

On the home page, the instructors shown come from the "Recommended" order, preferring those with a photo of their own and a verified qualification; the schools, those with their own logo and cover photo and the longest on the platform, and an agreement for a higher commission counts as having a logo.

The website's AI assistant starts from the same order with two differences: if you give it no date, it puts first those with lessons open to book, and if you ask for an instructor or lessons, it searches among qualified instructors and schools, unless you ask for a companion or there are none.

7 ter. “Refer an instructor”

An independent instructor with an approved profile can share their referral link or code. Whoever signs up as an instructor with that code, qualified or riding companion, pays a commission 5 points lower — 5% instead of 10% — on their first sales, up to €1,500, CHF 1,500, or $1,700 depending on the currency they are paid in, from the day we approve their profile.

When that person gives their first lesson completed and paid, paid to them and bought by someone who is neither them nor whoever invited them, and once Alpine Pal has reviewed it, the referrer also pays a commission 5 points lower on their next sales, up to the same amount. If they have agreed a higher commission (point 7 bis), the reduction is still 5 points.

Each reduction lasts at most 12 months from when it is granted and applies to new bookings, one by one, until its amount is used up; the booking that crosses the limit counts in full. It cannot be exchanged for money. Each person comes in with a single code, given when signing up, and a referrer receives at most 10 rewards per calendar year.

A school's instructors, and anyone who signs up through a school's invitation, do not take part: their lessons are paid to the school. The programme does not change the order of results.

Alpine Pal may refuse or withdraw a reduction where there are signs of fraud, such as duplicate accounts, bookings with oneself or between the two people, or shared payout details. It may also change or end the programme with notice as point 15 says; reductions already granted are kept until they are used up or expire.

8. Cancellations and refunds

Refunds go back to the original payment method. How long it takes to show up depends on the issuing bank.

If something went wrong, write to us: we mediate between the parties and can refund where the complaint is well founded.

• Booking not accepted or expired: full refund, automatically.
• Cancelled by the instructor: full refund to the customer.
• Cancelled by the customer: full refund before the instructor confirms and, once confirmed, up to 48 hours before the lesson starts, unless the booking was made under a longer cancellation window. An independent instructor, or a school for every lesson it sells, may set 72 hours or 1, 2, 4 or 6 weeks instead. The window that applies is the one shown on the instructor's profile and at checkout before payment, and the booking keeps it even if the policy changes later. Once the window has closed, there is no self-service cancellation.
• Resort closure, lack of snow or weather making the lesson unsafe: treated as a cancellation beyond anyone's control and refunded.
• If the customer does not turn up, the lesson counts as delivered.
• Multi-day pack: the customer can only cancel the whole pack, with a full refund, up to 48 hours before its first day, or up to the longer window shown before payment if one applies; once it has started, no longer. If one of its days is cancelled for any other reason, that day's share is refunded.
• Equipment rented with the lesson: it follows the lesson. It is refunded when the lesson is, and to the same extent; it cannot be removed from a booking once paid, and if the customer does not turn up it is not refunded either.

9. During the lesson

The customer must arrive at the agreed meeting point with a valid lift pass and suitable equipment, and follow the instructor's directions and the resort's rules.

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

Skiing and snowboarding carry risk. Everyone takes part accepting that, and is responsible for holding whatever insurance and assistance cover they need.

10. Communication and conduct

The platform chat exists to organise the lesson. Do not use it to harass, insult, advertise or share other people's data.

We ask you to keep the booking and the payment inside Alpine Pal. Arranging the lesson outside to avoid the commission leaves both sides without the protection of the held payment and of our mediation, and can lead to the account being closed.

11. Reviews

Only someone who has had a lesson can leave a review. Reviews must reflect a real experience; we remove those that are fake, abusive or unrelated to the service.

We do not remove a review for being negative.

Reviews are signed with your first name and the initial of your surname, and stay published even if you close your account. They are part of the record of the instructor you wrote about, and pulling them when you leave would distort their rating.

12. Content

What you upload — your photo, your biography, your messages — stays yours. By uploading it you allow us to display it on the platform for the purpose of providing the service.

Do not upload material you have no rights to. The Alpine Pal name, design and code are ours.

13. Our liability

We are answerable for the platform working: that you can book, pay, communicate and get your money back when due.

We are not answerable for the lesson itself, for the consequences of an instructor failing to meet what their country's law requires of them, or for harm occurring during the activity. That responsibility lies with whoever provides it.

None of the above limits the rights the law gives consumers, which apply in any case.

14. Suspending accounts

We may suspend or close an account that breaches these terms, provides false documents or puts other people at risk. We do not close accounts or schools that are still owed money. If we have to close or remove one ourselves, it stays suspended until what it is owed has been paid; money under an open claim is held until the claim is resolved.

You can close your account whenever you like by writing to us.

15. Changes to these terms

We may update them. If a change is significant we will say so in advance by email or on the site. Bookings already confirmed are governed by the terms in force when they were made.

16. Governing law and complaints

These terms are governed by Spanish law. If you are a consumer you keep the protection of the mandatory rules of your country of residence and may bring proceedings where you live.

Before that, write to info@alpinepal.com: almost everything gets settled that way.

17. Language of these terms

These terms are published in Spanish, English, Italian, French, German, Polish, Dutch and Russian. Where the versions differ, the Spanish version prevails, being the original.