Refunds & cancellation

Stopping should be as plain as starting. You can end a membership yourself, in two clicks, at any time — and within the first 14 days you can have your money back.

Stopping a membership

Go to your account and stop the renewal. It takes effect at the end of the term you have already paid for — you keep what you bought. Every chapter, deck, quiz and map stays open until that date, and one button brings the membership back if you change your mind.

You can also do it inside Stripe, through Payment & invoices on the same page. Either route reaches the same place; the portal and Stripe are kept in step automatically, so you never have to do it twice.

Nothing is charged after you stop. There is no cancellation fee, no notice period, and no need to write to anybody.

Your right to withdraw — the first 14 days

A membership bought online is a distance contract, and every distance contract carries a cooling-off period. If you are in the United Kingdom this is the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013. If you are in the European Union it is the Consumer Rights Directive (2011/83/EU) as your own country enacted it. The right is the same either way:

• You have 14 days from the day the membership begins to withdraw from it, without giving any reason.
• Tell us within that window — rsayburn@courtofmastersommeliers.org is enough, and a plain sentence will do. You do not need a form or a particular wording.
• The money goes back to the card you paid with, within 14 days of us being told, using the same method you used to pay.

The exception, said plainly

Both laws contain the same exception for digital content: where you are given immediate access to material that is delivered at once — as the whole portal is, the moment payment clears — the withdrawal right can be lost once you begin using it, provided you were told so beforehand and acknowledged it.

The Court does not take that exception at its narrowest. If you change your mind inside 14 days and have not made substantial use of the portal — you signed in, looked round, and decided it was not for you — the payment is returned in full. Reading one chapter is not substantial use. Working through six chapters, the decks and forty quizzes is.

This is the Court’s own policy and it sits alongside your statutory rights; it does not replace them or take anything away from them. Where the law gives you more than this page does, the law wins.

After the 14 days

Once the withdrawal period has passed, a term already paid for is not usually refunded — you keep access for the whole of it instead. Two things are treated differently:

• If the portal is at fault. While it is in beta especially: if a fault stops you studying and we cannot fix it, the money for the affected time is returned. Tell us rather than waiting it out.
• If you were charged twice. The portal now refuses a second membership to anyone who already holds one, and refunds any duplicate in full automatically. If one ever slips through, it is returned without argument.

What a membership costs

• Six months — £40, charged every six months
• One year — £60, charged every twelve months

Prices are in pounds sterling and include any tax due. Both terms renew automatically so that access does not lapse mid-study. If the Court changes the price it applies from your next renewal and never to a term already paid.

If a payment fails

A card that fails once does not close your membership. Stripe retries it over roughly a fortnight, we write to tell you, and the portal stays open for 14 days while that happens. Update your card under Payment & invoices and nothing else changes.

If we cannot agree

Write to rsayburn@courtofmastersommeliers.org first — most of this is settled in one email. Memberships are sold by Court of Master Sommeliers, 33 Felhampton Road, London, SE9 3NT, registered in England and Wales under company number 5485362, and governed by the laws of England and Wales. If you bought as a consumer, that does not remove the protections of the law of the country you live in, nor your right to bring a claim there.

The full terms are in terms of membership.