We want you satisfied — and we want to be fair to our crew and to the guests whose spots we’d turn away. So here is every rule we apply, with the numbers, before you need them.
Last updated August 2026. This page is part of our Terms of Service and controls if the two ever disagree.
The short version
More than 48 hours out
Trip and tax refunded in full. The 2.9% online booking fee isn’t refunded — see 05.
More than 24, up to 48 hours out
Your deposit isn’t refunded. Anything you’ve paid above the deposit comes back.
24 hours out or less
Nothing is refunded.
We cancel for unsafe weather
Full refund or a free reschedule — your choice.
Refund turnaround
Started within 3 business days, to the card you paid with.
The hours are counted back from your scheduled departure time, in Central Time, from the moment we confirm your cancellation — not from when you decided to send the email.
01 — Cancel more than 48 hours out — full refund
Contact us more than 48 hours before your scheduled departure and we’ll refund the trip and the sales tax in full. The only thing we keep is the 2.9% online booking fee, which is non-refundable — see section 05 for why.
02 — Cancel 24 to 48 hours out — the deposit is forfeit
Cancel more than 24 hours but 48 hours or less before your scheduled departure and your deposit is not refunded. Anything you’ve paid above the deposit — the balance, if it has already run — comes back to you, along with the matching share of the tax. The online booking fee is non-refundable.
The deposit is 50% of the trip price and the exact figure was shown to you before you paid; it’s also on your confirmation email. At this point your slot is usually unsellable — online booking has closed or is about to — which is what the deposit covers.
03 — Cancel 24 hours out or less — nothing is refunded
Cancellations made 24 hours or less before your scheduled departure are not refunded at all. The captain is scheduled, the boat is prepped and fueled, and the day is gone whether or not you board. This is the same window in which online booking closes, so the seat can’t be resold.
04 — Who can cancel, and how
The cancellation has to come from the person who booked the trip. Call 512-839-4573 or email info@traviswakecharters.com with your confirmation code and the trip date.
A cancellation isn’t effective until we confirm it back to you in writing. A voicemail, an unanswered text, a message to a captain’s personal phone, or a comment on social media doesn’t stop the clock. If you haven’t heard from us, assume the trip is still on — and call us.
05 — How refunds are issued, and how fast
Refunds go back to the original payment method — the same card you booked with. We can’t send a refund to a different card, to cash, or to a different person.
We start the refund within 3 business days of confirming your cancellation. After that it’s with your bank: most cards post the money within another 3 to 10 days, and we have no way to speed that up. If it’s been more than two weeks since we confirmed, call us and we’ll send you the processor’s refund reference.
The 2.9% online booking fee is non-refundable. It covers the cost of taking the payment, and our card processor keeps its cut whether the trip runs or not — so on a cancelled booking that money is already gone. It’s a small amount (about $30 on a four-hour trip) and it’s shown to you as its own line before you pay, never buried in the total.
Everything else refunds normally. The 8.25% sales tax added to your booking comes back in the same proportion as the trip: a full refund returns the whole trip and the whole tax, a 50% refund returns half of each. Booking by phone at 512-839-4573 avoids the fee altogether, and there is nothing to be non-refundable.
06 — Rescheduling is not the same as cancelling
More than 48 hours before your departure you can move your trip once to another available date at no cost. Everything you’ve paid moves with it — a reschedule shifts the money, it doesn’t refund it. Availability is real: summer weekends fill months out, so the sooner you call the more dates you’ll have to choose from. Please take the new date within 12 months of the original.
Inside 48 hours, a date change is a cancellation plus a new booking. The original date loses its deposit — or everything, inside 24 hours — and the new trip is priced and paid as a fresh reservation. The one exception is a trip we cancel — see sections 07 and 08.
Reschedules can’t be done online inside 24 hours of departure, because online booking closes then. Call us instead.
07 — What “unsafe weather” actually means
We don’t cancel on a forecast. The decision is made on the day of your trip, by the captain, based on what the lake is actually doing.
Conditions that do qualify as unsafe include lightning in the area, sustained high wind, severe thunderstorms or an active storm warning, dangerously low lake levels, and hazardous debris in the water after a storm or flood release.
Light rain, cloud cover, wind chop, a cool day, or a forecast that looks bad do not qualify as unsafe weather and are not grounds for a free cancellation. This is the single most common disagreement we have, so it’s written down plainly: a grey sky is not a cancellation. Central Texas summer storms usually pass in under an hour, and a captain who can wait one out will. If you cancel on your own because you don’t like the forecast, the normal tiers in sections 01 through 03 apply.
08 — If we cancel your trip
If we cancel because of unsafe weather, you get a 100% refund or a free reschedule to any available date — your choice, not ours. Tell us which you’d prefer and we’ll set it up.
The same applies if we can’t run your trip for any other reason on our end: a mechanical problem, a captain out sick, or a closure of the ramp or the lake. You never absorb the cost of a trip we couldn’t deliver.
09 — Late arrivals and no-shows
The boat leaves at your scheduled time. Your charter clock starts then, whether or not everyone in your party is standing on the dock, and a late arrival shortens your trip without changing the price. We can’t run past your scheduled end time to make it up — the next charter is waiting, and every trip is off the water by 8:00 PM.
Please arrive 15 minutes early so the crew can get waivers, vests and gear sorted before departure. If you’re running behind, call 512-839-4573 — if the schedule allows it, the captain will do what he can.
No-shows are charged 100% of the total. If nobody in your party has arrived 30 minutes after your scheduled departure time and we haven’t heard from you, we treat the booking as a no-show and release the boat.
10 — Trips that end early once you’re underway
Weather. If the captain brings the boat in early because conditions turned unsafe, we’ll make it right — either a prorated credit toward a future trip or a partial refund for the time you lost. The captain decides when it’s time to come in; that call is about safety and isn’t up for debate on the water. Which remedy you get, and how much it’s worth, is decided afterward by the owner, and we’ll come back to you within 3 business days of your trip.
Conduct. If a trip ends early because a guest is unsafe, unruly, dangerously intoxicated, or won’t follow the captain’s instructions, there is no refund and no credit — the trip is over and the full amount stands. Same for illegal drugs on board. See guest policies for what we expect on board.
Your call. If you simply decide you’ve had enough and want to head in early, that’s completely fine — just tell the captain. But the trip is priced as booked, and there’s no refund for time you chose not to use.
11 — Guest count changes
You’re chartering the whole boat privately, not buying per-person seats. Bringing fewer guests than you booked for does not reduce the price — a 6-person group pays the same as a 12-person group on the same boat for the same hours, and a friend dropping out the night before isn’t a partial cancellation.
Adding guests, up to the boat’s 12-guest capacity, doesn’t change the charter price either — but tell us in advance so the captain has vests, gear and waivers ready for everyone. We can’t exceed capacity for any reason, and a guest who shows up over the limit stays ashore.
12 — What you’ve paid, and when
A deposit — 50% of the total — is charged when you book, and the exact amount is shown before you pay. The balance is charged automatically to the card on file the day before your trip. So what a cancellation actually means in practice:
Cancel more than 48 hours out and your deposit comes back in full. If the balance has already run, that comes back too.
Cancel 24 to 48 hours out and you keep nothing of the deposit — but nothing further is taken either. If the balance had already been charged, the balance is refunded.
Cancel inside 24 hours, or no-show, and nothing comes back — deposit and balance both stand.
Because the balance runs the day before your trip, and the 24-hour line falls in roughly the same place, most cancellations in the 24-to-48 hour window are settled by simply keeping the deposit and charging nothing more.
The card on file is also authorized for guest-caused damage and excessive cleaning — that’s separate from anything on this page, and the full terms are in the waiver and in our Terms of Service.
13 — Gift certificates, deals and third-party bookings
If you booked through a third party — a deals site, a concierge, or a reseller — their cancellation terms and their refund timing apply to whatever you paid them, and you’ll need to cancel through them. We can only refund money we collected. If you’re not sure which applies to your booking, call us and we’ll tell you straight.
Still have a question?
Our FAQ covers the practical questions — what to bring, what’s included, how the day runs. Our guest policies cover conduct, alcohol, kids and safety on board. The Terms of Service and the liability waiver are the full legal picture.
Questions before your trip?
Reach out any time — we’d rather sort it out now than argue about it later.
