Worldpackers' Policies for the Quality and Safety of Experiences

As a collaborative community, Worldpackers relies on the transparency of the feedback about each exchange to promote the quality and safety of experiences. Here you can find more details about the policies that regulate our community.

+See our positioning on quality and safety of the experiences

For hosts

Activity Policy
Temporary Pause Policy
Host Deactivation Policy
Host Reactivation Policy

For travelers

Traveler Deactivation Policy
Traveler Reactivation Policy

For Hosts

1. Activity Policy

To maintain our promise to connect the most committed travelers to the most responsive hosts, we analyze the hosts’ active participation in the platform. For this, we take into account the number of applications that were answered within certain periods.

A host account can be automatically paused temporarily due to inactivity if it meets any of the criteria below:

Receive 9 or more applications and not answer any applications in the last 30 days

OR

Receive the sum of 9 or more applications and not answer any applications in the last 90 days

+ See here our Activity Policy

2. Temporary Pause Policy

If you project is not offering experiences within our ideal quality and safety requirements, your account will be temporarily paused by an automatic process that evaluates the following criteria combination:

Receive 2 or 3 reviews with ratings below 3 stars in the last 180 days

AND

Have an Average Rating lower than 4.0 within the same period

+ See here our Temporary Pause Policy

3. Host Deactivation Policy

When a project isn’t offering an experience within the ideal quality and safety standards, the account may be deactivated for a set period — 6 months, 1 year, or 5 years — depending on the severity of the reported situation.

Reactivation isn’t automatic: once the period ends, the host must request a new review from our team. In case of a repeat occurrence, the deactivation period may be extended.

+ See here the full Host Deactivation Policy.

In addition, when a host cancels an already-confirmed experience 7 days or less before it’s set to start, this is logged as a last-minute cancellation. Three or more last-minute cancellations can lead to warnings and even profile deactivation, following the same recurrence logic applied to negative feedback under the other policies on this page.

See here the full Review Policy: “No-show” and “last-minute cancellation”.

The conditions above also apply to any accounts created by the same host and/or for the same project whose profile was deactivated.

4. Host Reactivation Policy

Once the stated deactivation period has passed (6 months, 1 year, or 5 years, depending on the severity of the situation), the account doesn’t return to the platform automatically. The host must contact our team and request a reactivation review.

At this stage, we assess the project’s history and whether it’s viable for it to return to the community. Worldpackers reserves the right to keep the account deactivated if it concludes that the experience still doesn’t meet the necessary quality and safety standards.

If the same issues recur after reactivation, the account may be deactivated again for a longer period, at Worldpackers’ discretion.

+ See here the Host Deactivation Policy.

For travelers

Categories of reported issues

In Worldpackers, we categorize the reported situations regarding travelers as:

Quality: when communication and relationship issues take place between travelers and hosts, or when the traveler is not aligned to the collaborative purpose of the platform;
Extreme issues: we consider feedback as extreme when they involve situations and conflicts that compromise the physical, moral, and/or psychological integrity of other members of the community - be it of fellow travelers, guests staying in the host’s property, members of staff or the hosts themselves.

1. Traveler Deactivation Policy

What can lead to a traveler being deactivated from Worldpackers without prior notice and without the possibility of a refund for the amount invested in their plan:
- Inappropriate and/or violent communication with community members or the WP team;
- Violating any clause in our Terms of Use;
- Reports of quality and extreme situations backed by evidence and/or official documents, such as police reports;
- Recurrence of no-shows and last-minute cancellations: we consider a no-show when a traveler doesn’t show up for a confirmed experience without any prior notice to the host. A last-minute cancellation happens when the traveler cancels the experience 7 days or less before it’s set to start. Three or more occurrences — whether no-shows, last-minute cancellations, or a combination of both — may lead the Worldpackers team to review the profile for deactivation, following the same recurrence logic applied to the other policies on this page. To learn more about how “no-show” and “last-minute cancellation” work, click here.
- Recurrence of negative feedback, whether public through platform reviews and/or through private channels with the Worldpackers team:
About the plan
- According to our Terms of Use, the amount paid for the plan may not be refunded if the traveler’s account is suspended;
- For accounts with a Couples/Friends Trips Plan or Couples/Friends Pack, we treat experiences shared by pairs as a single exchange. Because of this, if a traveler who is part of a WP Trips or WP Pack plan for Couples/Friends has their account deactivated for any of the reasons above, this may also lead to changes to the connected partner’s account. Possible changes include profile deactivation and/or expiration of the current plan.

2. Travelers Reactivation Policy

Worldpackers believes in the community’s growth, which is why deactivated traveler profiles may be reactivated following a recurrence of negative feedback. Requests are subject to review by the Worldpackers team based on the criteria and steps below:

Quality issues

Profiles may remain suspended for one year, to be determined by the Worldpackers team based on the content and recurrence of the feedback received;
If there’s interest in reactivating the profile after the set period, we’ll propose a conversation between the WP team and the traveler to realign with the collaborative purpose and address the recurring concerns raised by WP community members (hosts or travelers).

Extreme issues

Profiles may remain suspended from Worldpackers for 5 years, counted from the date the profile was deactivated, subject to the team’s review;
After that period, the reactivation request may be evaluated by the WP team, taking into account conversations held through any channel agreed upon by both parties, and/or completion of an exercise proposed by Worldpackers and carried out by the traveler.
For situations reported with evidence and/or official documents, the possible reactivation period for the profile is 5 years.

Important

If a traveler goes back to receiving negative feedback of any kind after reactivation, their account may be deactivated again. In these cases, the waiting period for a new reactivation doubles with each repeat occurrence, relative to the period previously applied: for quality issues, the period goes from 1 to 2 years on the first repeat occurrence, 4 years on the second, 8 years on the third, and so on; for extreme issues, the period goes from 5 to 10 years on the first repeat occurrence, 20 years on the second, 40 years on the third, and so on;
All conditions of these policies also apply to any profiles created on the platform under the same identity as the deactivated traveler;
Reactivation requests must be sent by the traveler to the Worldpackers support team.