Refund & Cancellation Policy

• 72 or more hours before the lesson starts: full refund to your original payment method.
• Less than 72 hours before the lesson starts: no refund. You may reschedule with your teacher’s agreement. The lesson is treated as completed for faculty payout purposes.
• After the lesson has started or ended: no refund unless the faculty failed to attend (see Section 3).

If you fail to attend a booked lesson, no refund is issued. The faculty is paid for the time they held, recognising that they prepared for the lesson and reserved it exclusively for you.

If a lesson cannot proceed because of a verifiable technical failure on the Platform's side (Shopify outage, Zoom outage at scale, our portal unreachable, our payment processor down), the Student receives a full refund or credit, and the Faculty receives a goodwill 50% payout for time already blocked off in good faith.

Failures on the user's own side (your home internet, your device, your Zoom account being banned) are not the Platform's responsibility and follow standard cancellation rules.

• Performer slots: full refund if cancelled 7 or more days before. 50% refund 3–6 days before. No refund within 72 hours.
• Observer passes: refundable up to 72 hours before the masterclass starts; non-refundable after that.
• Replay or Vault access: non-refundable once accessed.
• If the faculty or TGC cancels the masterclass: every registered Student receives a full refund.

Studio Classes are full-term commitments — you and other students enroll together for a defined term (e.g. September–December). The faculty plans curriculum, builds the cohort dynamic, and shapes progression around the registered roster.

• More than 7 days before the first session: full refund, or transfer to the next cohort.
• Within 7 days but before the first session: 75% refund. The remainder covers reserved capacity we are unlikely to resell.
• After the first session: no refund. A pro-rata refund may be issued at our discretion for documented hardship such as medical or bereavement. Email info@theglobalconservatory.com to discuss.
• If TGC cancels the cohort: full refund.

Group Lessons follow the cohort rules, not the private-lesson rules: full refund or transfer to the next cohort more than 7 days before the first session, 75% refund within 7 days but before it starts, and no refund once the first session has happened. If TGC cancels the cohort you receive a full refund.

Email info@theglobalconservatory.com with:

• Your order number (visible in your order confirmation email, e.g. #1234)
• The faculty member's name and the date/time of the lesson
• A brief description of why you are requesting a refund

We respond within 2 business days. We do not require explanations beyond what is needed to apply the right rule — we are not here to interrogate you.

• Credit/debit card refunds: 3–5 business days to appear on your statement.
• Bank transfer / Shop Pay refunds: 5–10 business days, depending on your bank.
• Platform credits: appear in your account immediately and never expire.
• We refund to your original payment method — we cannot refund to a different card or account.
• If your original payment method is closed, we may issue a platform credit instead.

Filing a chargeback (asking your bank to reverse a payment) without first contacting us at info@theglobalconservatory.com may result in immediate suspension of your account pending resolution.

We will work with you in good faith to resolve any disputed transaction — refunds, credits, lesson swaps, faculty changes are all on the table. Most chargebacks are honest misunderstandings that a 5-minute email exchange resolves.

If a chargeback is upheld in your favour, the corresponding faculty payout is reversed. If a chargeback is reversed in our favour, your account access may be restored at our discretion subject to your written agreement to use the proper channel for any future disputes.

We aim to resolve every refund question by email within 2 business days. For disputes that cannot be resolved that way, the dispute-resolution provisions in our Terms of Service §15 apply: binding arbitration administered by the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre.