Refund & Cancellation Policy

Two separate amounts may be charged when you reserve a table:

• The deposit — held against your reservation and credited to your bill at the restaurant when you arrive. It is not an additional charge; it comes off what you spend on the night.
• The premium seat fee — PrimeSeat's fee for securing the specific table you selected, rather than leaving your seating to chance. This is our service fee and is separate from your bill at the restaurant.

Some reservations carry no premium seat fee. The exact amounts are always shown before you pay.

Under section 17 of the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 you may cancel an advance reservation at any time, for any reason. We may keep a reasonable cancellation charge, set out below, to cover the cost of having held the table for you.

More than 24 hours before your sitting time: your deposit is refunded in full. No cancellation charge applies.

Within 24 hours of your sitting time, or if you do not arrive: the deposit is retained as the cancellation charge. At that point the restaurant has held the table and turned away other bookings for it, and has little realistic opportunity to fill the seat.

The premium seat fee is not refunded when you cancel, at any notice period. That fee paid for reserving your specific table, and that service was performed the moment the table was held for you.

We will not charge any cancellation fee, at any notice period, where the reservation cannot be honoured because of the death or hospitalisation of the person the booking was made for. This is your right under section 17(5) of the Consumer Protection Act, and it overrides the cancellation terms above.

Email primeseat@primeseat.co.za with your booking reference and we will refund everything you paid, including the premium seat fee. We may ask for reasonable confirmation, and we will handle it sensitively.

Online purchases often carry a seven-day cooling-off right under section 44 of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002. That right does not apply to these reservations, because section 42(2)(j) of that Act excludes catering and leisure services supplied on a specific date or within a specific period — which is exactly what a table booking is.

Your right to cancel under the Consumer Protection Act, described above, still applies in full.

If the restaurant cancels your reservation, closes unexpectedly, or cannot honour the table you booked, you receive a full refund of everything you paid — both the deposit and the premium seat fee. This applies regardless of notice given.

Email primeseat@primeseat.co.za with your booking reference (the six-character code on your confirmation email), the restaurant name, and the date of your reservation.

Approved refunds are returned to the original payment method within 10 working days. We cannot refund to a different card or account than the one used to pay.

We cannot guarantee changes to the date, time, or table of an existing reservation, as availability belongs to the restaurant. If a change cannot be accommodated, the cancellation terms above apply. Contact us as early as possible and we will do what we can.

Payments are processed by PayFast, a South African registered payment gateway. PrimeSeat does not receive or store your card details at any point. All transactions are charged in South African Rand (ZAR).