Frequently Asked Questions (Account)
On this page you will find commonly asked questions about the Navigraph account. Please check this page before contacting Navigraph Support as your question already may have been answered.
- FAQA-0001: Why do credits expire?
- FAQA-0002: Why is the expiry period 270 days?
- FAQA-0003: Is there anything I can do to prevent my credits from expiring?
- FAQA-0004: Is the agreement in the Terms of Service terminated when the credits expire?
- FAQA-0005: When is the agreement in the Terms of Service terminated?
- FAQA-0006: What are points?
- FAQA-0007: Why can't I download the charts again for free after my hard drive crashed/I reinstalled Windows?
FAQA-0001: Why do credits expire?
Q: Why do credits expire?
A: When you give us money in exchange for credits we promise to give you products and services for the equivalent amount in return. In terms of book keeping your credits denote a debt. When we calculate the financial situation of Navigraph we balance income against debts: used credits against unused credits. If the debts build up we will have a negative result.
Some users only use say 95 of their 100 credits. If many users leave 5 credits on their account without noticing us when they intend to spend the remaining 5 credits this will eventually build up our debt. Assuming an infinite number of users this means an infinite debt. For this reason we need a mechanism to identify users that do not intend to return and spend their credits. This mechanism revokes the remaining credits to reflect the users intent - namely not to claim the remaining dept.
If credits did not expire we would suffer from an unjust negative result which would hinder our possibilities to evolve. It would also force us to reserve resources (service costs for infrastructure and running license costs) for users that in fact have no intention on returning to use their remaining credits.
FAQA-0002: Why is the expiry period 270 days?
Q: How do you justify 270 days to be the time period after which a user is deemed not to be likely to claim their credits?
A: In the beginning credits were set to expire after 180 days.
Assuming that...
- ...a user was primarily interested in the product that was updated the most frequently, namely the FMS Data, and...
- ...a user charged his account with the minimum amount, namely 100 credits,
- ...each FMS Data revision is sold for 20 credits each.
This would leave approx. 1 month (40 days) “Grace Period”. Grace period means the length of time during which a user may use the Navigraph services without spending credits and still make maximum use of his credits.
1 month grace period was deemed to little. For this reason the grace period was increased to 4 months which gave a total of 9 months expiry period (270 days).
The length of the expiry period can be debated, but in the end it needs to be the resulting spending behavior of all of Navigraph users that sets the limits so as to result in a balanced credit system which in turn creates the possibility for a viable business to continue to provide the service.
Also, since Navigraph is a small company, in terms of book keeping, there is not enough assets to balance the debt to the users over more than one fiscal year.
The expiry period is stated in the Terms of Service and also explicitly stated next to the checkbox during the credit purchase process. Thus all users know what they agree to when committing a purchase.
FAQA-0003: Is there anything I can do to prevent my credits from expiring?
Q: I have recieved a notice via email that my credits are about to expire. Is there anything I can do to prevent my credits from expiring?
A: Yes. We send out reminders 30, 14 and 7 days in advance before revoking credits from a user that does not seem to make use of his remaining credits. However, to convince us that you intend to remain an active user you must charge your account with more credits. This means that you will indeed continue to use our services.
FAQA-0004: Is the agreement in the Terms of Service terminated when the credits expire?
Q: Is the agreement in the Terms of Service terminated when the credits expire?
A: No. The agreement is in effect for as long as you have a profile registered with Navigraph. The contract regulates how the Navigraph services and products are purchased and used. This means that the contract says how the credits expire, but the contract is still in effect until you decide to cancel it.
FAQA-0005: When is the agreement in the Terms of Service terminated?
Q: When is the agreement in the Terms of Service terminated?
A: It is terminated when...
- ...you decide not to be a registered Navigraph user, or...
- ...when you are found to have violated any of the conditions in the agreement (such as sharing data with others).
The agreement is not terminated when your credits expire. This means that it is not a necessary condition to have a balance on your account to keep using Navigraph services that you already paid for. It is however necessary that you are a registered Navigraph user.
If you decide to terminate your agreement you have the right to be reimbursed. We will pay back the value of your remaining credits minus the expense for transferring the money to you.
However, you must note that when you are no longer a user you may no longer use any of the Navigraph services. This means that you will no longer be able to activate your nDAC software.
You must also note that we will not accept you as a user again if it is apparent that you are exploiting the right to terminate the agreement to gain unjust benefits from the credit system.
Q: I was charged 2 credits for each airport that I downloaded and noticed that the airports are also available for 2 points, so my question is how do I use the points that I have been credited?
A: For each credit spent, the account is (usually) awarded a point. A negative number in the credits column in the nDAC means that credits are taken. A positive number in the points column means that points are given. The points are intended for a loyalty/preferred customer program. It has not been decided what the points should be used for. They may be used to indicate levels, such as "bronze", "silver", and "gold" membership which in turn give access to a few selected services. One could also imagine that the points could be exchanged for credits which in turn can be used for products or services. However, whatever the implementation of points, we need some more time to think about an appropriate and fair program to reward frequent users.
Don't worry, the points currently have no expiration policy so you can safely ignore them as we are tailoring a good loyalty/preferred customer program, all whilst concentrating on providing a good basic set of product and services.
Q: I recently had a hard drive failure. All my downloaded data is gone and I don't have any backups of my charts. Why can't I download them again from your site for free?
A: The principal reasons why we cannot allow users who lost data to download the data again are:
- We update the chart data every three months. We don't keep old revisions. If we were to allow you to download all the charts again you would be given a free update on all of your charts. This is a service we request that you pay for.
- If downloading the same data several times was allowed it would be possible to share an account over several nDAC installations. Something that would encourage piracy and usage not conforming to the license agreement.
- If the general attitude towards caring for downloaded data was "I can always download it again", we would at some point be forced to upgrade server capacity which adds an unnecessary overhead to prices. Another reason why this attitude isn't sustainable, is that companies such as ourselves can and do go out of business. If your products, being digital or physical, are valuable to you - then protect them!