Costs and Fees

Fees and costs amount

The registration fee varies depending on where the team competing at the tournament hails from:

  1. For teams from schools based in Bulgaria the fee is 30 BGN per student.

  2. For teams from schools based abroad, the fee is 15 EUR per student.

Please note that registration fees are non-refundable and are used to secure logistics necessary for the tournament. BEST is a non-profit organization, so any and all fees or costs that you pay go directly back into organizing tournaments and programming.

BEST commits to negotiating accommodation costs at or under 40 BGN per student per night.

Payment of registration fees and hotel costs

The team registration fee must be paid to BEST in full no later than the registration deadline for the tournament by bank transfer. If you go to a UniCredit Bulbank branch to complete the transfer they will charge you a nominal fee; other banks may charge higher fees. After you complete the transfer, you must send us an email with a picture of your payment order receipt and the following information in the subject line: school name, number of students, and amount of leva. All payments should be made in one amount, as a team. Individual payments for individual students will not be recognized. 

The accommodation costs must be paid either directly to the hotel BEST has allocated you to, or to the tour operator BEST works with. BEST will advise you which one you should do after you register for the tournament, and the deadline for making this payment is two days after the registration deadline for the tournament. As outlined in our Tournament Policies section, you need to pay for the accommodation of all participants except the one chaperone and all judges your team is bringing.

Implications

Because of the tight deadlines, teams are encouraged to plan their trips as early in advance as possible, given that they usually work closely with their school’s administration. This also means that:

  • If you have registered and paid for two nights at a hotel but later realize, are informed, or otherwise change the plan to come on Saturday instead, the hotels will not be able to refund your team for the hotel costs you have paid.

  • If you have registered and paid for one night at a hotel, but after registration realize, are informed, or otherwise change the plan to require accommodation for two nights, BEST will not be able to find a hotel for you.

Note: The hotel cost is kept at the standard 35 BGN per person per night. BEST commits to booking hotels which cost no more than that price. In case your hotel stay costs more than that amount, BEST will cover the difference, which means that you will not end up paying more than 40 BGN per person per night. 

Penalty Fees

In case of non-compliance with BEST registration rules or deadlines, teams will be liable for penalty fees. Those fees are paid at the tournament.

No-Judge Penalty Fees

In the event a team is unable to bring the required amount of judges to a tournament (1 judge for every ten students i.e. 1 judge is required for 9 students and 3 judges are required for 22 students), the team will be required to pay a fee of 40 leva per judge. For every half a judge (volunteers signed up for only half the weekend) a team is missing, a 25 leva penalty fee will be assigned.

Registering students after the deadline

Email the management team at info@bestfoundation.bg as early as possible!

  1. Adding a student after the registration deadline up to 3 days before the tournament: 5 BGN add fee + 30 BGN registration fee = 35 BGN late add fee. BEST will add the student to the tournament, but does not commit to securing accommodation for the student.

  2. Replacing a student with a student of the same sex: NO FEE. A name change is easy for us to accomplish, since no hotel allocations need to be modified.

  3. Replacing a student with a student of the opposite sex: both point (1) in Drop Fees below, and point (1) in Late Adds above hold.

  4. No adds or replacements allowed after 3 days before the tournament.

Dropping students after the registration deadline

Email the management team at info@bestfoundation.bg as early as possible!

Dropping a student from the hotel schematic after the deadline does not guarantee that they won’t still be liable for their hotel costs. In some cases where you’re still liable for the hotel costs, BEST can consider waiving the drop fee on a case-by-case basis.

  1. For students who drop entirely from the tournament:

    1. Up to 3 days before the tournament: 10 BGN per student.

    2. After this point and throughout the entire tournament: 15 BGN per student.

    3. Any student who is registered but does not attend the tournament will be considered under point (2) above.

    4. For students who drop due to illness or other emergency: The drop penalty fee will be waived as long as their coach provides a note from the doctor (or other appropriate source) AND from the school director to BEST.

BEST Foundation Bank Account

Account name: Фондация БЕСТ - български турнири по английска реч и дебати

IBAN: BG33UNCR70001521640901.