IMESA decision #27

We will refund travel costs, and possibly accommodation costs, for players who participate in the World Championship 2025.

Preliminary definitions for this decision

A junior is a player who is either under 20, or less than 26 and enrolled in tertiary education.
A top player is defined as being in the top10 on minesweepergame.com or minesweeper.online (trophy ranking) as of 2025-03-03, or top5 in one of our (to be announced) qualifier tournaments.
Proximate Europe is defined as: Every country in the EU and/or the Schengen area (no overseas territories), as well as the UK.
An accomplished player is defined as having a highscore sum of less than 100 seconds on either minesweepergame.com or minesweeper.online, or at least 1000 trophies on minesweeper.online.

General rules

Players can only be refunded for costs they can prove they incurred.
Players claiming refunds for travel costs or accommodation costs must provide:
- Proof of purchase (receipt or similar)
- Proof that they personally made use of that purchase.
Players making any claims must be personally present at the event, and register and meaningfully take part in one of the three main events.
There is no guarantee for any amount of refunds. Refunds may be provided only in part and/or in multiple parts until the end of the calendar year.
- Our current plan is to add all our remaining available funds to the refund pool once the event is over and everything else is paid for, pay out these projections, and then do the same at the end of the year.

Eligibility

Only accomplished players are eligible for refunds.
Players are only eligible for the following maximum amounts for refunds:
- For travel: 0.1€ per kilometer traveled to the event based on the player's point of residence, but no less than 50€ or more than 900€
- For accommodations: 50€ per night.

Applicability

Travel tickets must be applicable to travel between the player's point of residence and the venue.
- They can be for segments, but these segments must be plausible as part of a travel plan from the player's point of residence to the venue.
Travel tickets must be for travel arriving no sooner than 2025-09-12 and departing no later than 2025-10-13, in the respective directions.
Travel tickets must not be for luxury travel:
- Train/bus tickets must be second class
- Plane tickets must be economy class, or equivalent (no premium economy or flexible fares)
  - Standard economy is allowed, even if an "economy light" or similar option that doesn't come with services like a checked bag exists
- For low-cost carriers, surcharges for services that are standard with full-fare carriers will be refunded, for example:
  - A checked bag
  - A carry-on bag and personal item.
Interrail tickets, and other tickets that allow for unlimited travel in a given time period, are capped at half their price as shown on the receipt.
Fuel costs for road travel require proof that the vehicle in use is registered or otherwise usually used in the player's country of origin. They do not require a receipt, but ignore the 50€ minimum eligibility amount.
The board may waive some of these requirements at its discretion under extraordinary circumstances, but must document this decision in writing.
Should the board waive any of these requirements, it must still do its due diligence to ensure that funds are not misappropriated, and it may ask for additional proof not listed above.
Only accommodations for the following three nights may be refunded:
- 2025-09-26 to 2025-09-27
- 2025-09-27 to 2025-09-28
- 2025-09-28 to 2025-09-29
For players traveling from outside of proximate Europe, the following nights are also eligible:
- 2025-09-25 to 2025-09-26
- 2025-09-29 to 2025-09-30
Players must attest that they paid for their travel tickets/accommodations themselves (or to which extent), and that they received no refunds elsewhere (or to which extent). Only the amount actually covered by the player is eligible for refund.

Collection of data

For legal and tax purposes, we will keep all data submitted by players to claim refunds for at least ten years, even if deletion is requested.

Verification

The board will verify claims. Where claims cannot be verified, players may not receive refunds they would have only been eligible for had these claims been correct, even if they were previously given a projection based on those claims.

Mechanism

Due to limited funding, we will likely be unable to refund all or most of player's expenses. So, this section outlines how the funds available will be allocated.

There will be a pool used for refunds. We will decide later how exactly this pool will be grown, but our plans are to use the vast majority of our remaining income this year on it.

There will be a recipient pool consisting of players who have registered for the event.

Projections for how much each player in the recipient pool may receive will be calculated.

In general, the amount a player is projected to receive may only go up. The only exceptions to this rule are:

Unexpected lack of funding on IMESA's behalf, for example due to cancelled/refunded bank transfers from donors
The initial registration period, when no projections will be published, ie, before the initial refund projection deadline.
Submission of incorrect data by the player in question, as stated above.

For late registrations/entrants to the recipient pool, if the refund pool is increased, the new funds are allocated so as to satisfy the following condition:

The entire pool is reallocated as though the new recipients had been there from the beginning, until the precise moment when this contradicts the rule that projected refunds may not decrease.
This occurs for all new funds until the contradiction disappears.

Should a player change their registration data in a way that decreases what they are eligible for, projected refunds are recalculated as if they had submitted the new data from the start.

Should a player change their registration data in a way that increases what they are eligible for, their projection stays the same, and they are treated like a late entrant to the recipient pool.

Projections are calculated as follows. In order:

Every junior player receives a projected refund for up to 30€ of their eligible travel costs. If funds are insufficient, everyone eligible is projected to receive an equal proportion of the pool.
Every junior player receives a projected refund for up to 10% of their eligible travel costs. If funds are insufficient, we calculate the maximum percentage possible and use that value.
Every player (including juniors) receives a projected refund for up to 30€ of their eligible travel costs. If funds are insufficient, everyone eligible is projected to receive an equal proportion of the pool.
Every player (including juniors) receives a projected refund for up to 30% of their eligible travel costs. If funds are insufficient, we calculate the maximum percentage possible and use that value.
Projection calculation is halted here until event registration closes, in order to increase the chance for late entrants to receive funds.
Every junior top player coming from outside of proximate Europe (as defined above) receives a projected refund for up to 200€ of their eligible travel costs. If funds are insufficient, everyone eligible is projected to receive an equal proportion of the pool.
Every top player (including juniors) coming from outside of proximate Europe (as defined above) receives a projected refund for up to 100€ of their eligible travel costs. If funds are insufficient, everyone eligible is projected to receive an equal proportion of the pool.
Every junior player receives a projected refund for up to 50€ of their eligible accommodation costs. If funds are insufficient, everyone eligible is projected to receive an equal proportion of the pool.
Every player (including juniors) receives a projected refund for up to 50€ of their eligible accommodation costs. If funds are insufficient, everyone eligible is projected to receive an equal proportion of the pool.
Every player (including juniors) receives a projected refund for the remainder of their eligible travel costs. If funds are insufficient, everyone eligible is projected to receive an equal proportion of the remainder of their travel costs.
Every player (including juniors) receives a projected refund for the remainder of their eligible accommodation costs. If funds are insufficient, everyone eligible is projected to receive an equal proportion of the pool.
Additional stages may be added in a future decision, should the funds become available and the board deem it sensible.

Publication of projections

Calculation and publication of projections is subject to availability, and can only be done if technically implemented. We aim to do this, but make no promises.

Individual Projections will only be published to players, but we may reveal the state of the process publicly in ways that don't reveal or imply personal data of users for fundraising purposes, and to inform people in lieu of a finished implementation as described above.

Payouts

By default, payouts are made in EUR per SEPA transfer to a bank account of the player's choosing.

Payouts in other currencies are possible, but any resulting banking fees must be paid for by the recipient.

We will use our Wise Business account to facilitate these transfers. Only transfers supported by this platform are possible (but we picked it precisely because currency conversion and international transfers are fairly cheap). In doing so, where possible, we will use our existing balance in alternative currencies to reduce fees, but there is no guarantee for that, and we'll do this on a first come, first serve basis.

Changes to this decision

We might make changes to this decision, but only in a way that relaxes restrictions/prerequisites, unless not doing so would put us in financial or legal jeopardy. In this case, we will provide a detailed explanation why.

In general, while we've given ourselves a bit of room for honest mistakes with our disclaimers regarding no guarantees, on our honor as members of this community, we will do our very best to meet any projections we give you.

Tags: Decision WCH 2025