Deposits, cancellations and the flight that moved

A flight that moves, and what it does to the deposit

One story reaches this site more often than any other. A connection is pushed to the next morning, or brought forward by a day, and an overnight booked at an airport hotel now falls on the wrong night. A moved flight is a change on your side, not force majeure, yet it need not cost the whole deposit. What happens to the half paid ahead on an overnight depends only on how early the booking conversation hears about the new timetable, on the scale set out further down.

Half ahead: seven bookings, costed in shares

Where a deposit applies it is half the rate printed on the profile of the therapist you chose, and each profile on the therapists page lists the figures for one guest and for a couple, with one therapist or two. It is asked for on these seven kinds of booking, each of which ties up an hour well before that hour arrives:

• a booking sent more than twenty-four hours ahead of the session, which covers nearly every request written from a departure gate;
• an overnight of eight hours;
• two therapists at once, for any length of time;
• a room at Schiphol or at an airport hotel, which is by arrangement, with the journey time agreed with you before anything is fixed;
• a peak date such as King's Day, ADE, Pride, Christmas, New Year or a large conference week, which the house names when asked;
• three hours or more in one session, whatever the date;
• the very first booking a client makes with the house, of any length and at any hour.

Read the figures the way you would read a boarding pass. An overnight with one therapist is split down the middle, one half before and one half at the door. That same night with two therapists costs eight doubled hours and asks for half of them in advance. Two hours for one guest with two therapists come to four single hours, half of that sent ahead, while a couple with a therapist each for those two hours pays eight single hours and sends four first. A three-hour session reserved ten days out around a long layover sends half of its three hours ahead.

One booking carries no deposit. A client the house has looked after before, staying in a room inside the city and asking for an hour or two on the same day, pays the whole fee on arrival. Put that request in an airport hotel, move it to another day, stretch it to three hours or make it a first booking, and half is asked for in advance again.

How the deposit and the balance are paid

Card comes first among the ways to send a deposit. Revolut, Wise and cryptocurrency are accepted too, should you prefer them. Cash cannot be a deposit, since a deposit is settled before she leaves and cash can only be used in the room. You receive the exact amount, and the way to send it, in writing in the booking conversation before she sets out. Each price on this site is a euro price, and the euro figure is what the booking costs. The balance is settled at the door when she arrives. A balance paid in cash in another major currency is welcome, and the sum in that currency is put to you in writing before she sets out. The booking page shows the messages in the order they are sent.

Cancelling: the notice scale

A cancellation never leaves you owing the house damages. What the house may keep is the share of the fee it has already earned when your message arrives, and the notice you give fixes that share:

• Cancelled with more than twenty-four hours still to run before the booked time: nothing is kept and the full deposit goes back to you.
• Cancelled within the last twenty-four hours, before she has left: half of the deposit is kept as fee already earned, and the rest is returned.
• Cancelled once she is on her way: the entire deposit is kept as fee already earned.

Should the hour you gave up be booked by someone else, the deposit is repaid in full. Should you show that the house lost less than the part it kept, the house keeps only that smaller amount.

Take the overnight above. A rebooked connection reported two days early brings the whole deposit back. Reported over breakfast on the day, before she has left, it returns half of the deposit and leaves the other half as fee earned. Reported while she is already on the road out to the airport, it leaves the whole deposit with the house, unless another client takes the night.

One free move, then the scale

A booking may be moved to another date once without cost. That request has to reach the booking conversation more than twenty-four hours before the booked time, and the new date has to fall within fourteen days. Met on both counts, the move carries the whole deposit across. A second move, or a move requested inside the last twenty-four hours, is measured on the notice scale just as a cancellation sent at that moment would be, and whatever the scale does not keep travels on to the new date.

When the house cannot deliver

Should the house be unable to perform the session you booked, the decision about what follows is yours. You may ask for the deposit back in full. You may instead leave it with the house against a new date, for as long as you need to settle on one. If the therapist you chose cannot come, the house tells you the moment it learns of it, and you either pick someone else on the roster or take the deposit back.

A cancelled flight, a missed connection, a meeting that overran, a cold picked up on the plane or a switch of hotel all sit on your side of the line. Each one is a move or a cancellation and follows the scale above.

Bookings accepted without a deposit

A returning client's same-day hour or two in the city goes ahead with nothing paid in advance. Cancel it before she has left and there is nothing to settle. Cancel it after she has set out and the house asks only for the part of the fee that the journey she has actually begun represents.

Distance bookings and the fourteen-day right

A booking sent by phone from a departure lounge is a service agreed at a distance. The rules for such agreements are in Book 6 of the Dutch Civil Code, articles 6:230m to 6:230z, which carry the EU Consumer Rights Directive into Dutch law. Under those rules a consumer ordinarily has fourteen days in which to withdraw. Article 6:230p lists contracts to which that right does not apply, among them services related to leisure activities where the contract fixes a specific date or period. A booking with this house always names an hour on a particular day, which is the situation that exception addresses. For that reason the fourteen-day right does not arise for it.

A same-day session rests on a second footing as well. Before she sets out, the house asks you to write in the booking conversation that you want the session performed at once, and that you understand the fourteen-day right will not apply once it has been performed. Everything else in the agreement is in the terms.

Cut short by you, or ended by her

If a boarding call means you end the session before the booked time is up, the full fee remains payable. The time was reserved for you, she made the journey out, and the minutes left over cannot be given to anyone else at that hour.

Your therapist decides what a session includes and where her limits lie. If her safety or her comfort is not respected, or a limit she has set is pressed, she ends the visit then and there. Where she has reached your door by then, the fee for the reserved time stays due, because that hour was held and she made the journey out to it, and nothing is charged on top of that fee.

False bookings and the note the house keeps

A booking is a false booking if any of the following is true:

• it was placed under a name that does not belong to the client;
• it came from a phone number or a profile owned by someone else;
• it was sent as a joke;
• a no-show followed one of the three above.

A missed appointment on its own meets none of these criteria. When a client who booked honestly fails to turn up, that is an ordinary cancellation, handled on the notice scale.

If a booking fits one of those criteria, or a visit is ended because a limit was pressed, a short internal note is written by the house. It records the date, what happened, and the name and number the booking came from. The note is held for twelve months. It is never passed to anyone, and it serves one purpose only: deciding whether to accept another booking from the same person. How to object to the note, or ask for it to be corrected or removed, is explained on the privacy page. Should the facts point to a criminal offence, the house may report the matter to the police.

A traveller who books in his own name and is in the room when she knocks has nothing here to think about. Timing, showers and luggage have their answers in the FAQ.