Deposits, cancellations and the airport room held for you

Why half is paid before she sets out

Once a room near the runways has been agreed for eight o'clock, a therapist has given that evening to one guest, and the journey out to the airport has been planned around it. The hours on either side are gone too, because nobody else can be fitted into them at that distance. The deposit is how the guest's side of that commitment is made real. It is not a sum held in reserve and returned afterwards; it is the first half of the fee, worked out on the figure printed in the profile of the therapist you asked for, written out in the booking thread once the time and the journey are agreed, and settled before she leaves.

The seven bookings that carry half in advance

The profiles on the roster show every figure for one guest or a couple, with one therapist or two, and half of the figure that applies goes ahead on each of these:

• any booking made more than twenty-four hours before it begins, which takes in almost everything arranged before a flight;
• an overnight of eight hours, whatever time it starts;
• two therapists at the same time, at any length;
• a room at Schiphol or at any airport hotel, which is always arranged separately, with the journey time agreed with you before anything is fixed;
• a peak date: King's Day, Pride, the Amsterdam Dance Event, the days from Christmas to New Year, or a large conference week, any of which the house will name if asked;
• a session of three hours or longer, on any day;
• the first booking a client ever makes with the house, whatever the hour or the length.

Put into euro, the halves are easy to picture. Ninety minutes in an airport room at EUR 270 is EUR 135 in advance and EUR 135 at the door. An overnight at EUR 1,250 is EUR 625 on each side. Two therapists for two hours come to EUR 720, so EUR 360 goes ahead. A couple with a therapist each for an hour is EUR 720, half of it EUR 360. Three hours with one therapist at EUR 540 confirms with EUR 270.

A single kind of booking carries nothing in advance: a client the house already knows, at an address in the city, asking for one or two hours later on the same day. That guest pays the full fee when she arrives. Shift the request to another day, move it to an airport hotel, add a second therapist, stretch it past two hours, land it on a peak date or make it a first booking, and half goes ahead once more. For a guest staying by the airport the question never arises, because the airport rule applies first.

Paying the deposit and the balance

The deposit is paid by card as a rule, and by Revolut, Wise or cryptocurrency for anyone who prefers one of those. PayPal and bank transfers are not taken. Cash cannot act as a deposit, for the simple reason that a deposit is settled before she sets out and cash can only change hands once she is in the room. The exact amount, and where it goes, are given in the booking thread after the time is agreed and are published nowhere else. Every amount quoted here is in euro. The balance is paid at the door when she arrives, and it may be paid in cash in another major currency, provided the exact sum in that currency has been confirmed to you in writing before she leaves. How the messages run, one after another near the airport, is shown on the booking page.

The cost of cancelling

A cancellation never makes a guest answerable to the house in damages. What may be kept is the part of the fee already earned by the time your message arrives, and that part is set by the notice you give and by nothing else:

• More than twenty-four hours ahead of the booked time: nothing is kept, and the full deposit comes back.
• Within the last twenty-four hours, before she has set out: half of the deposit is kept as fee already earned, and the other half is repaid.
• Once she is on the road: all of the deposit is kept as fee already earned.

Two things can lower even the last of those figures. If another client takes the time you released, the deposit is repaid in full, since the evening was not lost. And if you can show that the house lost less than the share it kept, it keeps only that lower amount.

Consider two hours in a room in Schiphol-Oost at EUR 360, booked for nine in the evening and confirmed with EUR 180. Cancelled two days before, the whole EUR 180 returns. Cancelled at two that afternoon, before she has left, EUR 90 is kept and EUR 90 repaid. Cancelled at a quarter to nine while she is already on the motorway, the EUR 180 is kept, unless someone else takes the evening.

When nothing was paid ahead

This never reaches an airport room, because only a returning client's same-day hour or two at a city address comes without a deposit. Should that booking be cancelled before she has set out, nothing is due from you. Should it be cancelled once she is on the road, the house asks for the share of the fee her journey represents, and adds nothing to it.

Moving the booking to another day

One change of date costs nothing. It has to be asked for in the thread more than twenty-four hours before the booked time, and the new date has to fall within fourteen days. When both conditions are met, the deposit moves across in full. A second move, or a move asked for inside the last day, is read on the notice scale exactly as a cancellation sent at that moment would be, and whatever the scale does not keep is carried on to the new date.

Force majeure, and what it turns into

Sometimes an event outside both sides' control stops a booking: a shutdown of transport, a serious disruption, an official instruction that makes the journey out to the airport impossible. In that case nothing is forfeited and nothing is disputed. The deposit becomes credit, held for a date you do not have to pick straight away. A cold, a change of heart, a meeting that ran late, a flight delayed, cancelled or rebooked by the airline, or a decision late in the evening that you would rather rest are all on your side of that line, and each is read on the scale above as a move or a cancellation.

If the house cannot keep the booking

Where the house is unable to provide the session you booked, the choice is yours and not the house's. You can take the whole deposit back, or keep it as credit towards a new date for as long as you need to choose one. If the therapist you asked for becomes unavailable, the house tells you the moment it knows, and you either pick someone else from the roster or take the deposit back.

Bookings made at a distance, and the fourteen-day right

A booking agreed in writing, without the two sides meeting beforehand, is a service contracted at a distance. The rules for such contracts are in Book 6 of the Dutch Civil Code, articles 6:230m to 6:230z, which carry the European consumer rules into Dutch law. Those rules ordinarily give a consumer fourteen days to withdraw from a distance contract. Article 6:230p lists the contracts to which that right does not extend, and among them are services related to leisure activities where the contract fixes a specific date or period of performance. Every booking with the house fixes an hour on a named day, which is the situation that article describes. The fourteen-day right therefore does not arise here. Nothing in these terms asks you to give up a right, because no right of that kind exists to give up.

For a session on the day of booking there is a further safeguard. Before she sets out, the house asks you to confirm in the thread that you want the session performed straight away, and that you understand the fourteen-day right will not apply once it has been performed. Everything else agreed between the two sides is in the terms.

Closed early, by you or by her

If you decide partway through that you have had enough and bring a session to a close before the booked time is over, the full fee stays payable and nothing is refunded. The time was held for you, she made the journey out to the airport to reach you, and what remains of it cannot be offered to anyone else by then.

Your therapist decides what a session includes and says where her limits are before it begins, and those limits apply for the whole visit. If her safety or her comfort is disregarded, or a limit of hers is pressed, the visit closes at that moment. The fee for the reserved time remains due, and nothing at all is added to it.

False bookings, and the note the house keeps

A booking counts as a false booking if any one of these is true:

• it was made under a name that is not the client's own;
• it came from a phone number or a profile that belongs to someone else;
• it was made as a joke;
• a no-show followed one of the three above.

A missed appointment by itself meets none of those. A client who booked honestly and then did not come to the door has made an ordinary cancellation, and it is read on the notice scale like any other.

Where a booking meets one of the criteria, or a visit is closed because a limit was pressed, the house writes a short internal note. It records the date, what happened, and the name and number the booking came from, and it is kept for twelve months. It is not shown to anyone outside the house, and it answers one question only: whether a further booking from that name is accepted. How to object to a note, or ask for it to be corrected or deleted, is set out on the privacy page. Should the facts indicate a criminal offence, the house may pass the matter to the police.

A guest who books in his own name and is in the room when she knocks has nothing in this section to consider. The practical questions about lifts, entrances and what to have ready are answered in the FAQ.