Deposits, notice and the hour that was held for you

Why a quiet hour is paid for in two halves

An hour that has been agreed is an hour that has come off the evening. Once a therapist has said she will be at a door at nine, that part of her evening is settled, and so in practice is the stretch on either side of it, now too short and too awkwardly placed to offer to anyone else. Paying half in advance is what makes the promise run in both directions. It is not money parked somewhere and handed back at the end. It is the first half of the fee itself, worked out from the figure printed in the profile of the therapist you asked for, written into the thread as a plain number once the hour is fixed, and settled before she leaves.

The bookings that ask for half in advance

Every profile on the roster carries her own figures for one guest and for two, with one therapist or with two, and half of whichever line applies is what goes ahead. Seven kinds of booking ask for it.

• Anything arranged more than twenty-four hours before it starts, which covers nearly every hour fixed before a trip begins.
• An eight hour night, whatever time it opens.
• Two therapists in the room, at any length.
• A room at Schiphol or at an airport hotel, set up on its own terms with the length of the journey talked through and agreed with you before an hour is held.
• A busy date, meaning King’s Day, Pride, the Amsterdam Dance Event, the run from Christmas into the new year, or a week with a large conference in the city, each of which is named plainly when you ask.
• Three hours or longer, on any day of the week.
• A guest’s first booking here, at any hour and at any length.

The halves, read as fractions

Whatever the length, the line on her page is cut in two: half travels ahead of her and half is kept for the door. Three hours, the point at which a deposit applies whatever else is true, divides exactly as ninety minutes does. So does an eight hour night, whose single block figure splits into a half before and a half on arrival. Two therapists in one hour double the line and with it the half that is asked for, and two guests with a therapist each, over two hours, send ahead four times what a single guest would for the same length.

The one booking that asks for nothing first

A guest who has booked here before, at an address inside the city, wanting an hour or two later the same day, settles everything when she arrives. Change one part of that description and half goes ahead again. Another date, a second therapist, a third hour, an airport hotel, a busy date in the calendar or a first booking each put the deposit back in place.

How the two halves are settled

Card is the ordinary route for the first half, with Revolut, Wise and cryptocurrency there for anyone who would rather not use one. Bank transfer and PayPal are not used at all. Cash cannot stand in for the first half, for the plain reason that the first half is settled before she leaves and cash only moves once she is in the room. The amount and the destination appear in the booking thread after the hour is agreed, and in no other place on this site. Every figure here is a euro figure. The second half is settled at the door as she comes in, and cash in another major currency is welcome there, with the exact sum in that currency put in writing before she sets out. The order the messages follow is laid out on the booking page.

What notice does to a cancellation

Calling a booking off never leaves you owing damages of any kind. What can be kept is the share of the fee already earned by the moment your message lands, and the only thing that sets that share is how much notice the message carries.

• More than twenty-four hours before the agreed time: nothing at all is kept and the first half comes back whole.
• Inside the last twenty-four hours, while she is still at home: half of that first half is kept as fee already earned and the remainder is returned.
• After she has set out: the first half is kept in full as fee already earned.

Two things soften even the last of those. Where the released hour is taken by another guest, the whole of the first half is returned, because in the end nothing was lost. And where you can show that the real loss was smaller than the share kept, only that smaller figure stays.

Take two hours, confirmed on half their fee. A message the previous afternoon brings that half back untouched. A message at seven in the evening about a nine o’clock hour, with her still at home, keeps half of what went ahead and sends the remainder back. A message at twenty past eight, when she is already crossing the city, keeps every bit of it, unless the hour is taken by somebody else.

A same-day hour with nothing behind it

The returning guest’s same-day hour or two at a city address carries no first half, so the scale above has nothing to act on. Called off while she is still at home, that booking leaves nothing owed. Called off once she has set out, it costs the part of the fee her journey stands for, and nothing past that is asked for.

Moving the evening instead

A first move of the date costs nothing. Two conditions sit on it: the request has to reach the thread more than twenty-four hours before the agreed time, and the new date has to fall inside the following fourteen days. Where both hold, the first half travels across untouched. A second move, or a move asked for inside the final day, is read on the notice scale exactly as a cancellation sent at that moment would be, and whatever the scale leaves behind goes on to the new date.

Things outside either side’s control

A booking can be stopped by something neither side chose: transport shut down across the city, a serious disruption in the centre, an official instruction that makes the trip impossible. Nothing is forfeited then and nothing is argued over. The first half turns into credit, held against a date you are under no pressure to name quickly. A cold, a change of heart, a meeting that ran long, an airline moving a flight and a decision at eleven at night that sleep sounds better all sit on your side of that line, and each of them is read as a move or a cancellation on the scale set out above.

When the session cannot go ahead from this side

Where the booking cannot be performed as arranged, the choice belongs to you rather than to anyone here. Ask for the first half back in full, or leave it standing as credit for as long as you need before settling on a new date. Where the therapist you asked for cannot come, you are told as soon as that is known, and you either pick another name from the roster yourself or take the money back. No name is put forward in her place; the reply says only who is free that evening, and the choosing stays with you.

Booking at a distance, and the fourteen days

A booking settled in writing, with the two sides never having met beforehand, is a service agreed at a distance. Dutch law puts agreements of that kind in Book 6 of the Civil Code, at articles 6:230m to 6:230z, which carry the European consumer rules into national law. A consumer ordinarily has fourteen days in which to withdraw from such an agreement. Article 6:230p lists the agreements that right does not reach, and among them is a service connected with leisure where the agreement names a particular date or period for performance. Every booking made here names an hour on a named day, which is precisely the case that article describes, so the fourteen day right does not arise at all. Nothing on this page asks you to sign a right away, because there is no right of that kind here to sign away.

There is a second footing beneath a same-day session too. Before she leaves, you are asked to write in the thread that you want the session carried out at once and that you understand the fourteen day right will not apply to it once it has been. Everything else settled between the two sides sits in the terms.

An hour ended early

If you decide partway through that you have had enough of the evening and stop a session before the booked time is up, the whole fee stands and nothing comes back. The time was held for you, the journey out was made, and what is left of the hour cannot be handed to anyone else at that point in the evening.

Your therapist decides what a session includes, and she says where her limits are before it begins; those limits hold for the whole visit. Where her safety or her comfort is not respected, or a limit she has named is pushed at, the visit ends at that moment. The fee for the reserved time remains due and nothing whatever is added on top of it.

False bookings and the short note

A booking counts as a false booking where any one of these is true.

• It was made under a name that is not the guest’s own.
• It came from a number or a profile belonging to someone else.
• Somebody sent it as a hoax.
• A no-show followed any one of the three above.

Missing an appointment, on its own, answers none of those descriptions. A guest who booked honestly and then did not open the door has made an ordinary cancellation, read on the notice scale like any other.

Where a booking does answer one of them, or a visit is ended because a named limit was pressed at, a short internal note is written. Written into it are the date, the events, and the name and number behind the booking, and it stays on file for twelve months. Nobody outside sees it, and it settles one question only: whether a further booking under that name is taken. The route for objecting to a note, or having it corrected or removed, is described on the privacy page. Where the facts look like a criminal offence, the matter may be reported to the police.

A guest who books under his own name and is in the room when she knocks has nothing in this section to think about. The practical questions about entry, timing and what to have ready are answered in the FAQ, and the words used on this page are defined one by one in the glossary.