Deposits, cancellations and the evening you gave up

Why a booking made from home is paid in halves

A confirmed hour takes a piece of an evening out of circulation. Once a therapist has agreed to be at a door at nine, that part of her evening is committed whether or not the door opens, and the hour on either side of it is too broken up to offer to anybody else. Half of the fee is what makes that commitment run in both directions. It is not a security held aside and returned later; it is the first half of the money itself, worked out from the figure printed in the profile of the woman the two of you chose, named in writing in the thread once the hour is agreed, and dealt with before she travels.

Half ahead: the seven bookings, in euro

Every profile on the roster carries the whole set of figures, for one guest and for a couple, with one therapist or with two, and half of whichever figure applies is what goes ahead. It is asked for on these seven kinds of booking:

• anything arranged more than twenty-four hours before its start, which is where a sailing date puts almost every booking on this site;
• the eight hour block, at any start time;
• two therapists at once, whatever the length;
• a room at Schiphol or at an airport hotel, which is arranged one booking at a time with the journey agreed with you before the hour is fixed;
• a peak date, by which is meant King's Day, Pride, the Amsterdam Dance Event, the run from Christmas into the new year, or a large conference week, each of which the house names when asked;
• a session of three hours or longer, on any date;
• a client's first booking here, whatever the hour and however soon it begins.

The halves stop being abstract as soon as they are written out. Ninety minutes for two with one therapist is EUR 540, so EUR 270 is agreed ahead and EUR 270 waits. Two hours on the same footing is EUR 720, half of it EUR 360. Two hours with a therapist each is EUR 1,440, which confirms with EUR 720. Three hours for a couple is EUR 1,080, so EUR 540 goes ahead. The eight hour block for two with one therapist is EUR 2,500 and confirms with EUR 1,250; with a therapist each it is EUR 5,760 and confirms with EUR 2,880. A couple booking a pre-cruise evening from home meets the first item on that list before they reach any of the others.

Exactly one kind of booking asks for nothing beforehand. A client the house has looked after before, at an address inside the city, asking for one or two hours later the same day, settles the whole figure when she arrives. Shift that request to another date, add a second therapist, run it past three hours, put it in an airport hotel, drop it on a peak date or make it a first booking, and half goes in front of it again.

How the two halves are handled

Card is the ordinary route for the first half, with Revolut, Wise or cryptocurrency available to anyone who would rather use them. Neither bank transfer nor PayPal plays any part in this. Cash cannot serve as the first half for a plain reason: it is settled before she leaves, and cash only appears once she is in the room. The exact sum and where to send it are written in the thread after the hour is agreed, and they appear nowhere else at all. Every figure on this site is a figure in euro. The second half is settled in cash on arrival, and a couple holding another major currency after a fortnight ashore is welcome to settle in it, with the exact amount confirmed in writing before she sets out. The booking page lays out the sequence those messages follow.

What calling a booking off actually costs

Cancelling never leaves either of you liable to the house for damages. What may be kept is the share of the fee already earned at the moment your message lands, and the only thing that sets that share is the notice you give:

• More than twenty-four hours before the booked time: nothing is kept and the whole of the first half comes back.
• Inside the final twenty-four hours, while she has not yet left: half of it is kept as fee already earned and half is repaid.
• Once she is on her way: all of it is kept as fee already earned.

Two things cut into even the last of those. Where the hour you released is taken by somebody else, everything is repaid, because the time was not lost in the end. And where you can show the loss to the house was smaller than the share it kept, only that smaller figure stays.

Put a real evening through it. Ninety minutes for two on the night before a sailing, EUR 540, confirmed with EUR 270. Called off at lunchtime the day before, the full EUR 270 returns. Called off at seven in the evening for a nine o'clock start, EUR 135 is kept and EUR 135 is repaid. Called off at ten past nine with her already crossing the city, the EUR 270 stays, unless the hour is taken by another client.

A same-day hour with nothing in front of it

The returning client's same-day hour or two at a city address carries no first half, so the scale has nothing to act on. Called off before she has left her own door, it costs nothing whatever. Called off once she is already on her way across town, it costs the share of the fee her journey stands for, and the house asks for nothing past that.

Moving a booking rather than losing it

One change of date costs nothing. Two conditions attach to it: the message has to land more than twenty-four hours ahead of the booked time, and the replacement date has to sit within fourteen days. With both of those met, the first half travels across untouched. A second move, or a move asked for inside the final day, is measured on the notice scale exactly as a cancellation sent at that moment would be, and whatever the scale does not keep goes forward to the new date. Couples who arrange both ends of a cruise trip at once should keep that free move in reserve for the end they are less sure of.

Force majeure, and what it turns into

Something genuinely outside the control of either side can stop a booking: a transport shutdown, serious disruption across the city, an official instruction that makes the journey impossible. In that situation nothing is lost and there is no argument to have. The first half becomes credit, held against a date the two of you do not have to name straight away. A cold, a change of heart, a flight moved by an airline, an itinerary altered by the line, a transfer that ran late and a decision at midnight that sleep matters more all sit on your side of that line, and each of them is a move or a cancellation read on the scale above.

When the house cannot deliver

Where the house is unable to perform the session you booked, the choice belongs to the two of you rather than to the house. Ask for the first half back in full, or leave it as credit against a new date for as long as you need to settle on one. If the woman you chose cannot come, the house says so as soon as it knows, and you either name somebody else from the roster or take the money back.

Distance bookings and the fourteen-day rule

A booking arranged in writing, with the two sides never having met first, is a service agreed at a distance. Agreements of that kind sit in Book 6 of the Dutch Civil Code, at articles 6:230m to 6:230z, which carry the European consumer rules into Dutch law. They give a consumer fourteen days, as a general matter, in which to step back from an agreement made at a distance. Article 6:230p lists the agreements that right does not reach, and among them are services connected with leisure activities where the agreement names a specific date or period for performance. Every booking made here names an hour on a named day, which is exactly the case that article describes, so the fourteen-day right does not arise at all. Nothing in these terms asks either of you to give up a right, because there is no right of that kind here to give up.

There is a further footing beneath a session booked for the same day. Ahead of her journey, the house asks for a line in the thread confirming that you want the session carried out at once and that you accept the fourteen-day right falling away once it has been. The rest of what the two sides agree to sits in the terms.

Ended early, by you or by her

If the two of you decide an hour into a booking that you have had enough of the evening, the full fee stays payable and nothing is returned. The time was held for you, she made the journey, and what remains of it cannot be given to anybody else at that point in the evening. Where you know before she leaves that ninety minutes suits you better than three hours, say so in the thread and the booking simply becomes ninety minutes.

What a session includes is decided by your therapist, who names her limits at the start of it, and those limits stand for as long as she is in the room. Where a limit of hers is pressed at, or her safety or comfort is not respected, the visit ends at that moment. What was reserved remains payable, and past that figure nothing at all is added.

False bookings, and what the house writes down

A booking is a false booking where any one 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 belonging to somebody 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 those. A couple who booked honestly and then slept through the knock have made an ordinary cancellation with no notice, handled on the scale like any other.

Where a booking does meet one of the criteria, or a visit ends because a limit was pressed at, a short internal note is written. It holds the date, what happened, and the name and number the booking came from, and it is kept for twelve months. Nobody outside the house sees it, and it decides one thing only: whether a further booking from that name is taken. What to do if you want such a note corrected, deleted or objected to is set out on the privacy page. Where what happened looks like a criminal offence, a report to the police may follow.

A couple who write under their own names, and who are both there when she knocks, can pass over this section entirely. Entry, timing and what to have ready are dealt with in the FAQ.