Deposits, cancellations and a first booking from abroad

A first trip, and why the fee is split in two

Newcomers to Amsterdam tend to arrange things from a distance: from a kitchen table at home a week before the flight, from a seat on the plane, from a queue at passport control. Every one of those messages asks a therapist to keep an hour free for a stranger she has not yet met, and the hours around it go with it. Splitting the fee is how that promise becomes a fair one on both sides. The first half is not a guarantee parked somewhere and handed back after the visit; it is simply the opening part of the price, worked out from the figures in the profile of the therapist you picked, stated in writing in the booking thread once the hour is settled, and paid before she leaves for your address.

The seven bookings that carry a deposit, in euro

Each profile on the roster sets out the rates for one guest and for a couple, with one therapist or with two, and the deposit is always half of the figure that fits your booking. It applies to these seven kinds of booking:

• any booking arranged more than twenty-four hours before it begins, which takes in almost everything planned before a trip starts;
• an overnight, which runs eight hours from whatever start time you choose;
• two therapists together, however long the session;
• a room at Schiphol or in the airport hotel cluster, arranged on its own terms, with the journey time agreed with you before anything is fixed;
• a peak date, which means King's Day, Pride, the Amsterdam Dance Event, the days from Christmas to New Year, or the week of a large conference, and the house tells you which dates count if you ask;
• a session lasting three hours or longer, on any day of the year;
• a client's first booking with the house, whatever its length and whatever the hour.

Put numbers on it and the rule becomes easy to hold. An overnight with one therapist costs EUR 1,250, which is EUR 625 ahead and EUR 625 on arrival. With two therapists the same night is EUR 2,880, and EUR 1,440 of it is paid first. Ninety minutes on the evening you land, at EUR 270, is confirmed with EUR 135 because it is your first booking. A couple taking two hours with a therapist each pays EUR 1,440 in all and EUR 720 ahead. Three hours on the third night of a city break, at EUR 540, needs EUR 270 in advance.

There is exactly one booking with no deposit at all. When a client the house already knows asks, on the day itself, for one or two hours at an address inside the city, the full fee is paid on arrival. Change any single part of that picture, whether it is the date, the length past three hours, a second therapist, an airport hotel, a peak date or a first booking, and the deposit applies again.

Paying the deposit and the balance

A card is the first choice for the deposit, and Revolut, Wise or cryptocurrency are there for anyone who prefers one of those. Neither bank transfer nor PayPal is taken. Cash will not do as a deposit, simply because the deposit is settled before she leaves and cash is only ever handed over in the room. The exact figure and where it goes are given in the booking thread after the hour is agreed, and in no other place. Every price on this site is quoted in euro. The balance is paid at the door when she arrives, and a visitor still holding another major currency can pay that balance in cash, with the precise amount in that currency confirmed in writing before she sets out. The booking page shows the order in which the messages come.

Cancelling, and what it can cost

A cancellation never gives rise to a claim for damages against you. The only part that may be kept is the share of the fee already earned by the time your message arrives, and how much notice you give is the one thing that decides it:

• With more than twenty-four hours still to go before the booked time: the house keeps nothing and the full deposit comes back to you.
• 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 returned.
• After she has set out: the full deposit is kept as fee already earned.

Even that last line can shrink. If another client books the hour you gave up, the deposit is returned in full, since the time was never lost. If you can show that the house lost less than the share it kept, only that smaller figure is kept.

Picture two hours at EUR 360 booked for nine in the evening, with EUR 180 paid ahead. Cancel two days before and all EUR 180 returns. Cancel that morning, before she has left, and EUR 90 is kept while EUR 90 comes back. Cancel at half past eight while she is already on her way, and the EUR 180 stays with the house unless somebody else takes the hour.

Cancelling a booking made without a deposit

The one booking paid entirely at the door, a returning client's same-day hour or two at a city address, has no deposit for the scale to divide. If you call it off before she has set out, there is no sum to pay. If you call it off after she has set out, the house asks you only for the part of the fee that her journey to your address represents.

Moving to a different day

You can change the date once without cost. The request must arrive in the thread more than twenty-four hours ahead of the booked time, and the new date must be no more than fourteen days away. When both conditions are met, the whole deposit moves with the booking. A second change, or a change asked for inside the last day, is read on the notice scale in the same way as a cancellation written at that moment, and whatever the scale does not keep carries over to the new date.

Force majeure, turned into credit

Now and then something neither side controls stops a booking: a shutdown of the transport network, a serious disruption in the city, an official order that makes the journey impossible. When that happens nothing is forfeited and there is nothing to dispute. The deposit turns into credit, kept for a date you are free to choose later. A late or cancelled flight, a delayed train from the airport, a cold caught on the way over, a change of plan and a wish to sleep instead all fall on your side of that line, and each is handled as a move or a cancellation on the scale above.

If the house cannot keep the booking

Should the house be unable to perform the session you booked, you are the one who decides what happens next. You can take the deposit back in full, or keep it as credit towards another date for as long as it takes you to pick one. If the therapist you chose is unable to come, the house lets you know as soon as it learns of it, and you either book someone else from the roster or have the deposit returned.

Booking at a distance, and the fourteen-day rule

A booking made by message, without the two sides meeting beforehand, is a service agreed at a distance. Such agreements are governed by Book 6 of the Dutch Civil Code, articles 6:230m to 6:230z, the part of Dutch law that carries the European consumer rules. Those articles normally give a consumer fourteen days to withdraw from a distance agreement. Article 6:230p names the agreements the right does not cover, and one group is services connected with leisure activities where the agreement fixes a specific date or period for performance. A booking here always fixes an hour on a named day, which is exactly what that article has in mind, so the fourteen-day right never comes into being. These terms ask you to waive nothing, because no such right exists to be waived.

A booking for the same day also rests on a second footing. Before she sets out, you are asked to write in the thread that you want the session to go ahead at once, and that you accept the fourteen-day right will not apply to it once it has taken place. The rest of the agreement between the two sides is set out in the terms.

A session that ends early

If the flight catches up with you and you decide to stop before the booked time has run, the full fee is still payable and nothing is refunded. The time was held for you alone, she travelled to reach you, and the part that is left cannot be offered to anyone else at that stage.

Your therapist decides what a session includes, and she tells you her limits before it begins; they hold until she leaves. If her safety or her comfort is disregarded, or a limit she has named is pressed, the visit ends there. The fee for the reserved time is still owed, and nothing beyond it is charged.

False bookings, and the record kept of them

A booking counts as false when at least one of these applies:

• it was made under a name other than the client's own;
• it came from a phone number or an account that belongs to another person;
• it was made as a prank;
• a no-show followed any one of the three points above.

Failing to turn up, on its own, is none of these. A guest who booked honestly and then missed the knock has cancelled in the ordinary way, and the notice scale applies to it like any other cancellation.

When a booking fits one of those points, or a visit ends because a limit was pressed, the house makes a brief internal note. It holds the date, a short account of what happened, and the name and number the booking was made from, and it is kept for twelve months. No one outside the house reads it, and it answers one question only: whether a later booking from that name is accepted. How to object to a note, or to ask for it to be corrected or deleted, is set out on the privacy page. If the facts suggest a criminal offence, the house may pass the matter to the police.

A visitor who books under their own name and is in the room at the agreed hour will never need anything in this section. Practical questions about getting in, timing and what to have ready are answered in the FAQ.