Deposits, notice, and the evening you let go

Why a weekend evening is paid for in two parts

An evening that has been agreed is an evening taken out of circulation. Once a therapist has written a street, a floor and a time into a thread, that stretch of her week belongs to your trip, and so do the hours on either side of it, which are now too short to offer anyone else. Paying in two parts is what makes the promise run both ways. The first part is not a security lodged somewhere and handed back at the end; it is the front half of the fee itself, worked out from the figure printed in the profile you chose, written into the thread in euro once the evening is agreed, and settled before she leaves for you.

The seven bookings that ask for half up front

Every profile on the roster carries the whole set of figures, for one guest and for two, with one therapist or with two, and half of whichever line applies is what travels first. It is asked for in these seven cases:

• anything agreed more than twenty-four hours before it starts, which on a short break covers almost everything settled from home;
• the eight hour block, at whatever time of night it begins;
• two therapists together, at any length;
• a room at Schiphol or at an airport hotel, arranged on its own terms with the journey time agreed with you first;
• a peak date, by which the house means King's Day, Pride, the Amsterdam Dance Event, the run from Christmas into the new year, or a week when a large conference is in town, each of them named to you if you ask;
• three hours or longer, on any evening of the week;
• the first booking a client makes here, whatever its length and whatever the day.

The halves in euro

Read the figures in halves and the rule stops being theoretical. Ninety minutes is EUR 270, so EUR 135 confirms it and EUR 135 waits at the door. Two hours is EUR 360 and splits into EUR 180 and EUR 180. Three hours is EUR 540, held with EUR 270. The eight hour block for one guest is EUR 1,250, of which EUR 625 goes first; that same block with two therapists is EUR 2,880, so EUR 1,440 travels ahead of them. An hour with a therapist each for two guests comes to EUR 720, and EUR 360 of it is sent before anybody moves.

One booking asks for nothing beforehand. A client the house has already looked after, staying at an address inside the city, wanting an hour or two later that same day, settles the whole figure when she arrives. Shift that request onto another date, put a second therapist in it, run it past three hours, move it to an airport hotel, land it on a peak date, or make it the first of all, and the half comes back into play.

How the two halves are paid

Card is the ordinary route for the front half, with Revolut, Wise and cryptocurrency available to anyone who would rather use one of them. Bank transfer is not taken and neither is PayPal. Cash cannot do the job of a front half, for the plain reason that the front half is settled before she travels and cash only appears once she is in the room. The amount, and where it goes, are written into the booking thread after the evening is agreed and in no other place. All of the figures quoted on this site are euro figures. The rest is handed over on arrival, and a balance paid in cash in another major currency is welcome, with the exact sum in that currency confirmed in writing before she sets out. What an opening message needs is set out on the booking page.

What notice keeps, and what it gives back

Calling a booking off never leaves you owing the house damages. The only thing that can be kept is the part of the fee already earned by the moment your message arrives, and the notice in that message is the single thing deciding which part that is:

• With more than twenty-four hours still to run: nothing is kept and the front half comes back whole.
• Inside the last day, with the journey not yet begun: half of what you sent stays as fee already earned and the other half is returned.
• After she has set out: what you sent stays with the house in full.

Two circumstances pull even that last line back. Where the evening you gave up is taken by somebody else, the money comes back to you in full, since nothing was lost in the end. And where you can show the house lost less than it held on to, only the smaller figure stays.

Work it through on a Saturday. Two hours at EUR 360 was agreed on the Wednesday and held with EUR 180. Called off on the Friday morning, all EUR 180 returns. Called off at six on the Saturday evening, with the booking at nine and nobody yet travelling, EUR 90 stays and EUR 90 comes back. Called off at ten past nine, with her already crossing the city, the EUR 180 remains, unless the evening finds another taker.

The same day hour that carries nothing

Where a returning client asks for an hour or two at a city address later the same day, there is no front half, so the scale above has nothing to act on. Dropped before she has left, that booking costs you nothing whatever. Dropped once she is already on her way to your street, it costs the share of the fee her journey stands for, and the house asks for nothing past it.

Moving a booking to the other night

One change of date costs nothing. The request has to land in the thread with more than twenty-four hours still to run, and the new date has to sit inside the following fortnight. Where both of those hold, the front half travels across untouched, which is what makes swapping a Friday for a Saturday simple on a two night trip. A second move, or one asked for inside the final day, is read on the notice scale exactly as a cancellation written at that moment would be, and whatever the scale leaves behind travels on to the new date.

Strikes, shutdowns and the things nobody chose

Something genuinely beyond either side can stop an evening: transport brought to a halt, a serious disruption across the city, an official instruction that makes the journey impossible. In that case nothing is lost and nothing is disputed. What you sent becomes credit, held against a date you are not asked to name straight away. A cold, a change of heart, a meeting that ran long, an airline moving your flight, and a decision at midnight that sleep would serve you better all sit on your side of that line, and each is read as a move or a cancellation on the scale above.

If the house cannot go ahead

Where the house is the side that cannot perform, the choice belongs to you rather than to it. Ask for the front half back in full, or leave it standing as credit against a new date for as long as you need to settle on one. Where the therapist you chose cannot come, the house says so the moment it knows, and you either pick another name from the roster yourself or take the money back.

Booked from home: the fourteen day question

A booking settled in writing, with the two sides never having met beforehand, is a service agreed at a distance. Agreements of that kind are governed by Book 6 of the Dutch Civil Code, at articles 6:230m to 6:230z, which carry the European consumer rules into Dutch law. Fourteen days is the period a consumer normally has in which to step back from an agreement of that kind. Article 6:230p lists the agreements that right does not reach, and services connected with leisure activities are among them where the agreement names a specific date or period for performance. Every booking made here names an hour on a named evening, which is precisely the case that article describes, so the fourteen day right does not arise. Nothing in these terms asks you to surrender a right, because no right of that shape exists here to surrender.

A session performed the same day stands on an additional footing. Before she travels, the house asks you to write in the thread that you want it performed at once and that you understand the fourteen day right will not apply to it once it has been. Whatever else the two sides have agreed is written into the terms.

Finishing early

If you decide partway through that you have had enough of the evening and end it before the booked time is up, the whole fee stays payable and nothing comes back. The time was held for you, the journey out was made, and what is left of it cannot be handed to anybody else at that point in a Saturday night.

What a session includes is hers to decide, and she says where her limits sit before anything begins; they hold until she leaves. Where her safety or her comfort is not respected, or a limit is pushed at, the visit ends at that point. What was reserved remains payable, and beyond that figure nothing at all is added.

False bookings and the note the house keeps

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

• it was placed under a name the client has no right to use;
• it arrived from a number or a profile belonging to somebody else;
• it was sent as a prank;
• a no-show followed any of the three above.

Simply missing an appointment matches none of them. A guest who booked honestly and then failed to open the door has made an ordinary cancellation, read on the notice scale like any other.

Where a booking does match one of those, or a visit ends because a limit was pressed, the house writes a short note for its own use. That note holds the date, what took place, and the name and number the booking came from, and it is kept for twelve months. Nobody outside the house reads it, and it answers one question only: whether a further booking from that name is accepted. How to object to such a note, or ask for it to be corrected or removed, is explained on the privacy page. Where the facts point to a criminal offence, the house may take the matter to the police.

Book under the name you are travelling on, be in the room when she knocks, and nothing in this section touches your weekend. Questions about getting in, about timing, and about what to have ready before she arrives are answered in the FAQ.