Deposits and cancellations for outcall bookings

Seven bookings that confirm with half ahead

An outcall booking in Amsterdam is confirmed with a deposit of half the fee whenever it falls into one of seven classes. Each class describes an hour that is held for you well before that hour comes round:

• a booking made more than twenty-four hours before the booked time;
• an overnight, which runs for eight hours;
• two therapists at the same address, for any length of session;
• a session of three hours or longer, on any day of the week;
• a room at a Schiphol or airport hotel, which is by arrangement, and the journey time is agreed with you before anything is fixed;
• a peak date such as King's Day, ADE, Pride, Christmas, New Year or a large conference week, with the rest named by the house when you ask;
• the first booking you make with the house, whatever its length and whatever the hour.

That leaves one booking off the list. A client whose door someone on the roster has already knocked on, asking for an hour or two today at a flat, a rented apartment or a houseboat inside the ring, pays the whole fee when she rings the bell. Ask for that same hour next week, or for three hours tonight, and the deposit comes back into it.

For that returning client the thread needs the street, the house number, the floor and the name beside the bell. Once the hour is agreed she is usually at the door forty to sixty minutes later, and the guide to paying at the door walks through the balance.

The figures, worked through

The deposit is half of the rate printed on the profile of the therapist you book, and each therapist profile carries the full table for one client and for a couple. Five examples:

• An overnight for one client with one therapist: half of the eight-hour block in advance, and the matching half at the door.
• Three hours for one client with two therapists: half of the pair's three-hour figure in advance, the remainder on arrival.
• Two hours for a couple with a therapist each: half of that couples figure in advance, the second half in the apartment.
• Three hours reserved for next Thursday: half of the three-hour line ahead of the day, half when she arrives.
• Ninety minutes as a first booking: half of the ninety-minute line in advance, the rest on the doorstep.

No surcharge is added for a late hour, a weekend or an address on the far side of the ring, so half the figure on the profile is the whole deposit.

Paying the deposit and the balance

A deposit can be paid by card. Revolut, Wise and cryptocurrency are accepted as well, for a client who would rather use them. The exact sum, and the way to send it, are confirmed to you in writing in the booking conversation before she sets out. Prices on this site are quoted in euro, and the booking is priced by that euro amount. The balance is paid on arrival. A balance paid in cash in another major currency is accepted, and the amount in that currency is set out for you in writing before she leaves. The booking page lists the steps in order.

Cancelling a booking

Cancelling does not make you liable for damages. The house keeps only the part of the fee it has already earned at the moment your cancellation arrives. That part depends on the notice you give:

• More than twenty-four hours before the booked time: the house keeps nothing, and the deposit is returned in full.
• Within twenty-four hours of the booked time, before she has left: the house keeps half of the deposit as fee already earned and returns the other half.
• After she has set out for your address: the house keeps the whole deposit as fee already earned.

If the hour you cancelled is booked by another client, the deposit is returned in full. If you show that the house lost less than the amount it kept, the house keeps only that lower amount.

Take the three hours booked for Thursday, with half of their price paid ahead. Your host moves the check-out and you write on Tuesday evening: that deposit comes back to the last cent. You write on Thursday morning, before she has left: half of the deposit stays as fee earned and the other half returns to you. You write while she is already crossing the city towards your street: the deposit stays with the house, unless someone else takes those three hours.

Moving the booking to another date

You may move a booking to a new date once, at no cost. The request must reach the booking conversation more than twenty-four hours before the booked time. The new date must fall within fourteen days of the original date. When both conditions are met, the whole deposit moves to the new date. A second move, or a move asked for inside the last twenty-four hours, is measured on the notice scale exactly as a cancellation sent at that moment would be. Any part of the deposit that the scale does not keep carries over to the new date.

If the house cannot perform

If the house is unable to perform the booking, the choice about the deposit is yours. You may have it repaid in full. You may also leave it with the house for a new date, for as long as you need to pick one. If the therapist you booked cannot come, you are told as soon as the house knows, and you either choose someone else on the roster or take the deposit back.

Changes on your own side are a different matter. A cold, a flight that moves, a host who rewrites the dates, a late key handover, a switch to another apartment or a dinner that runs long all sit with you, and each of them is a move or a cancellation that follows the scale above.

A booking taken without a deposit

The returning client's same-day hour or two goes ahead with nothing paid in advance. Cancel it before she has left and nothing is owed. If she is already on her way when you cancel, you are asked to pay only the share of the fee that covers the journey she has started.

The fourteen-day right to withdraw

A booking made in a message thread is a contract concluded at a distance. The rules for such contracts are set out in Book 6 of the Dutch Civil Code, in articles 6:230m to 6:230z. Those articles carry the EU Consumer Rights Directive into Dutch law. They normally give a consumer fourteen days to withdraw from a contract of this kind. One of the exceptions in article 6:230p covers services related to leisure activities where the contract names a specific date or period. A booking with this house is always for a named hour on a named day, and that is the situation the exception addresses. The fourteen-day right therefore does not arise for a booking here.

A same-day booking also rests on a second basis. Before she leaves for your address, you are asked to write in the booking conversation that you want the session performed straight away. In the same message you confirm that you understand the fourteen-day right will not apply once the session has been performed. Everything else that governs the booking is in the terms.

A session that ends early

If you end a session before the booked time is over, the full fee stays due. The time was reserved for you, she has made the journey to your address, and the minutes that remain cannot be offered to another client.

What a session includes, and where its limits sit, is her decision. When her safety or her comfort is not respected, or a limit she has set is pressed, she ends the visit at that moment. By then she is at your door or already inside, and with the hour held in your name and the city crossed to reach you, the fee for the reserved time stays due. No further amount is charged on top of that fee.

False bookings and the internal note

A booking counts as a false booking when it meets one of these criteria:

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

A missed appointment on its own does not make a false booking. It is treated as a cancellation, on the notice scale.

When a booking meets one of the criteria, or when a visit ends because a limit was pressed, the house writes a short internal note. The note records the date, what happened, and the name and number used to make the booking. The note is kept for twelve months. It stays inside the house and is never passed to any other person or business. Its only use is to decide whether to accept a further booking from the same person. The privacy page explains how to object to the note, or ask for it to be corrected or removed. When the events behind a note may be a criminal offence, the house may report them to the police.

None of this reaches a client who books under his own name and opens the door when she rings. The deposit on a first booking says nothing about you; it holds the hour, exactly as it does on a regular's overnight.