Plans fall apart. A flight lands three hours late, a dinner turns into a long night, you feel unwell, or you simply change your mind. All of that is ordinary, and one message on the WhatsApp thread cancels the booking. What that message costs depends on when you send it, and this post walks through the timing.
What was paid ahead
Most bookings are confirmed with half the fee paid ahead: anything booked more than 24 hours out, every overnight, every two-therapist booking, three hours or more, peak dates, airport hotels and a first booking with the house. The sums follow the rates table on each therapist profile: half the block on a single client's overnight, half the three-hour line on three hours, and half the relevant row for a pair or for a couple with a therapist each.
What the notice decides
- Sent with more than 24 hours still to go: the whole deposit comes back.
- Sent inside the last 24 hours, before she has set out: half of the deposit is kept as fee already earned, and the other half comes back.
- Sent once she is on her way: the deposit is kept as fee already earned.
If someone else books the hours you gave up, the deposit comes back whole, and if you can show the house lost less than it kept, it keeps less. The cancellation policy sets the scale out in full.
Check whether a move fits first
Many cancellations are really postponements. If the trip has shifted rather than vanished, the booking can be moved once at no cost: ask more than 24 hours before the start, pick a date within 14 days, and the deposit carries across. A later or a second move is weighed on the same notice scale. Moving a booking after it is confirmed works through the timing.
The booking with nothing paid ahead
A same-day session of one or two hours for a client the house has looked after before is paid entirely on arrival. Call it off before she sets out and there is nothing to settle. Call it off after she has left and you are asked only for the part of the fee her journey so far represents.
Cancelling an outcall massage: what to write
One message, complete on its own, with the time of the booking so it can be matched at once on a busy night.
- "Cancel the 23:00 booking tonight, flight delayed."
- "Please cancel Thursday's 20:30, plans changed."
No reason is required. Send it the moment you know: an early message often brings the whole deposit back, a slot handed back in time can reach another client, and a therapist who has not left yet is spared the trip.
Feeling unwell
Cancel rather than push through a booking while ill. A cold is a change on your side and follows the notice scale like any other cancellation, so the sooner you write, the more of the deposit returns.
Ending early is not cancelling
A session you stop partway through stays due at its full booked length, because the time was held for you and nobody else can use it by then. The post on ending a session early goes through the usual reasons and the better fixes.
Groups and pairs
A group booking can be trimmed rather than called off. If one of four guests drops out, say which slot to release; the deposit on that session follows the notice scale, and the rest of the plan runs as confirmed. The group booking guide explains how rotas and changeovers work.
When the therapist cannot come
It is rare, and it runs through the same thread. If a confirmed therapist cannot make the booking, you are told as soon as the house knows, and the choice is yours: another name, a new time, or the deposit back in full.
A name that does not check out
A cancellation from a real client whose plans changed does not count against you when you book again, and neither does an ordinary missed appointment. A booking made under a name that is not yours, from someone else's number or profile, or as a prank, and a no-show after one of those, is a false booking. It goes into a short internal note kept for twelve months, and where it may be a criminal offence the house may report it to the police. The cancellation policy holds the complete position.