Deposits, changes of date and refunds, in plain terms

What a deposit is, and what it is not

Experienced travellers have paid deposits on villas, tables and theatre seats, and most of them have met the kind that disappears into small print. This is not that kind. A deposit here is the first half of the price of your booking, worked out from the figure on the profile of the therapist you chose, stated in writing in the booking thread once the hour is agreed, and paid before she sets out. It is not a charge added to the price, and it is not a sum held to one side. When she arrives, you pay the other half, and the booking is paid for.

The reason it exists is plain enough. Once a therapist agrees to be at your door at a given hour, that stretch of her evening is committed to you and cannot be offered to anybody else, and the hours on either side of it are often broken up too. The deposit makes the commitment run in both directions.

The seven bookings that carry one

Half of the relevant figure goes ahead on each of these:

• the first booking a guest makes with the house, whatever its length and whenever it starts;
• a booking made more than twenty-four hours before its start, which includes anything arranged before you travel;
• the overnight, eight hours as a single block;
• any booking with two therapists at once;
• any session of three hours or longer, on any date;
• a hotel near Schiphol, where the journey time is agreed with you before anything else is fixed;
• a peak date: King's Day, Pride, the Amsterdam Dance Event, the days from Christmas to New Year, or a large conference week, which the house names if you ask.

In euros, the halves look like this. Ninety minutes at 270 is confirmed with 135. Two hours at 360 is confirmed with 180, and three hours at 540 with 270. The overnight at 1,250 goes ahead with 625. Two hours with a therapist each for a couple, at 1,440, goes ahead with 720. Four hands for one guest over two hours, at 720, goes ahead with 360. Every figure is on every profile on the roster, and all of them include all taxes.

The one booking with nothing in advance

A guest the house has already looked after, asking for one or two hours later the same day at an address inside the city, pays the whole fee on arrival. Change any one of those things, by booking for another day, adding a second therapist, going to three hours, choosing an airport hotel, landing on a peak date, or being new to the house, and half goes ahead once more.

How each half is paid

The deposit is paid by card as a rule, or by Revolut, Wise or cryptocurrency for guests who already use them. Neither a bank transfer nor PayPal can be used. Cash cannot be a deposit, for the simple reason that a deposit is settled before anyone travels and cash only changes hands once she is in the room. The amount and the way to pay it are written in the booking thread after the hour is agreed, and they appear nowhere else, so any payment request that reaches you by another route should be ignored.

All figures on this site are in euros. The second half is settled when she arrives. Cash in euros is welcome for it, and so is cash in another major currency, provided the exact sum in that currency was confirmed to you in writing before she set out. The order of the messages in a thread is laid out on the booking page.

Cancelling: the notice scale

No cancellation, however late, turns into a debt for damages. What can be kept is never more than the part of the fee already earned at the moment your message reaches the thread, and the notice you give is the only thing that decides it:

• More than twenty-four hours before the booked start: the whole deposit is returned and nothing is kept.
• Inside the final twenty-four hours, while she has not yet set out: the house keeps half the deposit as fee already earned and repays the other half.
• Once she has left for your door: the house keeps all of the deposit as fee already earned.

Two further rules can only work in your favour. If the hour you released is taken by another guest, the deposit is returned in full, because the time turned out not to be lost. And if you can show that the house's loss was smaller than the part it kept, it keeps only that smaller sum.

A worked case. Three hours at 540 euros are booked for seven on a Saturday evening, confirmed with 270. A message on Thursday brings all 270 back. A message at eleven on Saturday morning, before she has left, means 135 is kept and 135 returned. A message at twenty past six, with her already crossing the city, means the 270 stays with the house, unless someone else takes the evening.

When there was no deposit

The returning guest's same-day hour or two in the city carries no deposit, so the scale above has nothing to work on. Cancelled before she has set out for your door, that booking costs nothing at all. Cancelled after she is on her way, it costs the share of the fee that her journey represents, and nothing past that.

Moving to another date

One change of date is free. It needs two things: the request must reach the thread more than twenty-four hours before the booked start, and the new date must fall within fourteen days. When both hold, the deposit travels to the new date untouched. A second move, or a move 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 unkept travels on to the new date.

Events outside anyone's control

Sometimes a booking is stopped by something neither side could have prevented: a shutdown of public transport, a serious disruption in the city, an official instruction that makes the journey impossible. Then nothing is forfeited and nothing is debated. The deposit becomes credit, held for a date you can choose later. A cold, a change of heart, a dinner that ran long, a flight moved by an airline or a wish to have an early night all sit on the guest 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

If the house cannot provide the session you booked, the choice is yours rather than the house's: the whole deposit back, or credit against a new date for as long as you need to pick one. If the therapist you named cannot come, you are told as soon as the house knows, and you decide between another name from the roster and your deposit back.

Bookings agreed at a distance, and the fourteen days

A booking made in writing, without the two sides meeting beforehand, is an agreement for a service concluded at a distance. The rules for such agreements are in Book 6 of the Dutch Civil Code, articles 6:230m to 6:230z, which carry the European consumer rules into Dutch law. Under them, a consumer can ordinarily withdraw from a distance agreement within fourteen days. Article 6:230p sets out exceptions to that right, among them services linked to leisure activities for which the agreement fixes a particular date or period of performance. Every booking with this house names an hour on a named day, which is exactly that case, so the fourteen-day right does not arise at all. Nothing here asks you to give up a right; there is no such right to give up.

A same-day booking also rests on a second footing. Before she sets out, you are asked to write in the thread that you want the session carried out straight away, and that you understand the fourteen-day right will not apply to it once it has been carried out. The remaining terms between you and the house are in the terms.

A session ended early

If you decide partway through that you would like to stop, the session ends, and the fee for the full time reserved remains payable, with nothing refunded. Those hours were set aside for you and she has travelled to reach you; whatever remains of them cannot go to anyone else so late.

The therapist decides what a session includes and states her limits before it begins, and they hold for the whole visit. If her safety or comfort is not respected, or a limit she has named is pressed, the visit ends at that moment. The fee for the reserved time stays due, and nothing whatever is added to it.

False bookings, and the note that follows

A booking counts as false if any one of these applies:

• it was made in a name that does not belong to the person booking;
• it came from a phone number or a profile belonging to someone else;
• it was made as a joke;
• a no-show followed any of the three above.

A missed appointment by itself fits none of these. A guest who booked honestly and then did not come to the door has made an ordinary cancellation, read on the notice scale like any other.

Where a booking does fit one of the four, or a visit is ended because a limit was pressed, the house writes a brief internal note: the date, what happened, and the name and number the booking came from. It is kept for twelve months, seen by nobody outside the house, and used for a single purpose, to decide whether a further booking from that name is accepted. The privacy page explains how to object to a note or have it corrected or erased. If what happened looks like a criminal offence, the house may take it to the police.

A guest who books in his own name and is in the room when she knocks will never have reason to read this section twice. The practical questions about the arrival and what to have ready are in the FAQ.