Coming Back After Six Months Away from the Airport

Projects end, rotations change, and some regulars disappear from the booking thread for months at a time. Then a new contract brings them back to the business district, or a new rotation puts them back into a layover hotel by the runways, and the first message in half a year arrives. It usually carries a question along with the booking: does anything from before still count. The answer is mostly yes, with a few points that are worth setting out.

You are still a returning guest

A client the house has looked after before remains one, whether the last booking was last week or last year. There is no expiry on that. In practice it matters in one place: a returning guest who asks for one or two hours later the same day, at an address in central Amsterdam, pays the whole fee at the door with no deposit. That applies after a long gap exactly as it did before, provided the history can be connected to the new message.

Out by the airport, the gap changes nothing, because every booking at Schiphol, Schiphol-Oost and Schiphol-Rijk carries a deposit of half whatever the history. It is arranged individually, with the journey time agreed first, and confirmed once half is paid.

Connecting the history

If you are writing from the same number as before, the history is simply there, higher up in the thread. If you have changed phones or numbers, say so in the first message, with enough detail to connect the two: roughly when you last booked, and where you stayed. That is usually enough. If the history cannot be connected, the booking is treated as a first booking, and a first booking always carries a deposit of half, at any hour and any length.

The roster may have changed

Six months is long enough for the roster to look different. The name you used to ask for may no longer be on it, or may work different days. The first message after a gap is a good moment to look through the profiles again rather than assuming. If you ask for a name and she is not available, the reply offers another hour with her or another name at your hour, and the choice is yours.

Even if she is still on the roster and free, the visit begins as every visit does. She says in her own words what the session includes and where her limits are, and nothing that was usual half a year ago is assumed. That is not a formality after a gap; it is how every visit is agreed, and a long absence makes it more rather than less natural.

The rules have been written down more fully

Regulars who were booking a while ago sometimes notice that the booking rules now read in more detail. The deposit applies on seven named kinds of booking. The notice scale for cancellations is set out step by step: the whole deposit back with more than twenty-four hours' notice, half kept inside the final day before she has left, the whole deposit kept once she is on her way unless someone else takes the hour. Asked for more than a day ahead, one move to another date within the next fourteen days costs nothing. The cancellation policy has the full text, and it is worth a few minutes before the first booking back.

The rates

The figures are listed on every profile, one line per length from the hour to the overnight, all taxes included. There is no charge for the journey out to the airport and no surcharge at night. A couple with one therapist pays twice the single hour, and two therapists for one guest come to that same doubled hour between them.

The door

Nobody in the room may be under twenty-one, and she may ask to see a photo document when she arrives. After a long gap, that is quite likely. It is looked at once, handed straight back, and nothing from it is copied or written down.

The first message back

A useful first message after a gap reads like a first booking with a note attached: the hotel and room, the day and hour in Amsterdam time, the length, a name or two, and a line saying you have booked before, roughly when. The reply will connect what it can and confirm the rest. By the second booking back, the thread is working as it used to, and the one-line message is available again.

For regulars whose work runs in seasons, a gap is part of the pattern, not a break in it. The page for regulars describes the ordinary rhythm the thread returns to once the first booking back is done.