The Trip That Moved by Three Days

A guest on his fifth trip to Amsterdam had done what the house recommends for a planned evening. He wrote from his office ten days before the flight, asked for two hours on the Tuesday of his visit with a woman he had seen on the roster, and sent half the fee once the hour was agreed. Six days later his client moved the key meeting to Friday, and the whole trip shifted three days to the right. The question in his next message was the obvious one: what happens to the deposit?

The rule for moving a booking

One change of date is free. Two conditions have to be met. The request has to reach the thread more than twenty-four hours before the booked time, and the new date has to fall within fourteen days of the original. When both are satisfied, the deposit moves across to the new date intact, and nothing is kept.

His request arrived four days before the Tuesday, well outside the final day, and Friday was three days after the original date. Both conditions held. The reply confirmed that she was free on the Friday at the same hour, moved the booking, and noted in the thread that his deposit now stood against Friday. The balance, the other half, would be paid at the door on Friday as it would have been on Tuesday.

What if she had not been free on Friday

That was the part he was worried about, and it is a fair worry. A moved booking still needs someone free on the new date. If she had not been, the reply would have told him who was free on the Friday at that hour, and he would have decided. He could have taken one of those names, moved to a different hour on the Friday when she was free, or cancelled. Because his request came more than twenty-four hours before the original booking, a cancellation at that point would have returned the whole deposit.

Why only one move

A second move, or a move requested inside the final day, is treated differently. It is measured on the notice scale exactly as a cancellation sent at that moment would be, and whatever the scale does not keep travels on to the new date. The reason is the same as the reason for the deposit itself. Each move frees one hour and holds another, and two moves in quick succession hold a woman's evenings in suspense twice. One move covers the ordinary drift of a business trip. Repeated moves start to look like a booking nobody is sure of.

The fourteen day limit

Regulars on a quarterly rhythm sometimes ask whether they can move a booking to their next trip. Three months is well beyond fourteen days, so the answer is no. A trip postponed by a quarter is a cancellation, read on the notice scale at the moment the message arrives. Sent more than a day before the booked time, that returns the whole deposit, which in practice makes it painless. The guest simply books again for the new trip when he knows the date.

When the reason is not the guest's

A meeting moved by a client is on the guest's side of the line; it is an ordinary change of plan. A flight cancelled by an airline is too. What counts as force majeure is narrower: a transport shutdown, a serious disruption in the city, an official instruction that makes the journey impossible. In those cases nothing is forfeited, and the deposit becomes credit against a date the guest chooses later. The distinction matters mainly for moves requested at the last minute, when the notice scale would otherwise apply.

How to ask

A move is asked for in the same thread as the booking, in plain words: "My trip has moved. Can we move Tuesday 21:00 to Friday 21:00, same length?" Give the new date and hour, and say whether the length or anything else is changing. If the length goes up, the difference in deposit is paid; if a longer session crosses into three hours, the booking becomes one that would have carried half anyway. The reply confirms the new arrangement in writing, and that confirmation is what stands.

His Friday went ahead as planned. The cancellation policy sets out the full scale, and the guide to booking ahead or on the day compares the two routes a regular can take.