When the Phone in Your Pocket Is New

Phones are replaced more often than trips are made. A guest who visits Amsterdam three times a year may well change handset, carrier or number between two of those visits without thinking of it as anything more than an errand. From the house's side, though, the phone is where a guest's history lives. A booking thread belongs to the contact it started from, and a new contact arrives with nothing above it.

What gets lost

There is no account behind a booking here, no login and no profile. The only thing that shows a guest has booked before is the written thread from his earlier visits. When he writes from the old number, the new message lands under that history and anyone replying can see it at a glance. When he writes from a new number, the message lands on its own, and it looks exactly like a message from somebody who has never booked.

That matters for one reason. A returning client writing on the day for one or two hours at an address in central Amsterdam pays the whole fee at the door. A first-time client pays half ahead on every booking. A message from a new number, with nothing to say otherwise, is read as the second kind.

What does not get lost

Nothing else. The figures do not depend on history, and a guest writing from a new number reads the same table on her profile as anyone else. The arrival window is forty to sixty minutes in the centre for everyone. The deposit cases that apply to all guests, such as a booking made more than a day ahead, two therapists, three hours or more, the overnight, an airport hotel or a peak date, apply exactly as before. A new phone changes the way one kind of booking is paid, and only if the link is not restored.

Restoring the link

The first message from the new number should open with a sentence that does the linking: "I have booked before, most recently in April, from a number ending in 12." Give the last few digits or the whole old number, whichever you prefer. The house can then look for the earlier thread. If it is there, the new booking is treated as coming from a returning client, and the reply will say so. If it cannot be found, the reply says that too, and the booking is handled as a first one.

That second outcome is not a disaster. After one booking from the new number has gone ahead, the new thread shows a returning client, and every later same-day hour or two at a city address can be paid at the door again. The cost of an unrecovered link is one deposit on one booking.

The messaging app question

Some guests keep the same number but move to a new messaging account, or reinstall an app and lose its history on their own side. That does not affect the house's side of the thread, which stays under the number. What matters is the number or address the message comes from, not whether the guest can still scroll back through the old exchange on his own screen.

Guests who switch between two phones on the same trip, a work handset during the day and a personal one in the evening, create two threads without meaning to. Choosing one for bookings and keeping to it avoids the question entirely.

E-mail as a fixed point

For anything that needs a record independent of a phone, the address [email protected] is there. It is slower than the thread for booking an evening and is not meant to replace it. It is useful for a question about a deposit, a request about stored data, or a note that your number has changed and you would like the old thread connected to the new one before your next trip. Writing that note a week before you travel means the first booking from the new phone can go straight through.

The twelve month rule still applies

A restored link is only as good as the thread it points to. Every thread is cleared twelve months after its final message, as the privacy page explains. A guest who changes phone and also has not booked for more than a year has nothing to reconnect to. In that case the first booking back carries half ahead, and the new thread takes over from there.

A small habit

The simplest rule for a regular is to treat the booking contact the way he treats a passport: one of them, kept current, and mentioned when it changes. A line in the first message after a change is all it takes. The rest of the message runs as it always has, and the guide to keeping one thread covers the details worth writing out every time.