Cancellation and refunds, stated for hotel guests
Cancellation and refunds: a deposit returns whole on more than a day's notice and by half inside the last day; once she is travelling, it counts as earned.
Room rates that are free to cancel until the day before arrival have taught many travellers to look for a grace period, and the notice a guest gives here does count. The arrangement is summarised below; the cancellation policy holds it in full.
Does earlier notice help?
It decides the outcome. A cancellation never leaves a guest owing damages; the house keeps only the part of the fee it has earned by the moment the message arrives. More than twenty-four hours before the booked hour, nothing has been earned and the deposit goes back whole. Inside the last twenty-four hours, while she has not yet left, half the deposit is kept. After she has set out, the whole deposit is. If the hour goes to another guest, everything is returned, and a guest who shows that the loss was smaller than the sum kept is charged only that loss.
And if the house cannot keep the reservation?
Then the guest chooses: the whole deposit back, or a new date, with the deposit held for as long as choosing takes. If the therapist named in the thread cannot come, the guest hears as soon as the house does, and either picks someone else on the roster or takes the deposit back.
And a reservation accepted without a deposit?
A known guest's hour or two tonight carries none. Called off before she has left, it costs nothing; called off after she has set out, the house asks only for the share of the fee her journey represents.
A session brought to an early close
A guest who stops before the reserved time is over still owes the fee for that time: the hour was held, she made the journey, and the minutes left cannot go to anyone else. She sets her own limits, and if one is pressed once she has arrived she ends the visit there and then; the fee for the time reserved stays due on the same reasoning, with nothing added.
The fourteen days
Articles 6:230m to 6:230z of the Dutch Civil Code give effect to the EU Consumer Rights Directive and its fourteen days to withdraw from a service bought at a distance. Article 6:230p lifts that right for certain contracts, including leisure services where the contract fixes a specific date or period, and a reservation for a named hour on a named day is that case. For a same-day session the guest also confirms in the thread, before she sets out, that it should go ahead at once. A reservation that was never genuine is covered under false bookings.