Keycard lift: how a guest brings a visitor up
A keycard lift will not travel to guest floors until a room card is presented; where a hotel uses one, the guest comes down and accompanies her up.
Lift security takes more than one form in Amsterdam, and it helps to know which a building uses. In older properties a small reader sits inside the car beside the floor buttons, and nothing lights until a card is held against it. In newer towers, particularly around the Zuidas and the RAI, lifts are called from a panel in the lobby: the guest taps a card or selects a floor there, and a screen names the car to take. Club and executive floors are often restricted further, so that a card for a lower floor will not open them.
When the lock is on
Some hotels keep their lifts locked at every hour. Others switch the readers on in the late evening and off again around breakfast. A guest who has only ridden the lift by day may not know which applies, and a glance at the panel on the way up that evening settles it.
How the arrival is handled
Where the lift needs a card, the guest mentions it when booking. As the therapist reaches the building she sends a short message; the guest comes down, meets her near the lifts, presents the card, and they go up together. It takes a minute. It is the ordinary way a resident brings any visitor upstairs, and a hotel lobby sees it all evening long.
Where a hotel prefers visitors to be collected at reception instead, the guest mentions that in the thread and meets her there. Either way the building's own practice decides the route, and nobody has to guess at a lobby panel after dark.
Timing
A card-locked lift does not lengthen the arrival window; it only means the final minute is shared. What matters is that the house hears of it before she sets out. The Zuidas hotel page describes the towers where lobby-called lifts are common, and the front desk entry covers the rest of the ground floor.