A recurring assumption arrives with late bookings: that something about the hour makes the money work differently. It does not. The deposit rule pays no attention whatsoever to the clock. What it pays attention to is how far ahead the booking was made, how long it is, how many people are involved, where it is, what date it falls on, and whether the house has looked after you before.
The seven that carry half ahead
A booking made more than twenty-four hours before its start. An overnight. Two therapists. A room at Schiphol or an airport hotel. A peak date. Three hours or more. And a first booking with the house, whatever its length and however soon it starts.
That last one is where most late night confusion lives. A guest writing at one in the morning for a two o'clock start, who has never booked here before, is asked for half. Not because it is one in the morning, but because it is a first booking. The same guest, three weeks later, writing at one for an hour or two at a city address the same night, sends nothing ahead and pays the whole fee at the door.
The one that does not
A returning client, at an address inside the city, asking for one or two hours later the same day. That is the entire exemption and every word of it is load-bearing. Make it three hours and half goes ahead. Add a second therapist and half goes ahead. Put it at an airport hotel and half goes ahead. Move it to tomorrow and it is no longer same-day, so half goes ahead. Land it on King's Day and half goes ahead.
What half means in figures
Against an hour at EUR 180, the sum to send is EUR 90. Against ninety minutes at EUR 270 it is EUR 135, against two hours at EUR 360 it is EUR 180, and against three hours at EUR 540 it is EUR 270. A night at EUR 1,250 asks for EUR 625. Two therapists across two hours comes to EUR 720, so EUR 360 travels ahead, and a couple with a therapist each for the same two hours comes to EUR 1,440, so EUR 720 does.
Notice what those pairs have in common: the figure ahead is always exactly the figure at the door. Nothing is loaded onto the first half, nothing is held back from the second, and the total is the same number that was quoted in the thread before anything moved.
The hour on the clock changes none of these, because there is no night rate to apply to them and no travel charge inside the ring.
What it is, and what it is not
It is the first half of the fee rather than money held aside somewhere. It is named in writing in the thread once the hour is agreed, it goes by card, Revolut, Wise or crypto, and it never goes by bank transfer, PayPal or cash. Cash cannot be a deposit for the plain reason that a deposit is settled before she leaves and cash only changes hands in a room.
It is not a penalty and it is not forfeited by default. If the booking falls over, the notice scale decides what is kept: nothing more than twenty-four hours out, half inside that window before she leaves, all of it once she is travelling, and none of it if the hour is re-let. If you can show the loss was smaller than the share kept, the house keeps only the smaller figure.
The timing detail that matters at this hour
She sets off once the deposit has cleared, which means on a late booking the payment sits inside the critical path. A guest writing at one for a first booking should expect the sequence to be: agree the hour, send the half, then the forty to sixty minute arrival window starts. That is not a delay so much as an order of operations, and knowing it in advance removes the impatience that otherwise turns up at twenty past one.
It is also the reason writing at eleven for one is worth doing when you already suspect the night is going that way. It moves the payment off the critical path entirely, and it costs nothing at all to do.