Amsterdam massage: a booking message you can copy

The five lines, ready to paste

Here is the whole message. Copy it as it is.

Address: [hotel name or street and house number], room [number]
Day and hour: [day of the week] [date] [month in letters], [hour on the 24-hour clock]
Length: [60 minutes / 90 minutes / 2 hours / 3 hours / overnight]
Therapist: [her name, or: who is free]
People: [1 guest or 2 guests], [1 therapist or 2 therapists]

That is all. No greeting is needed, and no explanation. Each line has one job. When all five are filled in, the reply can answer everything in one message, and the booking can be agreed in two steps instead of six.

The same message, filled in

Here is an example, so you can see how short it really is.

Address: Prinsengracht [number], room 214
Day and hour: Saturday 12 September, 21:30
Length: 90 minutes
Therapist: who is free
People: 1 guest, 1 therapist

Where it says number, write the real house number from your hotel confirmation. Notice three things. The month is a word, not a number. The hour uses the twenty-four hour clock, so 21:30 cannot be morning. And the room number is there, which saves a whole message later. With this, the reply can give a name, a price in euros and an arrival window straight away.

Line one: an address that cannot be misread

Write the hotel name, or the street and the house number, exactly as it is on your booking confirmation or on the door. Do not translate a street name. Amsterdam street names end in words such as gracht, straat or kade, and they must stay in Dutch, because that is what the map and the driver read. If the house number has letters or extra marks, such as 12-II or 45A, copy them exactly: they tell her the floor or the door. Add the room number as soon as you have it. If you do not have it yet, write later in its place and send it when you do.

Line two: the day and the hour

Write the day of the week, the date and the month in letters, then the hour on the twenty-four hour clock. Saturday 12 September, 21:30 is clear in every country. By contrast, 12/09 at 9.30 can mean four different things, depending on where you learned to write dates. Use Amsterdam time. If your phone still shows the time of your home country, look at the hour on the hotel television or ask at the desk. A wrong time zone loses more hours than any spelling mistake, and one look at a local clock prevents it.

Lines three and four: the length and the name

For the length, choose one of these: 60 minutes, 90 minutes, 2 hours, 3 hours, or overnight. Write the number, not a word like short or long. If you are not sure, write 90 minutes; the reply will tell you if another length fits the hour better. For the name, write the name of a woman from the profiles, spelled as it is on her page. If you have no preference, write who is free. If the woman you named is not free at that hour, the reply says so and tells you who is. The choice then stays with you.

Line five: how many people

This line changes the price, so it must be clear. One guest with one therapist is the usual booking, at 180 euros for an hour. Two guests with one therapist cost 360 euros an hour. One guest with two therapists also costs 360 euros an hour. Two guests with one therapist each cost 720 euros an hour. Everyone in the room must be twenty-one or over, and everyone must agree to the booking. If there will be a second person in the room who is not booking a massage, say that too.

An Amsterdam massage message for a first booking

If this is your first booking with the house, add a sixth line: First booking: yes. This helps the reply, because a first booking always has a deposit, which is half of the price paid before she travels. With that line, the reply can include the deposit amount and the payment details in the same message, instead of asking. For one hour, the deposit is 90 euros. For ninety minutes, it is 135 euros. The other half is paid when she arrives. The booking page lists every case where a deposit applies.

What comes back, and the one word you send

The reply has three parts: who is free, the price in euros, and the arrival window. In central Amsterdam, the window is forty to sixty minutes after your confirmation. Read the reply once, slowly, and check the day, the hour and the address against your own message. If everything is the same, send one word: yes. If something is different, do not say yes. Write only the line that is wrong, corrected. If a word in the reply is new to you, the page on the words in the reply explains it.

Three small mistakes and their fixes

The hotel with two buildings. Some hotels have two entrances on two streets. Write the street of the entrance you will use. The date written only in numbers. A guest wrote 03/04 and meant the fourth of March; the reply read the third of April. Writing the month in letters fixes this for good. The hour without a clock. A guest wrote 10 and meant the evening; the reply asked, and the question cost twenty minutes. Writing 22:00 fixes it. None of these mistakes is serious when it is caught before the yes. The five lines above are made so that it is.