Calling off an afternoon, and what comes back

There is one scale and it has three steps. More than twenty-four hours before the agreed time, nothing is kept and the deposit goes back whole. Inside the final twenty-four hours, with her still at her own address, half the deposit stays as fee already earned and half is returned. Once she has left for your door, the deposit stays in full.

Two things that cut the last step

If somebody else takes the hour you released, the deposit comes back whole, because in the end nothing was lost. And if you can show that the house lost less than the sum it held, only the smaller figure stays. Cancelling never adds damages to any of that; the only question is which part of the fee had already been earned by the time your message arrived.

The same-day booking with no deposit behind it

A returning guest's hour or two inside the city sends nothing ahead, so the scale has nothing to act on. Dropped before she leaves, it costs nothing at all. Dropped once she is already crossing town, it costs the share of the fee her journey represents, and not a cent more.

Moving instead of cancelling

The first move of date is free where the request lands more than twenty-four hours ahead and the new day falls inside the following fortnight; the deposit crosses over untouched. A second move, or one asked for inside the final day, is read exactly as a cancellation sent at that minute, and whatever survives travels on. Something genuinely outside both sides, a transport shutdown or an official instruction, turns the deposit into credit instead. The full version, with worked figures, is on the policy page.