False bookings, and why an honest missed evening is not one

The terms use the phrase false booking narrowly, and it is worth knowing how narrowly, because a traveller whose flight fails or whose plans collapse has nothing to fear from it.

What makes a booking false

Any one of four things. The booking was made under a name that is not the guest's. It came from a phone number or a profile that belongs to someone else. It was sent as a joke. Or a no-show followed one of those three. Nothing else qualifies.

What does not

A booking made honestly in your own name, from your own number, that you then cannot keep. A delayed flight, a change of plan, a guest who fell asleep and did not answer the door. Each of those is an ordinary cancellation, handled on the notice scale like any other, and no note is written about it.

The note

Where a booking is false, or a visit is ended because a limit she named was pressed on, the house writes a short internal note: the date, what happened, and the name and number the booking came from. It is held for twelve months, seen by nobody outside the house, and used for one decision only: whether a further booking from that name is accepted. Objecting to a note, or asking for it to be put right or deleted, is covered on the privacy page. Facts that amount to a criminal offence may be passed to the police by the house.

Why it exists

A false booking costs a woman an evening she could have given to someone else, and a journey across the city to a door that was never going to open. A traveller booking from home, in his own name, weeks ahead, with half already sent, is about as far from that as a booking can be. The complete wording sits in the terms.