False bookings, and what they are not
A false booking is one placed under a borrowed name or number, as a joke, or followed by a no-show after either; an ordinary missed appointment is not one.
The house treats a small number of bookings as false. The definition is narrow on purpose.
What counts
A booking is false if any of these is true:
- it was made under a name that is not the guest's own;
- it came from a phone number or profile belonging to someone else;
- it was made as a joke;
- a no-show followed any of the three above.
What does not count
A guest who booked honestly and then did not open the door has made an ordinary cancellation, read on the usual notice scale. A long stay has plenty of evenings that go wrong: a meeting that overran, a train home that failed, a guest who fell asleep. None of those makes a booking false.
What happens
Where a booking does meet one of the criteria, or a visit ends because a stated limit was pushed, the house records 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 later booking from that name is accepted. How to ask for a note to be corrected or removed is described on the privacy page. Facts that amount to a criminal offence may be passed to the police.
A guest who books in their own name and is at the address when she arrives never meets this rule.