Longer bookings: several nights, or a whole weekend

In one exchange, with the dates named and a single companion held across them where her diary allows. That is the part guests most often do not realise is possible: booking Tuesday and Thursday together with the same name is easier than booking Tuesday and then trying again on Wednesday afternoon.

Each night still sits on its own line of the ladder. Nothing is bundled and nothing is discounted for volume. The figure for each night is handed to her in person when she arrives, as it is on every other page here.

A weekend is the one shape on this site with no figure against it, because a weekend at an airport hotel and a weekend somewhere else entirely are not the same thing. Two nights with a day in between, a trip out along the reservoir path in the morning, a dinner that is not in a hotel: all of that gets priced when the dates and the shape are known.

What does not change is the principle. The hours are hers to agree, the arrangement is company and time only, and no companion is asked to hold a weekend she has not accepted in full.

The evenings get quieter, which is the point. By the third one nobody is explaining themselves, the first hour has stopped being an introduction, and what a guest usually wants by then is an ordinary evening rather than an occasion. Several of the women say this is the work they most enjoy.

It also means a companion who suits a long run is not necessarily the one you would pick for a single night. Margo is the most self contained name on this list and is the obvious choice for a village week. Liana is unrattleable across four evenings in a row.

The other change is practical. By the second or third night she knows the building, which floor the lift is slow on and what time the bar stops being useful, and the evening stops beginning with twenty minutes of logistics. Guests on a long posting notice that more than they expect to.

Danielle works Monday to Thursday out in UB3 and is at her best once the first hour has done its work. Roxi takes evenings and overnights in TW19. Violetta takes longer bookings and bookings abroad and is precise about dates.

Thea is used to arrival times that make no sense and settles into a long stay easily. The thirties profile is where a good deal of this work sits, for reasons most guests work out for themselves by the second evening.

Give the desk the whole week at once rather than one night at a time. Diaries out here fill unevenly and a name that is free on Tuesday is often taken by Thursday. A fortnight of notice makes almost anything possible, and a day makes one evening possible. If the posting is cut short or runs on, say so as soon as you know, and the nights still ahead are released or added in the same conversation.

Nobody is held for more than three consecutive nights without a break, which is a rule of this desk rather than a preference, and it is the reason a long run sometimes comes back with two names across a week instead of one. If your dates are away from this airport rather than at it, the format on onward flights and trips away is the right page. Everything else is on booking.