I only session when I travel, so I know, usually a few weeks in advance where I'll be and whether I'll have some play time. I might start a dialog with a mistress a few weeks in advance, but knowing how their schedules tend to change, I usually wait until a week before I'd like to schedule a visit and suggest a date and time. I'm always specific, like I'll say "This coming Thursday, October 29" and we agree on the date and time. I always try to confirm the day before by e-mail.

Thice now in my spanko career, tomorrow never came. Once I was at her apartment building door, calling to get let in, and no answer. You might remember my story about that one on Max Fisch. Another time, a different mistress, I called the afternoon we were supposed to get together. Voice mail, no returned call. No response to my "what happened?" e-mail until a couple of days later - she thought I was coming the next day and wasn't in town that day.

I have a couple of NYC reliable favorites, but thought I'd try someone different this trip. We exchanged several e-mails in the past week, and (as she requested) called her the morning of our session. Well, I got to her door, called to get let in, and got voice mail. OK, she's on the phone. I left her a message and tried again about 5 minutes later. More voice mail. A few minutes later, she returned my call. "It's Thursday. I thought you were coming on Friday."

She apologized, and fortunately we were able to re-schedule for today (Friday). When I got back to the hotel, I went back to my e-mails I had sent her, and the date was very clear.

None of these seemed like they might be flakes or fakes, but I just wonder if scheduling more than a day or two in advance is just not a good policy.

Thoughts?

Reading ads more Mistresses than ever want advance notices. I suggest you center on ladies that emphasize advanced booking.

I usually book a session one or even 2 weeks in advance.

All the best,
wolf

Most of my sessions are scheduled a week or more in advance, mainly because my subs know if they want a specific day/time, they will need to plan in advance. Short notice requests are often turned away because of conflicts. Of the many (well over a thousand I would guess) of sessions I have scheduled, I have had something similar to what you described (where it was clearly my mistake) happen exactly twice. In one case I gave the sub the incorrect time to place his confirmation call (a typo) and when the call didn't come in, I assumed he had stood me up. I went on to other things just to see a series of voicemails from him later in the day. Tracing it back via email I saw it was my mistake. To make things worse, it was his first time to see a Mistress. I apologized and offered to give him a longer session to make up for it. We ended up forging a great D/s relationship primarily because of how I handled that situation. The other problem was while I was traveling. Travel schedules and communication can get very frenetic and I have learned to pay especially close attention to scheduling. I had put the sub in my calendar for the wrong day and he caught the error in an email exchange prior to my arrival. The time he had originally requested had been given to someone else by then. Fortunately we were able to find another time while I was there that worked, but it was an important lesson for me. Both instances resulted in my making a change in policy/communication. I consider myself to be very thorough and very reliable in all things business, but mistakes do happen. The fact that it has happened to you 3 times is unusual, I would think - but maybe not. I am curious what others have to say.

Like you, I prefer email communication, so both parties can review it in case there is a question. I don't do phone scheduling because the margin for error is too great on both sides. My process is to send out an email a few days prior with pre-session instructions. This includes a specific time to place the confirmation call on the day of the appointment and it restates the day/time of the appointment.

In reality it is usually more difficult for a sub to arrange his schedule to see us, than the other way around and I am sure that their build up an resulting disappointment is greater, so I try to be extra diligent when it comes to scheduling and communication.

This thread reminds me of an almost "hard" lesson I learned early on in my sessioning. I live in the SF Bay Area and had seen Queen Adrena in LA one time. I called to arrange another session for 10:00, which she agreed to. I flew down the evening before, called an hour before our session as directed to confirm and caught her heading out the door. She thought 10:00 was PM and I had meant AM! She was kind enough to rearrange her schedule so we could session at around noon. It was wild and I learned to be more careful at specifying the requested session time, even if it didn't involve more travel.

In my latest mis-scheduled session, we had a good time together the next afternoon, I got an excellent spanking, an apology, and a few cannolis as a consolation prize.

4 to 8 days is my general pattern.

I have had a few similar experiences and they are frustrating, especially when I have dome to some effort and expense to arrange the session.

I now send and email a day or two before the session simply telling the Domme how excited I am to be seeing her at whatever date/time it is that I believe the session is scheduled. Usually I get a brief email back and then I know that the Domme and I are on the same page. I also got a few back letting me know that there was indeed some miscommunication and that we needed to reschedule. Better to know a day or two before the session and usually the miscommunication was my fault.

Well, I am usually just looking for a foot worship session so a few days ahead of time is usually all it takes for me. Once, in Chicago, I was able to schedule a same day with the Continuum, which was awesome, but I think I really just lucked out.

YMP

Mine too, but I've had three get that wrong, even with a reminder note from me the day before. People need more paper calendars that they can write on - and make a routine of looking at their appointment calendar every evening before going to bed to se what's on for the next day.

I suspect that most dommes are doing their schecule-keeping with a smart phone these days. I only look at the calendar of my phone when I want to know what day it is, but most of thet time when I get an e-mail message that contains a recognizable date format, it's highlighted and it invites me to add the appointment to my calendar. But which calendar? There must be a dozen of 'em.

My sense is that from the get-go, one can get get "Owwthz on Friday" in her head even if my request was for Thursday. And even if I include the date in an interim e-mail, it just gets viewed as confirmation of whatever day she thinks the session is scheduled for. It's easy to do. I realize that mistresses are very busy and get flooded with e-mail. What ever happened to the secretary-slave?