My reaction would be specific to the lady. If a lady no-shows me, no, I wouldn't pay a cancellation fee if I had to cancel with
her. But I probably wouldn't be seeing her again anyway. The fact that Lady A no-shows me is not related to the question of whether I should pay a cancellation fee if I cancel an appointment with Lady B on short notice.
In general, if a lady hasn't mistreated me in that way -- and most don't -- I'll pay a cancellation fee if it's shown on her website. I'll pay a cancellation fee if it's
not shown on her website but she asks for it. And for that matter, if I cancel on very short notice, where I think there's a significant possibility that she wouldn't be able to replace me with someone else . . . I usually pay a voluntary cancellation fee anyway, even if she never mentions it and isn't expecting it.
Alas, unlike some who adopt the same policy, my schedule is not sufficiently under my control that I've never had to cancel on short notice. So, yes, this has come up, and yes, I have paid the voluntary cancellation fee, although not very often -- 9 times over the past 8 years or so. Even though the ladies neither specified such on their website, or asked for one, or for that matter even expected one. Also unlike some who adopt the same policy, I don't
offer it to them, when most ladies would feel compelled to say it wasn't necessary even if they thought it was appropriate -- I just include it in the envelope the next time I see them. An offer you make in a fashion it will likely be turned down is very easy.
I don't think they would have given it a second thought if I
hadn't paid it, so it's not as though there was any compulsion or fear of the consequences if I didn't. For that matter, I'm skeptical about whether it gets me better treatment by those specific ladies than I would otherwise. But I thought payment was appropriate.
I suspect this puts me in a very, very, very, very, very small minority here. That's OK; I don't mind marching to the beat of a different drummer.
And I don't care about converting anyone to my way of thinking about it, either. Just offering a perspective.