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I met somebody for the first time two days ago and the next day he sent a message on Facebook in which he said, "Thank you" and I replied "You're welcome! It was pleasure to meet you." Although it is a very simple construction, I've become confused after research I've done and because I will probably use it very often in the future, I would like to ask which one is more appropriate for this situation, and is there any difference in terms of meaning they suggest?

And as far as I know we can also say:

It was a pleasure to have met you.

But besides that, it is used in more formal writing? I have also read: "Do not use 'have met' unless they were your host and you are writing a thank you note." Is this correct?

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Well, the first thing I must point out is that neither of these sentences are correct without an 'a' in them.

It was a pleasure to meet/meeting you.

As for whether you should use "to meet" or "meeting", it makes no difference. The meaning and usage is completely interchangeable.

I would not recommend using "to have met you" except for specific situations (like thanking a host). The meaning is subtly different. The first sentence means "I enjoyed meeting you." But the second means "I enjoyed that I got to meet you." It doesn't say anything about whether the actual meeting was a pleasure, although this is implied.

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    From my personal experience, "to have met you" could also imply that you do not expect to meet them again, which may be seen as rather sinister in specific situations.
    – Yay295
    Commented Mar 10, 2016 at 5:41
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I would not use either phrase, to my ear both need an "a", thus:

It was a pleasure to meet you.

It was a pleasure meeting you.

When the "a" is added then either can be used.

Other related phrases include:

It was pleasing to have met you.

The consensus of comments suggests that "It was pleasing to have met you" is not commonly used. It seemed OK to me, but maybe other phrases are better.

I am pleased to have met you.

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    "was pleasing" is decidedly ... odd. Other than that, these are all correct and reasonably idiomatic.
    – Nathan Tuggy
    Commented May 3, 2015 at 22:31
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    @NathanTuggy Perhaps we live or grew up in different parts of the UK where the idioms are also different.
    – AdrianHHH
    Commented May 4, 2015 at 10:06
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    @AdrianHHH: Where are you from? I grew up in Yorkshire, and have lived in a fair few different parts of the UK and US, and “it was pleasing to have met you” sounds quite unnatural to me.
    – PLL
    Commented May 4, 2015 at 11:13
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    @NathanTuggy SE Kent. I thought hard about each of the four phrases I wrote and was happy with all of them. But I could well be wrong.
    – AdrianHHH
    Commented May 4, 2015 at 19:13

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