Wait Time Policy

What the included time covers

• The chauffeur is at the pickup point, in position, at the booked time, not driving towards it.
• On an airport arrival the chauffeur meets you inside at the arrivals hall, holding a name board, unless you asked for a kerbside pickup instead.
• The included time covers immigration, baggage reclaim and the walk out. Sixty minutes is generous for a domestic arrival and usually enough for an international one.
• Where a vehicle must pay to wait, whether an airport car park or a paid kerb, that cost is charged at cost, as a toll or parking would be.

What waiting costs after that

The rate is the vehicle's own hourly rate, which is stated on your booking.

• Charged in fifteen-minute blocks, starting from the end of the included time.
• Charged to the card on file, and itemised on the receipt as waiting time.
• We tell you before the clock starts wherever we can reach you. A charge that arrives without warning is a charge we would rather not make.
• If the delay is ours, a late chauffeur or a vehicle problem, nothing is charged, whatever the cause.

When it becomes a no-show

A no-show is charged in full, so the bar for calling one is deliberately high.

• The included time has to have run out completely.
• We have to have tried the phone number on the booking and not reached anyone.
• On an airport arrival, we check the flight before anything else. An aircraft that has not landed cannot produce a no-show.
• Any contact from you at all stops the clock: a call, a message on the booking, a reply to the driver.
• If a journey is recorded as a no-show and you think it should not have been, tell us. We keep the timings and we will show you them.

Waiting between stops

This is what an hourly booking is for, and it is almost always the cheaper answer.

• On an hourly booking the car stays with you and waiting is not charged separately at any point.
• Hourly bookings start at four hours and run up to sixteen in one booking.
• On a point-to-point fare, a stop added when you book carries a fixed charge per stop and includes a short wait.
• If a day has more than a couple of stops, book by the hour. Several point-to-point fares plus waiting costs more than the hours would have.

Waiting to drop off

• There is no charge for the time it takes to unload at the end of a journey.
• Where a drop-off means a long wait at a barrier, a security check or a gated entrance, that is part of the journey and is not charged.
• A journey that ends and then continues, waiting while you go in and come out again, is a stop, and is charged as one.

What we ask of you

None of these are conditions. They are the four things that stop a waiting charge from ever happening.

• Give us a phone number you will actually have with you.
• Give us the flight number on any airport booking. Without it we cannot watch the aircraft and the pickup cannot move.
• Tell us the moment you know you will be late, even if you are not sure how late.
• If you are being collected somewhere with more than one exit, say which one.