Chauffeur Travel Glossary

Ground transport has accumulated a vocabulary that nobody explains to the person paying for it. As-directed, deadhead, standby, wait and return, FBO - all of it means something specific, and none of it is obvious from the words themselves.

Each entry defines the term in the first two sentences, then explains where it comes from, how it appears on a booking, and what it is commonly confused with.

If a word on your quotation is not here, ask us. Nothing on a booking should be a term you had to look up alone.

Nobody meters this end of the market. A quotation gets built instead: the distance covered, the number of hours the car is committed for, which vehicle the day calls for, and the hour you happen to be travelling. One written figure comes back to you. Where the job is a single movement between two points, it is priced that way; where the diary holds several stops, hourly work usually serves better, since the car simply waits between appointments rather than being rebooked. Congestion Charge, ULEZ and tolls all sit inside that guide figure. Waiting time is agreed up front, never totted up against you afterwards.

Eighteen service types is a lot to read through, though the choice narrows quickly once you ask what shape the day takes. One arrival, or one departure: that is a transfer. A morning of meetings is hourly work. A wedding is choreography. Vehicles sort themselves out along the same lines. One or two people travelling light are comfortable in a saloon. Bring luggage, or bring a group, and the people carrier earns its place the moment it appears. The more ceremonial marques get chosen for how they photograph as much as for how they ride.

Preparation is the line between this and a private hire booking. A chauffeur is named to your job in advance, briefed on the route, told which entrance you will use and where the car may legally wait, then kept with you for the whole engagement. Pricing it accurately means we need the date, the timings, both addresses, the number travelling, an honest count of the luggage that is genuinely coming, and any flight number, since that lets us plan around the published schedule. WhatsApp or email, either is fine. A considered proposal comes back.