A great deal of chauffeur travel is booked by somebody who will not be in the car. Assistants arrange it for executives, hosts for visiting clients, adult children for elderly parents, event teams for speakers who have never met them. It works perfectly well, but it introduces a failure mode that direct bookings do not have: two people holding different versions of the plan.
This guide is about closing that gap. What information only the passenger has, what the passenger needs from you before the day, how contact should be arranged so the chauffeur is not ringing the wrong person, and how privacy is handled when the booker and the traveller are different people. None of it is complicated, but all of it is easy to skip.
Two briefs, not one
When you book for somebody else you are actually producing two documents. One goes to us and describes the journey. The other goes to the passenger and tells them what will happen. Most problems come from the second one never being written, so the traveller arrives at a terminal with no idea who is collecting them or where to stand.
Keep them consistent. If you tell us the collection is at half past seven and tell the passenger eight, somebody will be standing in the cold. It sounds obvious and it is one of the most common failures in assisted booking, usually because a change was made with us and never passed on, or agreed with the traveller and never passed to us.
The details only the passenger knows
You can supply the addresses and the times. What you often cannot supply are the preferences and constraints that live only in the traveller's head, and those are precisely the details that decide whether the journey feels considered. It is worth a short message to them before you send the enquiry, even if the reply is a single line, because a single line is usually all it takes.
You do not need answers to all of it. A quick note saying they prefer not to talk, or that they always take the front seat, or that they cannot manage a low car, is worth more than a paragraph of general instructions. Anything you do learn should come to us, because the chauffeur can only act on what has been passed along.
- How much luggage they are genuinely bringing, counted
- Whether they would rather travel in silence or are happy to chat
- Any mobility difficulty, including getting into a low seat
- Whether they want to be met inside a terminal or at the kerb
- Preferred name and pronunciation for a greeting or a name board
- Whether they are likely to want a stop en route
- Any dietary, temperature or comfort preference worth anticipating
Who the chauffeur contacts
This needs deciding explicitly rather than by default. If the chauffeur has only your number and the passenger is standing outside the wrong exit, you become a relay between two people who could simply speak to each other. If the chauffeur has only the passenger's number and something changes at your end, you cannot reach anybody at all, which is worse still when the change is a significant one.
The workable arrangement is usually both, with an order of preference stated. Give us the passenger's mobile for the day and your own as the fallback, and tell the passenger to expect a message from a chauffeur they have not met. If the traveller would rather not be contacted directly, say so and we will route everything through you instead.
Privacy and what we will confirm
Journey details are treated as confidential and are shared only with the people who need them to run the booking. If somebody rings asking where a particular passenger is, or when they landed, or where they were taken, that is not information we discuss. That principle protects your traveller, and occasionally it will mean we decline to tell somebody something they feel entitled to know.
It works in the other direction too. If you are booking for a client or an executive, think about how much personal detail actually needs to travel with the booking. We need what affects the journey. A medical reason for needing extra time is not required; the fact that extra time is needed is, and that is the level of detail worth passing on.
Paperwork, billing and who receives what
Say at the outset who should receive the quotation, who should receive the confirmation, and in whose name any receipt or invoice should be issued. These are frequently three different answers when a company books for a guest, and sorting it at the outset is considerably easier than reissuing documents afterwards to satisfy somebody in finance who was never told about the booking.
Billing arrangements are agreed in writing when the booking is made rather than assumed, and if the passenger should not see the commercial detail, tell us. It is a completely normal request when a host is covering travel for a visitor, and it simply means the traveller receives the practical information while everything else comes to you. It is a small thing to specify and an awkward one to correct later.
Booking for someone travelling alone
Extra care is worth taking when the passenger is elderly, unwell, unfamiliar with the country or travelling alone at night. The most valuable things you can do are simple: tell them the chauffeur's name in advance, tell them exactly where the car will be, and make sure they have a number they can use if anything is not as expected.
Tell us as well. Knowing that a passenger may need help with bags, may be nervous, may not have travelled here before, or is arriving very late changes how the chauffeur approaches the collection. It is the difference between somebody being met and somebody being collected, and for a traveller at the end of a long day the difference is considerable.
- Give the traveller the chauffeur name and the exact meeting point
- Make sure they hold a number that will work on arrival
- Tell us if they have not travelled in this country before
- Say if the collection is late at night or very early
- Mention any help needed with bags, steps or a low seat
