Chauffeur hire in Thamesmead, SE28

A collection at Lesnes Abbey Woods works differently from one at a house. The chauffeur speaks to the desk, waits where the building's own arrangements allow in Thamesmead, and comes to the door rather than expecting you to find a forecourt.

The whole collection should take about ninety seconds from the door in Thamesmead to a moving car. That is the figure a Thamesmead pick-up is built around, and everything above exists to protect it.

• Chauffeur, vehicle and registration on the Thamesmead confirmation before the day
• Car in position ahead of the booked time, parked legally near Crossway Park
• One message naming exactly where the car is standing in Thamesmead
• Luggage loaded at the Thamesmead kerb, doors held, no waiting on the pavement

The awkward part of arriving at Abbey Wood is not the walk. It is the walk with luggage, in the dark, into a Thamesmead taxi queue with eleven people already in it.

Rail into Thamesmead and a car onward to London City is a common shape, and it is one booking rather than two. The chauffeur holds the Abbey Wood train number and the London City flight number together.

Immigration queues at London City are the wildcard nobody can price into a Thamesmead booking. They are also why waiting runs from touchdown rather than from a scheduled landing, so a slow hall at London City costs a Thamesmead booking nothing at all.

Once the cases are in, the return into Thamesmead is deliberately dull. If you want to sleep between London City and Thamesmead, sleep. If you want the fastest way to Crossway Park rather than the shortest, say so and it happens.

• A second drop in Abbey Wood priced into the same booking
• Trains into Abbey Wood watched the same way as flights
• Private arrivals met airside at the London City handling agent, then driven to Thamesmead
• No telephone call from an London City car park before the run to Thamesmead