A parent, a client, a candidate. Whose number goes on the job, what the board says, and what happens when the passenger has no roaming. Booking a car for yourself is a simple transaction. Booking one to meet somebody else is a small exercise in remote logistics, and it fails in a predictable way: the person paying gives their own mobile number, the passenger lands with no roaming and no idea what the arrangement is, and two people stand ninety feet apart in the same terminal for twenty minutes. Every operator has seen it. It is entirely preventable. Most of these bookings are one of three things. Somebody is collecting an elderly parent who does not want to think about it. A company is collecting a visitor and wants them looked after from the door. Or a family member is arriving into an airport they have never used and the person at home has decided, correctly, that this is not the day for a taxi rank.
Category
Airports
Published
21 October 2025
Sections
7 sections
Category
Airports
Reading time
7 minutes
Published
21 October 2025
Sections
7 sections
01/The short version
Booking a car to meet somebody who is not you
Booking a car for yourself is a simple transaction. Booking one to meet somebody else is a small exercise in remote logistics, and it fails in a predictable way: the person paying gives their own mobile number, the passenger lands with no roaming and no idea what the arrangement is, and two people stand ninety feet apart in the same terminal for twenty minutes. Every operator has seen it. It is entirely preventable.
Most of these bookings are one of three things. Somebody is collecting an elderly parent who does not want to think about it. A company is collecting a visitor and wants them looked after from the door. Or a family member is arriving into an airport they have never used and the person at home has decided, correctly, that this is not the day for a taxi rank.
GD-01/The number that matters is the passenger one
The number that matters is the passenger one
The single most useful thing on a booking of this kind is a mobile number that will be switched on inside the terminal. That is almost never the number of the person paying. If your mother is flying in from Toronto with a Canadian handset and no roaming, her number is of no use to anybody, and the honest thing to do is say so at the booking stage so the plan does not depend on it.
Where the passenger genuinely will be uncontactable, the arrangement has to be built to work without a phone: a board with a name they will recognise, a fixed position in the hall the chauffeur does not leave, and a message sent to you rather than to them. That works perfectly well. What does not work is a plan that assumes a call will connect and has no fallback when it does not.
Give the passenger mobile, and say if it will not work in the UK
Give your own number as the second contact, not the first
Say who the chauffeur should call if neither answers
Tell us the passenger name as it is on the ticket
GD-02/Telling the passenger what will happen
Telling the passenger what will happen
Somebody has to explain the arrangement to the person flying, and it is better if that somebody is you. A short message before they board, saying that a chauffeur will be standing in front of the arrivals doors with a board reading a particular name, removes almost every failure mode. It sounds obvious. It is skipped constantly.
The board name is worth thinking about. A visiting client looking for a board will look for their own surname or the name of the company that invited them, and if the board carries the name of the person who paid, they will walk straight past it. Tell us which one to use and tell the passenger the same thing, so both ends match.
GD-03/Collecting an older relative
Collecting an older relative
This is the version where the details matter most and where the extra care is genuinely worth paying for. Requested assistance at the airport is a good thing and it should be booked with the airline, but it is a scheduled service and it can add twenty minutes at the aircraft. Tell us it has been booked, because it changes the waiting allowance and it changes where the passenger will emerge.
The other thing worth arranging is the far end. A chauffeur who takes the cases to the door of a flat rather than leaving them on a kerb is doing the part of the job that actually matters here, and it needs to be on the worksheet rather than assumed. Say whether there are stairs, whether somebody will be in, and whether the passenger has keys.
GD-04/Collecting a visitor for a company
Collecting a visitor for a company
A visiting speaker, a candidate for a job, a client flying in for a meeting. The pattern is the same and the useful details are slightly different: the passenger usually has roaming, usually has hand luggage, and usually wants to know whether they are going to a hotel or straight to an office. Tell us which, because a passenger who expects a hotel and is driven to an office at nine in the morning has a bad morning.
The board question is worth settling too. Some visitors prefer their own name; others would rather see the host company, particularly at a busy hour when they are looking for something they were told to expect. Neither is complicated, but the two ends have to agree, and the person booking is the only one who can make them agree.
GD-05/When you should not book this at all
When you should not book this at all
If the passenger is a confident traveller landing at an airport they use every month with hand luggage, a met arrival is a courtesy rather than a help, and a car booked to collect them from the kerb at a stated time does the same job for less. There is no point paying for a meet inside the hall for somebody who would rather walk straight out and find the car.
The second case is a teenager or a young adult travelling alone for whom the airline is already providing an escort service. Those services have their own handover procedures and their own restrictions, and a chauffeur cannot take custody of a passenger the airline is responsible for until the airline releases them. It is workable, but it needs the airline arrangement understood first, and sometimes the simpler answer is for a family member to be there.
The third is a very short connection. If the person you are collecting has to be somewhere within ninety minutes of a long-haul landing, the honest advice is to move the meeting rather than to buy a faster car. No ground transport rescues an itinerary that never had any slack in it.
GD-06/What the chauffeur does differently
What the chauffeur does differently
On a booking made by a third party the chauffeur reports to two people. The passenger gets the welcome; you get the messages. He will confirm when he is in position, confirm when the passenger is in the car, and confirm arrival at the far end, and he will do that by message rather than calling you at six in the morning.
He will also be more patient about identification. A passenger who was not expecting to be met, or who has been told a different name from the one on the board, needs a moment to be sure. That is normal and it is handled by knowing the flight, the destination and the name of the person who made the booking, which is enough for anybody to be comfortable.
Confirmation when the chauffeur is in position
Confirmation when the passenger is in the car
Confirmation at the destination, by message
A named booker the chauffeur can refer to if asked
GD-07/Paying for a journey you are not on
Paying for a journey you are not on
The passenger should not be asked for anything at the end of the journey, and on a booking of this kind they are not. The figure is agreed in writing with the person booking before the day, and there is nothing to settle at the kerb. The one thing worth telling the passenger is that it is already dealt with, because otherwise they will reach for a wallet out of politeness.
If the arrangement involves several journeys over a few days, it is usually simpler to set them up as one booking with a stated itinerary rather than as separate jobs. That way a change on day two does not require the whole thing to be re-explained, and there is one written figure covering the lot.
02/If you read nothing else
The points that matter most
01
The number that matters is the passenger one
The single most useful thing on a booking of this kind is a mobile number that will be switched on inside the terminal.
02
Telling the passenger what will happen
Somebody has to explain the arrangement to the person flying, and it is better if that somebody is you.
03
Collecting an older relative
This is the version where the details matter most and where the extra care is genuinely worth paying for.
04
Collecting a visitor for a company
A visiting speaker, a candidate for a job, a client flying in for a meeting.
05
When you should not book this at all
If the passenger is a confident traveller landing at an airport they use every month with hand luggage, a met arrival is a courtesy rather than a help, and a car booked to collect them from the kerb at a stated time does the same job for less.
06
What the chauffeur does differently
On a booking made by a third party the chauffeur reports to two people.
03/Where this leads
Pages worth opening next
Each of these covers a part of this guide in more depth, on the page that owns it.
The same answers we would give on the phone, written down.
What if the person I am collecting has no working phone in the UK?
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Say so at booking and the plan is built without one. The chauffeur stands in a fixed position in front of the arrivals doors with a board and does not move, and the confirmations come to you instead. Most collections of elderly relatives work exactly this way, and they work reliably provided the passenger has been told what to look for.
Whose name should be on the board?
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Whatever the passenger has been told to look for. For a visiting client that is often the host company; for a relative it is usually their own surname, or a first name if that will be spotted faster. The only rule that matters is that the board and the message the passenger received say the same thing.
Will the chauffeur let me know when they are safely in the car?
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Yes, by message, at three points: in position, passenger collected, and arrived. It is the standard routine on a third-party booking. If you would rather have a call at the collection point, say so, though a message tends to be more useful at five in the morning.
Can I add a stop or change the destination while they are in the air?
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Usually. A change of destination within the same city is straightforward and is dealt with by a phone call to the chauffeur. A change that turns a twenty-mile transfer into a hundred-mile one is a different job and is repriced, though we would rather do that than leave somebody at the wrong address.
Tell us the journey. We will send the price in writing.
Message us the date, the pick-up and where you are going. You will get a fixed written quotation with the vehicle, the chauffeur’s arrival time and what the figure includes — no form to fill in, and no estimate that moves later.
