Can I hold a chauffeur booking without committing to it?
Yes, on a provisional basis for an agreed period. A hold takes the vehicle out of the diary for your date while your plans firm up, then either becomes a confirmed booking or lapses. Nothing is charged for a hold that expires.
Category
Booking and pricing
Contact
+44 7775 554848 or info@firstclass-chauffeurs.co.uk
01/The short answer
Yes, on a provisional basis for an agreed period. A hold takes the vehicle out of the diary for your date while your plans firm up, then either becomes a confirmed booking or lapses. Nothing is charged for a hold that expires.
It exists for the situations where a date is real but the trip is not yet. A wedding where the venue is booked and the timings are not. An event you are bidding to host. A visiting client whose flights are still being argued about by somebody else.
QA-01/How a hold works in practice
How a hold works in practice
We agree a period, usually a week or two, occasionally longer for a distant date. The vehicle is marked against your name and not offered elsewhere. Before the period ends we come back to you rather than letting it quietly disappear.
If somebody else asks for the same car in the meantime, you get first refusal. That is the point of the arrangement: you are not obliged, but you are not going to lose the vehicle to a booking you never heard about.
An agreed hold period, typically one to two weeks
The vehicle is withdrawn from the diary for that date
First refusal if another enquiry comes in
No charge if the hold lapses
Converts to a firm booking with one reply
QA-02/When a hold is worth asking for
When a hold is worth asking for
Any date where the vehicle is scarce and the plan is not settled. Saturdays in high summer, the fortnight before Christmas, and anything involving a Rolls-Royce are the obvious cases. On an ordinary weekday in a saloon a hold is unnecessary, because the car will still be there.
It is also useful when you are pricing an event for somebody else. A hold means the figure you quote your client is one you can still deliver a fortnight later, which is not true of a quotation alone.
QA-03/What a hold does not do
What a hold does not do
It does not lock the price beyond the quoted journey, and it does not survive indefinitely. Holds that drift for months stop being useful to anybody, which is why the period is agreed at the start rather than left open.
It also does not substitute for a deposit on the bookings that need one. A summer Saturday wedding car eventually needs a deposit to be genuinely secure, and the hold is the bridge to that point rather than an alternative to it.
QA-04/Extending or releasing a hold
Extending or releasing a hold
Extending is usually possible and takes one email, unless the date has become contested in the meantime. If it has, we will say so plainly rather than extending and then withdrawing the car a week later.
Releasing is just as easy and there is no awkwardness in it. Plans change, and a hold released early is genuinely more useful to us than one that expires silently. Send a line to info@firstclass-chauffeurs.co.uk and it is done.
Can I hold more than one vehicle for the same date?
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For an event with an uncertain headcount, yes, and it is a sensible thing to do. Holding three cars while a guest list settles is normal. We would ask for a realistic date by which the number firms up, since a long hold on several vehicles is a real commitment.
Does a hold cost anything if I go ahead?
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Nothing. The hold simply becomes the booking at the quoted figure, and no fee is attached to the period it sat provisionally. It is an administrative arrangement rather than a product with a price on it.
What happens if the hold expires and I still want the car?
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Ask anyway. Often the date has not been taken and the booking can simply be made. On a busy date it may have gone, which is the risk the hold was protecting you from, and we would look at what else is available in the same class.
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.
