There is a free allowance on every booking, and waiting only becomes chargeable past it. Airport collections get the longest allowance because arrivals are unpredictable. Beyond the allowance, time is billed in the same hourly units and at the same vehicle rate you already agreed, with nothing new introduced.
Category
Booking and pricing
Contact
+44 7775 554848 or info@firstclass-chauffeurs.co.uk
01/The short answer
There is a free allowance on every booking, and waiting only becomes chargeable past it. Airport collections get the longest allowance because arrivals are unpredictable. Beyond the allowance, time is billed in the same hourly units and at the same vehicle rate you already agreed, with nothing new introduced.
Most people never reach the charge. The allowance exists precisely because the last twenty minutes of an arrival are outside anybody's control, and pricing them aggressively would make the whole service worse. It is the second hour on a doorstep, not the second passport queue, that costs money.
QA-01/How the airport allowance works
How the airport allowance works
At an airport the clock does not start when the aircraft lands. It starts once you are through immigration and into the arrivals hall, which is the only moment that has anything to do with you. Everything before that is the airport's timetable, not yours.
Because flights are tracked, a delayed aircraft simply moves the whole booking. The chauffeur is repositioned rather than left standing, and the collection time is rebuilt around the new landing. That is why a two hour delay does not appear on the invoice as two hours of waiting.
QA-02/How it works at an address
How it works at an address
A doorstep is a known quantity, so the allowance is shorter. It is there for the ordinary friction of leaving a building: a bag forgotten upstairs, a call that runs on, a lift that is slow. Fifteen minutes covers almost all of that.
When you know in advance that you will be longer, the answer is not to run the allowance down. It is to book the time. An hourly booking with the car held outside is cheaper and calmer than a transfer that turns into a standing charge, and it means the chauffeur can park properly rather than circling.
QA-03/What waiting costs once it starts
What waiting costs once it starts
It is charged at the hourly rate of the vehicle you booked, which is stated on your quotation. There is no separate waiting tariff and no premium for the fact that the car is stationary — a waiting hour and a driving hour cost exactly the same.
That symmetry is deliberate. If waiting were priced higher than driving, every quotation would become an argument about which hour was which. Keeping one number means a day that half-collapses into standing time still prices in a way you can check yourself.
Airport arrivals: allowance starts after you clear into the hall, not at touchdown
Addresses: a short allowance for ordinary delays leaving a building
Beyond the allowance: the vehicle's own hourly rate, in the same units
Known long waits: booked as hourly hire from the start, which costs less
Car park fees at an airport are separate from waiting time
QA-04/Meetings, hospitals and the honestly unknowable
Meetings, hospitals and the honestly unknowable
Some appointments cannot be timed. A hospital discharge, a court listing, a board meeting with a difficult item on it. For these, hourly hire is the only sane format, and the minimum block is usually less than people fear once they compare it with two transfers plus waiting.
The practical benefit is that the chauffeur stays contactable and nearby rather than being sent away and recalled. You walk out and the car is at the kerb inside a few minutes, which is the whole point of having booked one.
Does the waiting clock run while the chauffeur is stuck in traffic on the way to me?
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No. Getting the car to you on time is our responsibility, and time spent travelling towards a pickup is never charged as waiting. The booking begins at the agreed pickup time whether the car arrived twenty minutes early or exactly on the hour.
Is waiting time charged in whole hours or smaller units?
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It is measured in the same increments as the rest of the booking rather than rounding a stray ten minutes up to a full hour. Where a wait is long enough to be substantial, we will usually suggest converting the booking to hourly hire, which is cheaper again.
What if I am the one who is early and want to leave before the booked time?
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Leaving early is never a problem and never costs more. If the chauffeur is already on site the car simply goes when you do. On a fixed transfer the price is unchanged, and on an hourly booking you are still held to the minimum block you agreed.
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.
