Your chauffeur parks in the short stay car park, walks into the arrivals hall and stands at the meeting point holding a board with your name on it. You are met inside the building, the bags are taken, and you walk to the car together. Nothing happens at a kerb.
Category
Airports
Contact
+44 7775 554848 or info@firstclass-chauffeurs.co.uk
01/The short answer
Your chauffeur parks in the short stay car park, walks into the arrivals hall and stands at the meeting point holding a board with your name on it. You are met inside the building, the bags are taken, and you walk to the car together. Nothing happens at a kerb.
It is the difference between arriving and being collected. A kerbside pickup asks a tired passenger to navigate a terminal, find an exit and identify a car by its number plate. A terminal meet asks them to walk through a door and look for their own name.
QA-01/What happens before you land
What happens before you land
The flight is tracked from departure. If it lands early the chauffeur is already in position; if it is late the whole booking moves rather than the car sitting in a car park burning through a waiting allowance. The collection is rebuilt around the actual arrival time.
About forty minutes before touchdown the chauffeur is on the airport, parked and paid up. That gap exists because the walk from a distant car park to the correct arrivals hall is longer than people expect, particularly at Heathrow where the terminals are not adjacent.
QA-02/The meet itself
The meet itself
The board carries your name, or a discreet reference if you would rather it did not. The chauffeur stands at the designated meeting point in the hall you will actually emerge into, which is a specific place rather than a general area, and stays there.
Once you are met, the bags go on a trolley or into the chauffeur's hands, and you walk to the car. On a bad day this takes ten minutes, because airports are large. On a good one it is four. Either way, you are not standing outside looking for a registration plate.
Flight tracked from departure; collection built from the real landing
Chauffeur in the hall before you clear immigration
Name board, or a discreet alternative if you prefer
Bags taken at the meeting point, not at the car
Free waiting allowance starts when you reach the hall, not at touchdown
QA-03/Where the car park fee comes in
Where the car park fee comes in
A terminal meet means the car is in a short stay car park while the chauffeur is inside. That fee belongs to the airport and appears on your invoice at cost rather than being folded into the transfer figure.
A kerbside collection avoids it, because the car pulls in only when you call to say you are outside. That is the cheaper option and it works well for a passenger who knows the airport. For a guest, a first visit or an overnight arrival, the meet is worth the fee twice over.
QA-04/When the meet matters most
When the meet matters most
Long-haul arrivals at six in the morning, passengers travelling alone, anybody landing somewhere for the first time, families with small children and a lot of luggage, and guests you are collecting on somebody else's behalf. In all of those, the walk to a car park is the part of the trip that goes wrong.
It also matters at the terminals where the forecourt is genuinely hostile. Several UK airports allow drop-off only on the terminal frontage with no waiting at all, which turns a kerbside collection into a lap of the roundabout every time you are three minutes apart.
What if I come out of a different exit from the one expected?
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Ring the chauffeur, whose number is on your confirmation, and stay where you are. Large terminals have more than one route out of customs, and the fastest fix is always for the person who knows the building to walk to you rather than the reverse.
Can the name board show something other than my name?
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Yes. A company name, a reference, or an initial and a colour are all common where a passenger would rather not be identified in an arrivals hall. Tell us at the booking stage and that is what the board says.
Does meet and greet cost more than a kerbside pickup?
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The transfer figure is the same. What differs is the airport car park fee, which is charged at cost and appears as its own line. On a short stay of under an hour it is a modest amount, and it buys a considerably better arrival.
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.
