The arrangement is familiar enough. What surprises people is how differently it is documented from an ordinary transfer, and how much of the value comes from that documentation rather than from the driving. A booking with no destination has to be described some other way, and how it is described determines how well the day runs.
Below is what a confirmation for one actually contains, how a chauffeur prepares for a day whose route does not exist yet, how the arrangement behaves on a corporate account where somebody other than the passenger has to approve and reconcile it, and where its boundaries lie, since an open day is not an unlimited one.
What the confirmation shows
In place of a destination there is a duration, and everything else follows from it. The document states when the engagement begins, where the car will be waiting, how many hours have been reserved, which vehicle class has been allocated and who the chauffeur will be. The route is simply absent, and correctly so.
That absence is what has to be agreed carefully at the outset, because the terms governing an open-ended day are different from those governing a fixed transfer. How additional hours are handled, and what happens if the day runs a long way outside the expected area, are set out in writing before the booking is confirmed rather than negotiated in the back of a car.
Planning a day with no route
A chauffeur cannot pre-plan a route that does not exist, so the preparation goes into the surrounding knowledge instead: where a car can legally wait in each part of the area, which car parks accept a vehicle of that size, where the loading restrictions bite, and how the traffic behaves through the day in that particular city.
This is why the rough geography of the day is worth mentioning even when the stops are not fixed. Knowing you will be somewhere in the West End before lunch and somewhere in the City afterwards lets the chauffeur think about holding positions in advance, which is the difference between the car being there when you emerge and the car being ten minutes away.
On a corporate account
As-directed bookings are the format most corporate travel arrangements use, because they behave well administratively. One engagement produces one reference, one chauffeur and one line to reconcile, rather than a scattering of individual transfers that have to be pieced back together afterwards. The details below are what a finance or travel team will usually want recorded against that single line.
- A single booking reference for the whole engagement
- The named passenger, and who to contact if plans change
- A cost centre, purchase order or project reference where required
- The approved duration, and who may authorise an extension
- The procedure for extending on the day and who is told
- One documented record for expenses and reconciliation afterwards
Where its boundaries lie
An as-directed booking reserves time, not unlimited distance, and a day that turns unexpectedly into a long run to another region is a different job that will be discussed with you rather than absorbed in silence. Chauffeurs also work to driving and rest requirements, so very long days may need a second chauffeur arranged beforehand.
It is also not the right shape for every day. Where the destination is known and the wait is the variable, a wait and return is the cleaner arrangement. Where a fixed schedule of meetings runs across several days or cities, that is a roadshow, planned and staffed quite differently even though the hours look similar on paper.
