Chauffeur or ride-hailing. A named chauffeur, a car that waits and a person to call at any hour.
A premium app is built to send the nearest free driver at short notice. A chauffeur company is built so that your journeys are uneventful, and this guide sets out every place that difference shows.
The honest framing
Three categories, not two competitors
There are broadly three ways to be driven in a British city by somebody you are paying. A premium tier on a ride-hailing app, which dispatches the nearest suitable driver from a large pool at the moment you ask. A local private hire or executive car firm, which takes a booking by telephone or email and allocates a car from a smaller pool. And a chauffeur company, which assigns a named person and a specific vehicle to a job that was planned in advance.
All three are regulated the same way, and that is worth knowing before anything else. In London every one of them operates as private hire: the journey must be booked in advance rather than hailed, the driver holds a private hire driver licence, the vehicle holds its own licence, and the business holds an operator licence from Transport for London. Only a black taxi may be flagged down in the street. A premium app tier and a chauffeur company are therefore the same species of business in law, and differ in how they are built.
We are a chauffeur company, so we are not neutral, and every point below is one you can check with any supplier. Our own cars and chauffeurs are in London and Manchester, and a trusted global network covers everywhere else.
Side by side
What actually differs, once you look past the car
| The thing that matters | A premium app tier | A chauffeur company |
|---|---|---|
| Who the driver works for | Usually self-employed, driving for the platform, often for several platforms, in a vehicle that is frequently their own. | Employed by the company, in the company's vehicle, accountable to a named operations desk. Ours are employed in London and Manchester, with a trusted global network everywhere else. |
| Who turns up | Whoever is nearest and free at that minute. A different person each time, with no memory of the last journey. | The same small group of people, and on a retainer one person. Preferences, addresses and gate codes are known rather than repeated. |
| Waiting | Charged by the minute from a short grace period, and the driver will usually move on if the wait grows. Holding a car for an evening is not what the model is for. | Normal. A car held as directed for a morning, a day or an evening is a standard arrangement rather than an exception. |
| Flights | Tracking exists on some services, but the driver is dispatched to a time. A two hour delay usually means the job is gone. | The car is timed to the actual arrival, watched by an operations desk, and repositioned when the aircraft moves. |
| Luggage and party size | You get the vehicle class you chose. Four people with hard cases and skis is a frequent and expensive surprise. | The vehicle is matched to the luggage before the day. See the S-Class and V-Class. |
| When it goes wrong | In-app support, usually after the event. There is rarely a person to telephone while it is happening. | A telephone number that a person answers at any hour, with the authority to send another car. |
| Billing | Per journey, to a card or a business account, with the detail the platform chooses to provide. | On account, with your own references on the invoice line, split by entity or cost centre if you need it. |
| Confidentiality | Governed by the platform's terms. The driver is not known to you and has no relationship with you. | A named group of people, a confidentiality agreement where you want one, and addresses that stay inside the arrangement. |
The left hand column describes a system built to move a very large number of people at short notice. The right hand column describes one built to make your journeys uneventful, which is exactly what a chauffeur is for.
Even the short trips
Why even the short journeys are better with us
The app's whole case rests on the quick, unplanned hop. With an account, even those journeys come with a chauffeur you know and a desk you can call.
- A short hop across town, arranged with one message to people who already know your addresses, rather than a pin dropped on a map and a stranger at the kerb
- A single leg with nothing riding on it, still driven by a chauffeur who answers to our operations desk rather than to a rating
- Late at night, when the person collecting you is known to our desk rather than simply the nearest driver, and a person at Odyssey answers the telephone at any hour
- Travelling alone in a city you do not know, with a chauffeur briefed on the address and the entrance before the day
- A clear price agreed before you travel, rather than a fare that climbs with demand at exactly the hours you need to move
- Any journey where the same face, the same standard and the same discretion matter to you, which on reflection is most of them
Where it matters most
Journeys where an app quietly costs you more
The failures are rarely dramatic. They are a car that left, a boot that was too small, or a driver who did not know there were two entrances.
- Anything attached to a flight, where the arrival time is a guess until it is not. See airport transfers and private jet transfers
- A day of meetings across a city, where the same car and the same driver waiting between them is the whole point. See hourly and as directed
- A roadshow or an investor day, where six people, a schedule and a change of plan have to move together. See executive roadshows
- Anything involving children, a school, an elderly relative or anyone who should not be handed to a stranger from a pool
- A guest you are trying to impress, where the meet and greet at the terminal is the first thing they experience of your firm. See meet and greet
- Anything where the address, the diary or the passenger's name should not sit in a system you do not control
- An evening with no fixed end, where the alternative is standing outside a restaurant in the rain watching a map
The cost question
Compare the day, not the journey
A single leg on an app will usually look cheaper than the same leg from a chauffeur company. The comparison stops being simple the moment the day has more than one leg in it. Three separate app journeys with two long waits between them, in a city where the surge is against you at exactly the hours you need to move, is a different arithmetic from one car held for the morning.
The other half of the calculation is the one nobody puts on an invoice. A missed connection, a principal standing on a pavement, a board meeting that starts late, a client who was collected by somebody who did not know where to go. Those are the costs a chauffeur arrangement is actually bought to remove, and they are why the question is better framed as what a failure would cost than as what a journey costs.
We are happy to be measured on that honestly. Ask us to quote a real month of your own travel rather than a headline rate, which is the comparison that means something. Our pricing page explains how quotations are built, and open an account sets out how an account works for regular travel.
For the person who books
The questions worth asking any of the three
Whoever you use, the same short list separates them. Is the driver employed by the company or introduced by it, and in whose vehicle. Who answers the telephone at two in the morning, and what can that person actually do. How is a flight tracked, and how long does a car wait before somebody asks you a question. What happens to the record of the journey afterwards, and who inside the business can see it.
Ask about subcontracting specifically, because it is the answer that changes most between companies and is the one least often volunteered. A firm that passes your journey to another firm in a city where it has no cars is not necessarily doing anything wrong, but you should know it is happening and who is responsible when it does not work. Our guide to duty of care in ground transport sets the whole list out in an order that makes the answers comparable, and is written to be forwarded to a risk or procurement colleague.
If you book travel for other people for a living, the practical test is simpler still. Count how many times in the last year you had to solve something yourself that a supplier should have solved. That number, rather than any rate card, is what you are actually choosing between. See executive assistants and chiefs of staff for how we work with the people who hold the diary.
Questions people ask
About the comparison
Is a chauffeur company always more expensive?
Per journey, usually. Per day, often not, once waiting, multiple legs and peak pricing are counted. Ask for a quotation against a real month of your own travel and compare totals rather than headlines.
Are the drivers licensed differently?
No. In London a chauffeur and a premium app driver both hold a private hire driver licence, drive a licensed vehicle and work through a licensed operator. The licensing is the floor, not the difference.
Can I still book a single journey without an account?
Yes. Request a quote for the journey and we will confirm it with you directly. An account is for people who travel regularly enough to be tired of repeating themselves.
Do you track flights?
Yes, and the car is timed to the arrival rather than to the booking. If an aircraft is delayed by hours the chauffeur waits and the office tells you, rather than the job being cancelled.
Will I get the same chauffeur each time?
Where you want that, yes, as far as one person's working week allows. A named chauffeur on a monthly arrangement is described on our dedicated chauffeur page.
What happens outside London and Manchester?
Our own cars and employed chauffeurs are in London and Manchester, and a trusted global network covers everywhere else. There we arrange cars through operators we know, hold the responsibility for the arrangement ourselves, and always tell you who is driving.
If you are choosing a supplier
Two further guides that go with this one
Our duty of care guide sets out what to ask any ground transport provider about accountability, subcontracting and escalation. Our tender guide covers the same ground for a formal procurement exercise, including how to structure the pricing questions so that proposals are comparable.
Compare it properly
Send us a real month of travel
Give us a month of journeys as they actually happened, waiting and all, and we will quote it so you can compare a total against a total. Nothing is booked or charged online and there is no obligation in asking.
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