The lunch will be judged. So will the car that brought them.
A relationship manager spends the season being host: a badge, a table, a car home. The hospitality is the easy part to buy and the easy part to spoil, and the client is the one person who must never feel managed.
- 20+years in private travel
- Ownedchauffeur fleet in London and Manchester, a trusted global network beyond
- 24/7operations desk, one contact
- 3services on one itinerary: car, jet and yacht
In partnership with Harrods Aviation · Signature Aviation · SW Global
What usually goes wrong
The problems of being the host
- A guest list that changes until the morning: a wife now travelling too, a colleague who cannot come, a client who will make his own way and then does not
- Guests scattered between Surrey, Gloucestershire, Kensington and a hotel in Mayfair, all of whom must arrive within the same twenty minutes
- Hospitality that has to be recorded properly, with the benefit attributed per guest, and must never look like anything other than what it is
- A driver who mentions to your next guest which other clients he took to the races last week
How a hospitality day runs
One coordinator, and nobody left standing
We plan an event day backwards from the moment you want your guests in the room, not forwards from a pick up time. Each car has a manifest: who is in it, from where, the mobile number of the person actually travelling, and an agreed answer to what happens if they are not outside at the appointed hour. Guests arrive together rather than in a slow trickle.
During the day one coordinator on our desk follows every car, so the bank's own people are not standing in a car park counting vehicles. Departures are staggered rather than simultaneous, because thirty cars leaving a racecourse at the same minute is not a plan, and a guest who wants to leave early does not have to announce it to the table.
You decide how visible we are. Some banks ask us to confirm arrangements with guests directly; others want every contact to come from their own team. We will not telephone your client unless you have asked us to.
The season
The year as a diary
| When | What is on | How it is usually booked |
|---|---|---|
| May | RHS Chelsea Flower Show | Small groups, short journeys, and nowhere to stand near the showground. |
| June | The Derby at Epsom and Royal Ascot | All day cars, morning dress, guests from London and the home counties. |
| Late June into July | Wimbledon and the grass court season | The day ends when play ends, not when a timetable says. |
| Early July | Henley Royal Regatta and the British Grand Prix | Riverside access, and a circuit that empties all at once. |
| July | Goodwood Festival of Speed | Sussex lanes, long walks from the car parks, a slow final hour. |
| Late July into August | The Qatar Goodwood Festival | The same roads in summer traffic, often with a house party nearby. |
| September | Goodwood Revival and golf at Wentworth | The close of the season, and dress that does not survive a shuttle bus. |
| October | Frieze London and the autumn art calendar | Several short central journeys in an evening, the car held between them. |
Dates change every year and are published by each organiser. We confirm them when the day is planned, and every event page on this site is reviewed annually.
What banks use us for
Beyond the hospitality days
Client hospitality
Ascot, Wimbledon, Goodwood, Henley and the rest of the season, with cars held for the whole day.
Groups and guest lists
Twenty guests from eighteen addresses, arriving together. One manifest, one coordinator.
Relationship managers on the road
A day of client meetings with a car at your disposal, rather than three trains and a taxi rank.
Visiting clients
Clients arriving from the Gulf, Asia or the United States, met at the aircraft and looked after for the week.
Client families
The next generation, elderly clients and their households, driven by people you already trust.
Conferences and seminars
Speakers and delegates moved between a venue, a dinner and the hotels.
Discretion and the register
Recorded properly, discussed nowhere
Two things sit awkwardly together in this sector: hospitality must be documented, and clients must never feel documented. Every journey can carry your reference, an event code or a guest's initials, so what your compliance team needs for the gifts and hospitality register is on the invoice rather than in somebody's memory. One event, one consolidated invoice, a line per car.
The second half is simpler. Our chauffeurs do not discuss who they carried, on that day or any other. No name boards unless you want them, no photographs ever, and guest lists held by the desk staff working on that event and nobody else. See security and discretion.
The commercial side
Set up for a cost centre, not a card
- CodingEvent, desk or cost centreYour reference on each journey, shown per car on the invoice.
- InvoicingOne invoice per eventConsolidated monthly across the account, split however your finance team needs it.
- BookersNamed by youAssistants, events teams, relationship managers or your travel management company.
- Busy weeksTell us earlyAscot and Wimbledon weeks fill first. The earlier we hold cars, the more of them we can hold.
Charging is agreed in writing before an account starts. See pricing and how we charge.
Request a proposal
Tell us about your season
Which events, how many guests, where they travel from and who coordinates the day. We will reply with a proposal and a plan for one event, so you can judge us on a single day before committing to a year of them.
Prefer to talk? +44 2030 048300 or WhatsApp, at any hour.
Questions people ask
From private banks
How early should we book the season?
As soon as you have your badges or tickets. Ascot and Wimbledon weeks are the first to fill, for us and for everyone else, and a guest list that firms up in May is much easier to serve than one that firms up in June.
Will you contact our clients directly?
Only if you ask us to. Many banks prefer every contact to come from their own team, and we are happy either way.
Can a guest leave early or stay late?
Yes. With a car held for the day, departures are a matter of a message rather than a negotiation, and one guest leaving does not disturb the rest of the table.
Can you handle twenty or thirty cars for one event?
Tell us the event and the numbers and we will be honest about what we can cover with our own cars and where we would use operators we know. We would rather say so in advance than on the morning.
Can the invoice show the cost per guest for our hospitality register?
Yes. Journeys can carry an event code and be itemised per car on one invoice for the day.
One contact, wherever you are