Car and Driver Hire for a Week in London

Journey times are typical, not guaranteed. We plan departure times around live traffic on the day.

What does a week of chauffeur hire actually cost?

Seven full days at £400 each come to £2,800. Seven half days at £250 each come to £1,750. Most weeks mix the two, with shorter hourly bookings at £55 an hour (three-hour minimum) on lighter days, which usually lands the total somewhere between those figures.

There's no separate weekly rate, because there's only one chauffeur and one electric Mercedes-Benz EQE — booking a week sets that car aside for you for seven days, so the price is simply the sum of whichever day rates you use. A week built around three full days of meetings (3 × £400 = £1,200) and four half days for airport runs, sightseeing and evenings out (4 × £250 = £1,000) comes to £2,200 before any night-hour additions.

A single half day committed to the car for several hours (£250) is a different proposition from a single point-to-point transfer between two fixed addresses (from £45): the half day suits a morning of stop-start meetings around central London, while the point-to-point suits one journey with a clear start and end, such as a hotel in west London to a restaurant in the West End.

Is it cheaper to book single journeys instead of a full or half day?

It depends on how many separate journeys that day needs. A point-to-point fare from £45, or an hourly booking from £55 (three-hour minimum, so £165), can cost less than a £250 half day if there are only one or two trips, but a half or full day usually works out cheaper once the car is needed for three or more stops.

Airport legs at the start and end of the week are usually best booked as their own fares rather than folded into a day rate. Heathrow is £80 within roughly 12 miles of non-central addresses or £115 further out; London City is £65 or £90 on the same basis; Gatwick and Stansted are each £150; Luton is £140. Every one of those airport pickups includes meet and greet, flight tracking and 60 minutes' waiting, so a delayed landing on day one of the week doesn't cost extra.

In the middle of the week, an hourly booking suits a single morning of two or three meetings in one part of town, while a half or full day earns its keep once the car needs to wait outside a meeting, move on, then wait again — there's no meter running and no separate waiting charge, so a long day doesn't creep upward the way a metered fare would.

If you want a car and driver for longer than a single transfer, see day hire and day trips.

What happens if an evening during the week runs past 23:00?

Any hour between 23:00 and 06:00 adds 20% to whichever rate applies that day. A half day that extends into a late dinner becomes £300 instead of £250; a full day that runs into the early hours becomes £480 instead of £400.

This matters most on evenings built around the West End or Covent Garden, where a show finishing around 22:45 can easily mean a drop-off after 23:00. The workable collection point for Covent Garden is Covent Garden Underground station — passengers walk the short distance to the piazza from there — with Trafalgar Square station as the fallback if the streets around the piazza are busy, which they often are once a show lets out.

Because the price is agreed before the journey starts, the night-rate addition is agreed in advance too, not discovered afterwards: if a half-day or full-day booking is likely to run past 23:00, it's priced that way from the outset.

Will it be the same driver and car for all seven days?

Yes. One chauffeur and one electric Mercedes-Benz EQE, seating up to three passengers, for the whole week — never a substitute, never a different car on day four. You deal with the same person from the first WhatsApp message to the last drop-off.

Because it's one driver and one car, a full week of bookings takes that car out of circulation for anyone else over those seven days, so it's worth arranging as far ahead as possible rather than the day before. Every journey within the week is still confirmed in writing and priced before it happens — no meter, no waiting charge, and no deposit taken to hold the week in the first place.

Payment is settled at the end of each day's hire rather than upfront: a card machine travels in the car and takes Visa, Mastercard and American Express by contactless, chip and PIN, Apple Pay or Google Pay. UK contactless payments cap at £100, so a £250 half day or a £400 full day needs a PIN or a phone payment rather than a tap — worth knowing before reaching for a card at the end of a long day. No card is held on file between the days of the booking.

What does a realistic week-long itinerary actually look like?

A typical week opens and closes with an airport transfer, runs two or three full or half days around central London meetings, and fits in an evening or two in the West End — each priced and confirmed before it happens, with the same chauffeur throughout.

Day one is often a Heathrow pickup: the car waits outside the Terminal 5 arrivals exit, by the Pret a Manger that's become the landmark drivers and passengers use to find each other, since drivers can't come inside the terminal itself. Weekday mornings are heavier going into London and weekday evenings are heavier coming back out towards Heathrow, so a Monday airport-to-hotel leg is quoted as a range rather than a single number — weekend journeys into central London are comparatively clear by comparison.

Sightseeing stops near Big Ben or Trafalgar Square work without the car ever parking: it drops passengers, circles within five minutes, and comes back when they text. A matchday during the week is the one point where the pickup is harder than the drop-off — not because of road closures, but because 60,000 phones leaving at once slow the mobile network to a crawl, which is why WhatsApp's live-location sharing, not a phone call, is how driver and passenger find each other afterwards.

More guides: Chauffeur for Elderly Parents in London | Crest Chauffeurs · London Sightseeing Chauffeur | Crest Chauffeurs London · Do I Need to Rent a Car in London?

What do you only find out by doing this journey?

Where to actually meet at Heathrow Terminal 5. Drivers can't go inside T5 arrivals, so the car waits outside by the Pret a Manger near the arrivals exit — 'meet me by the Pret' is the instruction that works, and it falls inside the 60 minutes' free waiting included on every airport pickup.

When is this the wrong choice?

You need four or more people in one car. The EQE seats up to three passengers. A group of four or more needs a different type of vehicle, which a single-car business can't provide.

• You need two cars moving at the same time. There's one driver and one car, so simultaneous journeys for two separate groups during the week aren't possible — most firms with a fleet wouldn't say this, but it's the honest limit of a one-car operation.
• You're booking a full week starting tomorrow. A week-long booking takes the only car out of circulation for everyone else that week, so it needs to be arranged ahead of time rather than confirmed at a day's notice.

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