Full day £400 (10h); half day £250 (5h); hourly £55/h (3h min). One driver, one electric Mercedes-Benz EQE, up to 3 passengers. Price fixed in writing before you set off.
A full day with your own driver covers Westminster, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, St Paul's, Tower Bridge and the South Bank for £400 across ten hours, or £250 for a five-hour half day, with no walking between stops.
Journey times are typical, not guaranteed. We plan departure times around live traffic on the day.
| Option | Best for | Main tradeoff | Typical cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full day (10h) | Seeing most of central London in one loop | Longest single booking, priced as a day | £400 all-inclusive |
| Half day (5h) | A shorter visit either side of a flight | Not enough time for both east and west London | £250 all-inclusive |
| Hourly hire (3h min) | A quick loop of two or three stops | Three-hour minimum even for a short outing | £55 per hour |
| Point-to-point | One pickup, one drop-off, no sightseeing stops | No stops built into the fare | From £45 |
| Airport start or finish | Beginning or ending the day at an airport | Priced separately from the day-hire hours | Heathrow £80-£115, London City £65-£90, Gatwick/Stansted £150, Luton £140 |
A full day with one driver comfortably covers Westminster, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, St Paul's, Tower Bridge and the South Bank, plus a proper lunch stop. A half day covers the western half of that list — Westminster through to the South Bank — in five hours instead of ten.
A full day is ten hours for £400, all-inclusive, and that is genuinely enough time to cover the places most people mean when they say "central London" — provided you are not also trying to go inside two museums and a palace tour. Westminster, Buckingham Palace and the Mall, Trafalgar Square, St Paul's, Tower Bridge and the South Bank all fit, with a proper hour set aside for lunch in the middle.
A half day is five hours for £250 and suits a shorter stop in London, perhaps either side of a flight. It covers the western half of that list comfortably — Westminster, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square and a finish at the South Bank — but there isn't room to add the eastern run out to Tower Bridge as well without the day feeling rushed.
Either way, the car moves with you between stops, so there is no walking back to a car park and no time lost waiting for a taxi to appear. Picking at most one interior visit, rather than several, is usually what decides whether the day feels complete rather than half finished.
A typical day starts at 10:00 and finishes around 17:00, running east through Westminster and the Mall before lunch, continuing east to St Paul's and Tower Bridge, then back west along the South Bank to finish near Knightsbridge. The order shifts on the day rather than being fixed in advance.
The shape below is a realistic plan rather than a strict timetable — traffic and how long you linger somewhere both move it around:
The order matters more than the list. Finishing near Knightsbridge rather than down at Tower Bridge keeps the last leg of the day shorter if you're heading back out towards Heathrow afterwards, since Knightsbridge already sits on the western side of town. The same logic runs the other way at the start: doing the eastern stops — St Paul's and Tower Bridge — before mid-afternoon avoids crossing London east to west later in the day, when the roads through the middle slow down.
Because no private car is allowed to stop and wait at either landmark. The method that works is simple: you get out, the driver drives on and stays within about five minutes of you, and comes straight back when you text that you're ready.
This is the part most itineraries leave out, and it's the difference between a photo stop that works and one that turns into twenty minutes of circling for a space that doesn't exist. At both Big Ben and Trafalgar Square, the car stops just long enough for everyone to get out, then drives on rather than waiting at the kerb. It stays close — within about five minutes — and comes straight back the moment you send a message to say you're done.
Covent Garden works slightly differently, because the piazza itself isn't somewhere a car can stop at all. The point that actually works for both dropping off and collecting is Covent Garden Underground station, a short walk from the piazza. If the streets around the piazza are busy, Trafalgar Square station works as a fallback collection point instead, so you're never waiting around for a car that can't reach you.
The result is that you get the stop and the photograph without the car ever being parked illegally or you walking back to find it.
Yes. Weekday mornings are heavier moving into London and weekday evenings are heavier moving back out towards Heathrow, while Saturday and Sunday runs into central London are comparatively clear. A day booked on a weekday is better quoted as a range of timings than a single number.
Traffic direction matters as much as traffic volume. On a weekday, the roads into London are busiest first thing, as everyone else is making the same trip, and the roads back out towards Heathrow are busiest in the early evening, as the working day ends and everyone heads home. A run that takes little time at 10am can take noticeably longer at 6pm purely because of which direction it's going in.
A Heathrow hotel run into central London is a good example: it is unpredictable on a weekday and straightforward on a Saturday or Sunday. That's why a weekday quote is given as a range rather than a single figure — committing to an exact number before the day starts would usually be wrong in one direction or the other.
If your dates are flexible, building the day around a weekend rather than a weekday avoids most of this. If they're not, starting at 10:00 rather than earlier or later is the simplest way to miss the worst of both rush periods.
The full-day and half-day prices are all-inclusive — fuel, congestion charge, parking and waiting time and every mile are already in the £400 or £250. There's no meter and no waiting charge, and the price is agreed in writing before you set off.
A full day is £400 for ten hours and a half day is £250 for five, both agreed in writing before the day starts, so nothing is added afterwards for traffic, extra waiting, or the distance actually covered. If you want something shorter than a half day, hourly hire is £55 an hour with a three-hour minimum.
No meter running also means no one is counting the minutes while you decide whether to have a second coffee or walk a little further along the river — that time is already paid for, whether you use all of it or not.
Payment is settled at the end of the day, in the car, using a card machine that takes Visa, Mastercard and American Express — contactless, chip and PIN, Apple Pay or Google Pay. No deposit is taken and no card is held on file beforehand. One thing worth knowing: UK contactless payments cap at £100, so a £250 or £400 fare needs a PIN or a phone payment rather than a tap.
Yes — Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton, Stansted and London City all have fixed prices separate from the day-hire hours, and every airport pickup includes flight tracking, meet and greet, and 60 minutes of included waiting if the flight is delayed.
If you're flying in on the morning the day starts, or flying out on the evening it ends, the airport leg is priced on its own rather than eating into the day-hire hours. Heathrow is £80 within around 12 miles of a non-central postcode or £115 further out; London City is £65 or £90 on the same basis; Gatwick and Stansted are £150 each; Luton is £140.
Flight tracking means the pickup time adjusts automatically if the flight lands early or late, and the 60 minutes of included waiting covers the walk through immigration and baggage without the clock running against you. At Heathrow Terminal 5, where the driver can't come inside, the arrangement that actually works is meeting just outside the arrivals exit by the Pret a Manger — it's the landmark the drivers themselves use, so it's a more reliable instruction than a gate number.
Booking the airport leg and the day itself together just means confirming both in the same message — there's no separate process.
Why the car can't wait at Big Ben. Stopping to wait near Big Ben or Trafalgar Square isn't possible — no private car is allowed to sit there. The method that works is to stop, let you out, drive on and circle within about five minutes, then come straight back when you text. You get the photo stop without the car ever looking for a space.
The piazza itself isn't somewhere a car can stop. Covent Garden Underground station is the point that works for both dropping off and collecting, and if the streets around the piazza are busy, Trafalgar Square station is the fallback collection point instead.
Source: driver, first-handA Heathrow hotel run into London is unpredictable on a weekday and straightforward at the weekend — mornings are heavy going into London and evenings are heavy coming back out as the working day ends. Any quote for that leg on a weekday is a range, not a single figure.
Source: driver, first-handFour or more people travelling together. The car is a Mercedes-Benz EQE and seats up to three passengers. A bigger group needs a second car, and this is one driver with one car, not a fleet.
Yes, for most of what people mean by central London — Westminster, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, St Paul's, Tower Bridge and the South Bank all fit into a ten-hour full day for £400, or the western half into a five-hour half day for £250. Add more than one interior visit and something has to be dropped.
A full day is £400 for 10 hours and a half day is £250 for 5, both all-inclusive and agreed in writing before you set off. Shorter outings are hourly at £55 an hour with a three-hour minimum.
That's the point of having the car for the day rather than a fixed tour. There's no meter and no waiting charge, so if somewhere is busy the car moves on and comes back, and if you want longer somewhere, the time is simply taken from elsewhere in the day.
Yes. Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton, Stansted and London City each have a fixed price separate from the day-hire hours, and every airport pickup includes flight tracking, meet and greet, and 60 minutes of included waiting.
No — the car is a Mercedes-Benz EQE and seats up to three passengers, and it's one driver with one car rather than a fleet. A larger group would need a second car arranged separately.
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