Gower Tour Driver Information by Wales Chauffeur Tours
Industrial South Wales Tour Driver Information by Wales Chauffeur Tours
Castles & Mountains Tour Driver Information by Wales Chauffeur Tours
Bath & Stonehenge Tour Driver Information by Wales Chauffeur Tours
This code of conduct is much like the Highway Code, where they are not rules that must be adhered to (unless something is stated as a must, or must not), but merely what should happen and is the preference of the company and its clients, and what the clients will be told to expect.
Punctuality
Driver Guides should aim to arrive at the booked meeting location for all tours and transfers approximately 5 minutes before the tour start time / booked pick up time. If for any reason they are going to be late, they must attempt to contact the customer directly to advise the new ETA and give a reason for the delay.
Airport Pick Up
When picking up from an Airport, Driver Guides should aim to be no more than 15 minutes from the Airport when the flight’s scheduled landing time, or its estimated landing time should it be delayed by more than 30 minutes. They should then aim to be in the arrivals hall approximately 30 minutes after the flight has landed.
Personal Appearance
There is no formal dress code, however all drivers must be clean and presentable at all times whilst carry out a booking for Wales Chauffeur Tours, and are expected to dress in accordance with the type of work they are carrying out. However, trousers, shirts and shoes are preferred. Ideally all three, but jeans, shirt and shoes, or trousers tidy polo shirt and shoes, or a smart sweater / jumper are also acceptable. As much as is possible, any Tattoo’s should also be covered. Sports wear of any kind must not be worn when carrying out a Wales Chauffeur Tour booking. This includes jogging bottoms and tops of sports teams. The exception to this is the top of a countries sports team when that country is playing a game in that sport, i.e a Wales Rugby Top during a Six Nations day. Club top’s from any sport or any country must not be worn at any time.
Customer Service Levels
Levels of customer service should remain high at all times regardless of the type of booking,
Provision of Water
On the Cardiff City Tour, Three Castles Tour, Half Day Tours and Local Transfer of up to 2 hours, water for the guests is not required. For full day tours and transfer over 2 hours, 1 bottle of water should be provided per passenger. An allowance to cover the cost of this is included in the payment.
Knowledge
On tours guests expect their Driver Guide to have some knowledge about the places they are being taken and will often have questions about live in Wales, Welsh History, Welsh Culture etc. Any notes provided by Wales Chauffeur Tour should be provided, but the Driver Guide is also expected to carry out their own research about the places included on a tour prior to carrying out the tour, so they will be able to give the guest some information about the places they are visiting and be able to answer any questions the guest may have to a reasonable standard.
Driving Standards
The driving style must be smooth and safe. Drivers must not speed or take any undue risks at any time. They should be courteous of all other road users at all times. Acceleration, braking and cornering should all be smooth so as to provide as smooth a ride for the passenger as is possible. Whilst a passenger is in the vehicle on a Wales Chauffeur Tours booking, drivers should not excessively rev their engines, and should anticipate the actions of other road users so as to minimise the chances of needing to carry out an emergency brake or other collision avoidance procedure.
Luggage
If carrying out an Airport Drop Off, on arrival at the pick up location, the driver should knock the door on their arrival and carry any luggage to the car. The total number of cases and bags should be confirmed with the passenger, at the door to ascertain if multiple trips between the house and car are required. If the pick up location is a block of flats or a hotel, then the driver will not be expected to go any further than the entrance to the building to collect any luggage. On arrival at the airport luggage should be unloaded from the vehicle and either handed to passengers individually, or loaded onto a trolley by the car.
When carrying out an Airport Pick up, or any other booking where the passenger has luggage of any kind, the driver should carry any luggage to the front door of the building on arrival at the destination
Communication
Driver Guides MUST advise the Wales Chauffeur Tours via WhatsApp when they are on their way to the pick up location for ALL bookings. They MUST also message the guest by WhatsApp when they are on the way to the meeting location as well, and advise them they are on the way. After the booking has been completed the Driver must let Wales Chauffeur Tours the booking has been completed, what time the guest was met and what time they were dropped off and the booking completed.
Where a Driver is carrying out a Multi-Day tour they are only required to advise Wales Chauffeur Tours when they are on the way to meet the guest for the first time, and when the tour has been completed and the guests have been dropped off.
Drivers are advised to contact the Guest by WhatsApp. If the guest does not have WhatsApp, then the driver should send a standard SMS messages to them. If the drivers phone was RCS Chat capabilities, it is recommended that this is turned on, and used to send an SMS to the guest. If the Guest does not have WhatsApp, the driver is not obligated to try any other method to contact the guest.
Documents & Job Acceptance
Drivers must ensure all renewed documents are provided to the company. Any jobs assigned to a driver that are due to take place after a document expires and before a new one has been given to the company, will be removed from the driver and assigned to another driver. Renewal Documents must be sent by email to dave@wctcardiff.co.uk and must be sent no less than 24 hours before the original document expires. This is to ensure no jobs are re-assigned. Once a job has been assigned to a different driver, it can not be given back to the original driver. Documents will not be accepted via whatsapp or to any other email address
Invoices & Payment
Drivers must invoice Wales Chauffeur Tours after completion of a booking. How soon after completion is up to the driver. All invoices must be addressed to Wales Chauffeur Tours and contain the following information;
Drivers Name
Invoice Number (this MUST be different for each invoice sent)
Date Invoice Sent
Booking Reference Number
Date of Booking
Payment for Booking
Total Payment Due
Payment Due by Date (this MUST be at least 28 days after the invoice date)
Drivers may invoice for multiple bookings at the same time. IF multiple bookings are invoiced at the same time, the reference number and payment for each booking MUST be clearly shown and the total payable must be shown. Invoices must be sent by email to dave@wctcardiff.co.uk Invoices will not be accepted via WhatsApp or to any other email address. Wales Chauffeur Tours will then aim to pay total owed within 7-14 days of the invoice being sent, but on occasion, this may be longer. If the Invoice sent by the driver does not contain all the required information it will not be paid.
Pricing
Payments Fixed Fee Transfers are calculated based on the round trip driving time, plus drop off fee, for dropping off, and parking and waiting time for picking up. The Drop Off Fee element is the same amount for every airport and is based on the average Drop Off Fee being charged at a number of Airports. The picking up element is based on the average cost for 2 hours parking in short stay parking at the same airports, and 2 hours for waiting.
For non Fixed Fee Transfers the fee is a normal booking fee (Half Day, Full Day, Long Day etc), plus either a drop off fee or a pick up fee. If the round trip driving time is close to (but not more than) a normal booking (i.e 4 hours, 8 hours, 10 Hours etc) then the normal booking fee for that duration would be paid for, plus the drop off fee or pick up fee. If the round trip driving time is not just below a normal booking fee, a dead leg fee would also be charged. For example, Luton Airport is approximately 3 hours from Cardiff. So a Half Day Booking wouldn’t be enough for a round trip, and a full day booking would probably be excessive. Instead a Half Day Booking, plus a 3 Hour Dead Leg would likely be charged and paid for, as well as the drop off or pick up fee. Each non fixed fee Airport Transfer is priced separately and the pricing method used can vary from job to job, but the payment should roughly the same. For example a Full Day, plus Airport Drop Off would pay £247. Where as a Half Day, plus 3 hours Dead Leg, plus Airport Drop Off would pay £242
Fixed Fee’s
Fixed Fee’s are offered between Cardiff and Cardiff Airport, Bristol Airport, Heathrow Airport and Central London. All Fixed Fee’s are for one pick up and one drop off address ONLY.
For the purpose of Fixed Fee’s Cardiff is any address whose postcode begins CF10, CF11, CF14, CF15, CF23, CF24, CF5 or CF3
For the purposes of Fixed Fee’s Central London is any address whose postcode begins EC1, EC2, EC3, EC4, SE1, SW1, W1, WC1 or WC2
Picking up At An Airport
ALL flights should be tracked by the driver prior to them departing for the Airport. Where the flight time is shorter than the driving time to the Airport (such as Scotland / Ireland to Cardiff Airport) you should proceed as if the flight is on time, unless advised otherwise.
You should aim to be near the Airport (ideally within 5-10 minutes) when the flight lands. When the flight lands send a message to the passenger introducing yourself, advising them you are aware their flight has landed, where you are, and what time you will be in the arrivals hall. An example would be;
Good Morning Mr Jones, my name is Mike, and I am your driver from the Airport today. I am currently parked out 2 minutes from the Airport I can see that your flight has just landed. I will be in arrivals hall at 3:30pm, and I will meet you there. Should you be ready before this, please contact me and I will come straight in to meet you.
You should then be in the arrivals hall at the Airport, 30 minutes after the flight has landed, standing in an easy to see position holding a nameboard clearly displaying their passengers name. In busier Airports like Heathrow you should send a follow up message to the passenger saying where you are waiting for them
Under NO CIRCUMSTANCES is should you park outside the Airport and ask the passenger to text / phone them when they are ready, then wait outside the airport until they ring / text. This is against company policy and any driver who does this will not be paid for the Transfer, and may be removed as a Partner Driver
Complimentary Waiting Time
All Airport Pick ups, regardless of the Airport or if a fixed fee transfer have two hours complimentary waiting time included in the fee (hence the pick up fee being equivalent of two hours parking and waiting time). After that you may be able to get additional payment for additional waiting time and parking fee’s.
For most bookings, this will be for you to ask the passenger any additional money personally. This would be at your discretion, and how much to request is up to you, but should not be more than £20 plus £15 per additional 15 minutes as this is how much they have been told they could be charged. Where a tour is starting at an Airport this is reduced to £10 for every additional half hour after 2 hours to cover the additional parking. The tour should be adjusted to ensure it still finishes at approximately the same time, so you aren’t losing any money, or time. So there is no additional time to pay for.
Occasionally an agent will agree to pay any waiting time fees instead of the passenger. If this is the case, you will be told about this before the booking, and you will need to add the waiting time to the invoice, and must not request it from the passenger
Additional Airport Information
All flights MUST be tracked by the driver, and the ETA of the flight must be checked before leaving for the Airport. No additional waiting time will be paid should the flight be delayed.
It is not uncommon for Flights to land early, particularly Domestic flights and Flights to Bristol & Cardiff from Dublin & Belfast, and early morning flights from North America into Heathrow.
Typical flight time from Ireland to Cardiff & Bristol is 35-40 minutes. When meeting a Domestic or Irish flight at Cardiff or Bristol the scheduled take off time should be checked. The likely landing time will be approximately 40 minutes later, despite the scheduled landing time usually being an hour or so after the scheduled take off time. Every effort should be made to be at the Airport for the likely landing time. If you aim to be at Cardiff or Bristol Airport for the scheduled landing time of an Irish or Domestic flight, there is a high probability that the passengers will be waiting for you by the time they arrive, unless the flight is delayed. Whilst they will are unlikely to complain about a wait due to landing early, being able to remove or drastically reduce any wait is good customer service.
Most Flight tracking apps like FlightRadar24 use actual radar and the planes transponders to identify its exact location. This is what makes FlightRadar24 so good, as it’s information is coming from the plane itself and not an airports website which may be out of date, of giving false information. FlightRadar24 cant start tracking the plane until it is in the air however. Therefore if you are relying solely on FlightRadar24 for information about Irish and Domestic Flights, you may not even know about a delay until you are at the Airport yourself, as you will likely have to leave for the Airport before it has actually taken off.
Wales Chauffeur Tours Driver Guide
Waiting Time, No Shows & Cancellations
Waiting Time
The minimum amount of waiting time and free waiting time varies depending on the type of booking.
Cardiff City Tour
If the guest for a Cardiff City Tour has not arrived 5 minutes after the booked start time, it can be cancelled as a No-Show and full payment will be made. The tour can be cancelled as a No-Show after 5 minutes even if you have been able to contact the guest. The decision on whether to cancel as a no-show or wait is entirely up to you. If you do make contact and decide to wait for the guest, you should ammend the tour so it does not finish later than 2 hours after the booked start time as planned.
Three Castles Tour
If the guest for a Three Castles Tour has not arrived 10 minutes after the booked start time, it can be cancelled as a No-Show and full payment will be made. The tour can be cancelled as a No-Show after 10 minutes even if you have been able to contact the guest. The decision on whether to cancel as a no-show or wait is entirely up to you. If you do make contact and decide to wait for the guest, you should ammend the tour so it does not finish later than 1:30pm as planned. If the booking does finish later, you may request additional payment at your discretion as per the additional payment policy.
Half Day Tour / Booking
If the guest for a Three Castles Tour has not arrived 10 minutes after the booked start time, it can be cancelled as a No-Show and full payment will be made. The tour can be cancelled as a No-Show after 10 minutes even if you have been able to contact the guest. The decision on whether to cancel as a no-show or wait is entirely up to you. If you do make contact and decide to wait for the guest, you should ammend the tour so it does not finish later than 4 hours after the booked start time as planned. If the booking does finish later, you may request additional payment at your discretion as per the additional payment policy.
Full Day Tours & Transfer Tours
For Full Day Tours, aside from those starting at an Airport, if the guest has not arrived, and you can not contact them 15 minutes after the booked start time, you should cancel the booking as a no-show. If you wish, you may wait longer than 15 minutes. If contact can be made with the guest, the booking can not be cancelled as a no-show. You should amend the tour to ensure it still finishes around the originally scheduled time though. If the booking does finish later, you may request additional payment at your discretion as per the additional payment policy.
All Transfer
For all Transfers, aside from those starting at an Airport, if the guest has not arrived, 15 minutes after the booked start time, regardless of if you have made contact or not you may cancel the booking as a no-show. If you wish, you may wait longer than 15 minutes, but should not wait more than 30 minutes, or longer than 15 minutes if this could make you late for a later booking. At your discretion, you may request waiting time directly from the client after 10 mintues at a rate of £5 per 5 minutes, or part there of
Airports
For all other bookings, starting at an Airport you may be able to cancel the booking as a no show, if contact can not be made with the guest 60 minutes after their flight has landed. If contact can be made, the booking can not be cancelled as a no-show. If you are waiting for more than 2 hours after the flight has landed, you maybe able to request additional payment as per the additional payment policy.
No-Show
In some circumstances you may be able to cancel a booking as a no-show without contacting Wales Chauffeur Tours. This is possible for bookings from OTA’s, such as Viator and most direct bookings, where either there are no alternative contact details or the guest has made the booking themselves and there are no other people involved in the booking. However, there are some bookings where you may not be able to cancel the booking as a no-show without contacting Wales Chauffeur Tours. These will be bookings that have been made by an agent. With these bookings, Wales Chauffeur Tours will need to contact the agent before a booking can be cancelled as a no-show. The agent may have alternative contact details to try, or have additional information. If a booking is cancelled as a no-show before they are contacted, they may withold payment for lack of service. If you are unsure, you should contact Wales Chauffeur Tours before cancelling any booking.
Important
For all bookings that are cancelled as a No-Shows evidence will be required to fight any claims by the guest of non attendance in an attempt to get a refund or refuse payment.
Before leaving the pick up location you should take photos of you at the booked meeting location. Ideally this should show both you, your car, a sign stating the booked pick up locations name and the time. This can be a video or a picture. You should also take a screenshot of google maps showing your location at the time, ideally with the clock on your phone on display also. You should also take screenshots of all messages sent to the guest and any attempted calls made. You are also free to collect any other evidence you see fit. All evidence should then be emailed to info@waleschauffeurtours.co.uk, and it will be kept by Wales Chauffeur Tours to fight any claim of non-attendance and claims of a refund or to refuse payment. If the guest makes such a claim, and satisfactory evidence can not be supplied, payment for the booking may be withheld. So long as the above evidence is supplied, payment will be made in full.
In most cases Wales Chauffeur Tours will not make any additional payments for waiting time or parking or any other out of pocket expenses, and will only pay the amount agreed when the booking was accepted by the driver.
If for any reason a tour should finish later than scheduled due to the guests taking longer than planned at one or more stop, then you should request additional payment directly from the guest at their discretion. However, certain agents do not allow additional payment to be requested from the guest, and will not pay additional amount if a tour is longer than planned. If no additional payment is available from anywhere, this will be mentioned on the tours itinerary, and you should make sure that the tour does not finish significantly later than planned. You are free to complete the full tour if you wish, but this will be at your own cost in terms of time.
For all tours where additional money can be requested from the guest, an itinerary will be provided. The itinerary will have a “Latest Departure from” at the last stop. If the final stop is departed before this time, then the tour will not finish significantly later than planned, and so no additional payment can be requested. If a tour does leave the final stop before this time, it is likely that the tour will finish significantly later than planned and you MAY request additional payment. The decision to request additional payment, and how much to request is up to you, but it MUST be requested directly from the guest. The amount you may request is up to you, but only up to a maximum amount of £20 + £20 per additional 30 minutes.
Where an booking is starting at an Airport, you may request additional payment from the guest if they have not arrived 2 hours after the flight has landed. However, certain agents do not allow additional payment to be requested from the guest, and you must contact Wales Chauffeur Tours whilst at the Airport, so the agent can be contacted and payment for the additional waiting time can be authorised. Once you have met the guests, you should let Wales Chauffeur Tours know and you will be told how much waiting time to add to the invoice. Where additional waiting time can be requested from the guest, you are free to request an amount of your choosing up to a maximum of £15 + £15 per additional 15 minutes. Where a tour is starting at an Airport this is reduced to £10 per additional 30 minutes to cover additional parking charges. You may still request more additional payment if the the last stop of the tour is departed later than the Latest Departure Time on the itinerary however.
Where a Fixed Fee Transfer is starting anywhere other than an Airport, you may request additional payment if you are waiting for more than 15 minutes. However, certain agents do not allow additional payment to be requested from the guest, and you must contact Wales Chauffeur Tours whilst at the Airport, so the agent can be contacted and payment for the additional waiting time can be authourised. Once you have met the guests, you should let Wales Chauffeur Tours know and you will be told how much waiting time to add to the invoice. Where additional waiting time can be requested from the guest, you are free to request an amount of your choosing up to a maximum of £15 + £15 per additional 15 minutes
All bookings whether tour, or transfer or local are based on the time it will take to complete the booking. With the exception of Cardiff City Tour and Fixed Fee Transfers all bookings will be priced as either a Half Day (up to 4 Hours), Full Day (Up to 8 Hours), Long Day (up to 10 Hours) or Extended Day (up to 12 hours).
For tours, this is the amount of time between when the guest is picked up, and when they are dropped off. If the guest is picked up, or dropped off more than 30 minutes from Cardiff, then there will also be an additional amount added to the payment based on how long the driving time too / from Cardiff is.
For transfers, this is typically the total amount of time from leaving Cardiff, to returning to Cardiff.
Airport Fees
Drop Off Fee
Where a booking is ending at an Airport, and it is not a Fixed Fee Transfer, an additional amount is added to the booking fee to cover the drop off fee at the Airport. This is a fixed amount regardless of how much the Airport charges, and so the amount added could be more or less, than the additional amount paid
Pick Up Fee
Where a booking is starting at an Airport, and it is not a Fixed Fee Transfer, an additional amount is added to the booking fee to cover the short stay parking and waiting time at the Airport. This is a fixed amount regardless of how much the Airport charges, and so the amount added could be more or less, than the additional amount paid.
Calculating Fees
Booking Fees
There are two elements to calculating the fees. Fixed, and running costs.
Full Day
The first part was calculated by adding up the total annual costs of Insurance (at £200 per month), MOT, Licence Fees, Vehicle finance (at £500 per month), Road Tax and Mobile Phone. This was than divided by 48 to give a weekly cost (with 4 weeks off per year) and then divided by 5 again to give a Daily cost. A Daily wage of £120 per day (equivalent of £28,800 per year before tax) was then added to the daily cost. An additional amount of £15 was then added to this total for parking and water. This gave a total Daily Fixed Cost. Next running costs were calculated by looking at the average mileage of all bookings in 2024 and 2025, which gave an average of 150 miles. This was increased to provide a “buffer” to 250 miles per day. A per mile cost was then calculated by taking the total spent by Wales Chauffeur Tours on Fuel (including Ad-Blu) servicing, maintenance and tyre over the last 2 years, and dividing that by the total mileage covered by Wales Chauffeur Tours in the same time to give a cost per mile. This was then multiplied by 250 to give a daily running cost. The running cost and fixed cost were added together to give a Daily Fee, which was then rounded up to the nearest £10, to give a payment for a Full Day (up to 8 Hours) booking of £240
Half Day
For a Half Day the same Daily Costs as a Full Day were used, but the Daily Wage was reduced to £60 to reflect a half day works, the additional amount for parking was reduced as there is likely to be less parking to pay for on a half day booking, and an amount for water was removed, as this is not required for a half day booking. This gave a Fixed Half Day Costs (note the amount included to cover fixed vehicle costs, insurance, road tax, finance, licensing etc are the exactly the same for a half day or full day). The total number of miles was reduced from 250 to 50 miles which is more likely for a half day booking, and the running costs were calculated using the same per mile figure are full day. The Fixed Half Day Costs and Running Costs were added together and rounded to the nearest £5 to give a Half Day (up to 4 hours) booking payment of £115
Dead Leg
An Hourly rate was calculated for Cardiff Train Station Pick Ups, and the extra time for Long and extended Day. The Daily costs were divided by 8 to give an hour cost. The running costs of 50 miles were calculated, and both of these figures were added together, and an hourly “wage” was added to that to give an hourly rate of £32 which was rounded up to a payment of £40. For Long Day (up to 10 Hour) and Extended Day (up to 12 hour) this was multiplied by 2 and 4 respectively and added to the Full Day (up to 8 Hours) rate to give payments of £320 & £400 respectively. Where a Dead Leg is applicable for bookings starting or ending outside of Cardiff an additional payment equal to £40 per hour driving is added to the payment
Fixed Fee Transfers
Payment for Fixed Fee Transfers also have two elements. Driving Time Cost and Airport Fees. The Driving time cost is calculated by using the Hourly rate and multiplying that by the typical round trip driving time between Cardiff, the destination and back to Cardiff. For the London an additional £18 was added to cover the cost of the London Congestion Charge. For Airport Drop Offs, the drop off fee charged by that Airport was added. For Airport Pick Ups and Heathrow and Bristol Airport, the cost of 2 hours short stay parking was added to the Driving Time Cost, along with £30 for 2 hours waiting time to give the payment for picking up at these Airport. For Cardiff Airport, only 1 hour parking and £15 waiting time was added as it is a much quieter Airport.