Arrivals
The one field on the form that pays for itself
A booking with a flight number and a booking without one are not the same product. They cost the same, and only one of them survives a delayed aircraft.
19 June 20264 minute read
01What the field is for
When you give us a flight number, the arrival is watched. If the aircraft is running two hours late, the pickup time moves two hours with it, the operator is told, and nobody sends a driver to stand on a kerb for an aeroplane that has not left yet.
When you do not give us one, we are working from a time you typed into a form some days earlier. The vehicle arrives at that time. If you are still in the air, the free waiting window starts running anyway, because the operator has done exactly what the booking said.
That is the whole difference, and it is worth restating because the two bookings look identical on paper.
02The waiting windows
| Booking type | Free waiting |
|---|---|
| Arrival with a flight number | 60 minutes from wheels down |
| Arrival without one | 15 minutes from the time you named |
| Departure pickup at an address | 15 minutes from the time you named |
The 60 minutes exists because an arrival is genuinely unpredictable at the passenger end. Immigration, baggage and the walk out are not things you control, and an hour covers almost all of it.
The 15 minutes exists because a pickup at a named time with no aircraft involved is a thing you do control.
03Why the clock starts at wheels down and not at the scheduled time
Because wheels down is a fact and the scheduled time is a hope. Once the aircraft is on the ground, the hour is yours: passport queue, carousel, the walk, the telephone call to the driver. If the whole thing takes 55 minutes you have paid nothing extra.
Beyond the hour, waiting is charged by the quarter hour, which the pricing page lists along with everything else that can be added.
04What we do when a flight is early
Less than you might think, and honestly so. An aircraft that lands 25 minutes early does not mean a car materialises 25 minutes early. Operators schedule drivers against a time and there is usually another booking behind yours.
We will try, and often it works, and it is never something to count on. If you are consistently early through an airport, book the pickup slightly tighter and tell us in the notes so the operator knows to expect it.
05When there is no flight number to give
Some bookings genuinely have none. A departure from your own address does not involve one at all, and a private aircraft or a charter often has no number a public system will show.
In those cases the booking runs on the time you named, with the 15 minute window, and the way to protect yourself is a telephone call rather than a field on a form. Ring the operator when you are ten minutes away and the waiting clock stops being a problem.
06The mistake to avoid
Padding the pickup time to defend against a delay. It looks sensible and it works badly: if you book a pickup for an hour after the scheduled landing and the flight arrives on time, you have just bought yourself an hour of standing in an arrivals hall, and if the flight is two hours late you are back in the same trouble anyway.
Give us the number instead. It is the correct tool for the job and it costs nothing.
One line in a form is worth more than any amount of guessing at times. It is the closest thing this trade has to a free upgrade.
07Where the number goes
Into the booking, to the operator and nowhere else. It is held for the same 24 months as the rest of the booking record and then deleted, which the privacy policy sets out row by row.
We do not use it to look up anything about you, and it is not passed to any third party beyond the operator who needs it to know when to set off.
08Put it on the booking
The booking form asks for it directly. If you do not have it yet, send the booking anyway and telephone +1 (646) 559-3082 with the number when it exists, and we will add it to the reservation. Monday to Friday 6:30 am to 8:30 pm, Saturday 8:00 am to 4:00 pm, Eastern Time.