Taxi Service for UK Hotels and Concierge Desks

## How do concierges book a taxi without the guest having the CabsOn app? We built the concierge booking flow for a shared desk, not a personal phone. Your reception team signs in once at business.cabson.uk with a hotel-wide login, and the booking form asks for four things: guest name, guest UK mobile number (or the concierge's own number if the guest hasn't shared theirs), pickup time, and destination. That's it. The guest is not required to install anything, create an account, share a card, or verify an email. When the ride is confirmed we send the guest a plain SMS from a UK number with driver name, vehicle make, registration plate and a browser-based tracking link. The guest opens the link, sees the car moving on a map, and that is the entire interaction they have with our platform. For guests who prefer not to be contacted directly — VIPs, journalists, some corporate travellers — the concierge can put their own number in the guest field and relay updates verbally from the desk. ## What does the monthly hotel invoice actually look like? On the 1st of each month we generate one PDF invoice covering every completed ride in the previous calendar month. The header carries your registered company name, hotel VAT number, billing address and any PO reference you'd like applied. The body is a line-by-line breakdown: date and time of ride, guest name (or a booking reference if the guest asked to be anonymised), pickup postcode, destination postcode, driver name, base fare, waiting-time charge, meet-and-greet supplement if applicable, and VAT at 20 percent itemised per ride. The footer totals net, VAT and gross with our VAT registration number and payment instructions. Payment terms default to 14 days on BACS, extendable to 30 days on request. We can email the invoice to your accounts inbox, expose it in the corporate portal for download, or both. ## Can hotel groups run one account across multiple properties? Yes. Hotel groups can choose either a single consolidated account (one invoice, cost-centred by site, useful for group finance teams) or a separate account per property with a group-level reporting view over the top. In the second model, each general manager sees only their own property's rides and spend, while the group finance director sees everything. Cost centres can also be broken down further within a single hotel — for example, splitting between "guest transport", "staff transport", and "F&B departmental transfers" — which is helpful when different budgets are held by different departments in the same building. ## How does the meet-and-greet service at UK airports work? Meet-and-greet is booked with a single tick-box on the booking form and applies at Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, London City, Manchester, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Bristol and other major UK airports. The concierge enters the guest's arriving flight number in IATA format (for example BA286) and we automatically monitor the flight status. Pickup time adjusts if the flight is delayed. When the aircraft lands, the driver walks airside to the arrivals hall with a printed name board — you can specify the exact name you want on the board, which matters for VIPs travelling under a booking reference rather than their real name. Sixty minutes of free waiting time after wheels-down covers passport control and baggage reclaim on most flights. Beyond 60 minutes we charge waiting time in fifteen-minute increments at a rate that is disclosed upfront and itemised on the invoice. ## What happens when a guest's flight is delayed by four hours at midnight? The driver is not sitting in the terminal for four hours. We rebook automatically. Our flight-tracking updates driver assignment in real time — a materially delayed flight releases the original driver back to other work and reassigns a fresh driver to the new arrival window, so your guest still gets a rested driver waiting for them, and you are not charged four hours of standby. The tracking SMS re-issues to the guest with the updated driver details, and the guest can check the live-tracking link at any point to confirm someone is on the way. If the flight is cancelled outright and the guest doesn't board, the ride is voided at no charge as long as we can confirm the cancellation from the airline feed. ## How is CabsOn different from Uber for Business at a hotel front desk? Honestly, the products solve slightly different problems. Uber for Business is very strong when your guest already has the Uber app, is comfortable using it, and you want to be a payment fallback rather than an active booker — the guest opens Uber, requests the ride, and Uber charges your hotel through a linked profile. That works well for business travellers who already ride-share. Where we tend to work better is guests who don't have the app, don't want the app, or are older, international or first-time visitors to the UK who would rather your concierge just sort it out. We are also stronger on meet-and-greet with a name board (Uber doesn't do meet-and-greet at UK airports in the way we do), on flat pricing quoted at booking time rather than surge-priced at pickup, and on the monthly invoice format that most UK hotel finance teams are used to reviewing. Neither product is universally better. Many of our hotel partners run both — Uber for Business for the business travellers who ask for it, us for concierge-driven bookings and airport transfers. ## Is guest data protected under UK GDPR? Yes. We are registered with the ICO, we process guest data on a legitimate-interest basis for the purpose of arranging the ride they've been booked into, and we do not use guest phone numbers or contact details for any marketing purpose. Guest data associated with a specific booking is retained for six years to satisfy HMRC records-keeping requirements on the invoice line, then automatically purged. If a guest wants to be forgotten immediately, they can email a subject-access request to privacy@cabson.uk and we handle it within 30 days. A hotel can also request that all data associated with a specific booking be masked on the invoice at the point of billing — useful for high-profile guests where the invoice may pass through multiple hands in your finance chain. ## What does live driver tracking show the guest? The tracking link we send the guest by SMS opens a mobile web page with a real-time map showing the driver's vehicle moving toward the pickup point, current estimated time of arrival, the driver's first name, the vehicle make and colour, and the registration plate. The guest does not see the driver's phone number, and the driver does not see the guest's phone number — messages between them route through our support desk during the booking, which protects both parties and is particularly important for female guests travelling late at night. The tracking link expires shortly after the ride completes so the guest's location history is not left exposed on a URL that could be forwarded. ## How much does it cost to open a hotel account? Nothing. There is no joining fee, no monthly platform fee, no minimum spend and no annual contract. You pay only for rides that are actually taken by your guests, plus a per-ride booking fee which is disclosed upfront and appears as a line on the monthly invoice. Fares are quoted at booking time — the concierge sees the exact fare before confirming, and that number is what appears on the invoice. We do not surge-price hotel bookings. ## Which UK hotel types do you work with? Our hotel partners span independent boutique properties, mid-market chains, luxury five-stars, serviced apartments and residence-style accommodation. City-centre business hotels use us heavily for airport transfers and station runs. Country-house hotels use us for guest arrivals from the nearest railhead and for restaurant transfers to venues out of walking distance. Serviced-apartment operators use us for check-in shuttles when guests arrive outside staffed hours. We have no minimum property size — we work with 30-bedroom independents and 400-room chains on the same account structure.