Yearly Chauffeur Contracts

Why clients commit for a year

Most yearly contracts start life as a monthly block that worked. Once a chief executive, a head of mission or a family office knows the chauffeur and the car suit them, the conversation turns to planning: a budget line that will not be revised in March, a rate that cannot climb ahead of a busy season, and a team that will still be there in December.

A yearly contract delivers exactly that. You choose the block and the vehicle class once, and the hourly rate behind them is held for twelve months. A 40-hour Business sedan month stays at $6,200; a full-time 220-hour month in an SUV First Class stays at $51,700. Every figure is in US dollars, all-in, with taxes and a 20% gratuity included.

USD, within the home city, taxes and 20% gratuity included. Same hourly rates as a single booking — no reservation discount. Unused hours and miles do not roll over. Time beyond the block is billed at the same hourly rate.

The same rules as a monthly block

Locking the rate does not change how the hours behave. Each month’s hours and the 93 miles included per service day belong to that month and do not roll forward. Extra miles are $3 in a Business sedan, $4 in an SUV and $8 in a first-class sedan; tolls, parking and in-car Wi-Fi are billed at what they actually cost. Work outside the home city is charged at 50% above the in-city rate, plus the chauffeur’s hotel and a $100 travel allowance, and days that overrun are simply billed at the contracted hourly rate.

What does change is how the account is looked after across a year. The coordinator reviews the pattern of use with you at intervals you agree, so a block that is consistently too small or too large can be resized at the next opportunity the agreement allows, rather than left to drift.

A chauffeur team that knows you

Over twelve months the arrangement becomes less a booking and more a working relationship. The primary chauffeur is named in the agreement; a relief chauffeur is introduced early and drives your routes before you need them; and the operator keeps a short written brief on your preferences so that a holiday or an illness never means starting again with someone new.

• A named primary chauffeur and a briefed relief chauffeur
• A vehicle in your chosen class, never more than four model years old
• A monthly statement of days, hours, miles and pass-through costs
• Agreed review points through the year with the account coordinator
• Non-disclosure agreements signed before service begins, on request
• The same standard when you travel, through member operators in other countries

Who a yearly contract suits

Listed companies and private-equity portfolios providing a car for the chief executive or chair; embassies and consulates that budget transport by financial year; family offices that want one trusted chauffeur for the household; public figures whose diaries cannot depend on an app; and hotels that keep a house car for suite guests. In each case the value is predictability, and a year is the natural unit of predictability.

Where the network offers yearly contracts

Yearly contracts are written with member operators in the cities where the network has its deepest fleets, among them New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago, Toronto, London, Paris, Geneva, Zurich, Frankfurt, Milan, Madrid, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, Doha, Singapore, Hong Kong and Sydney. The rate card is the same in every one of them and is charged in US dollars.

Budgeting a year of chauffeur service

Because the monthly price is fixed for the term, the annual figure is simple arithmetic. In US dollars, all-in with taxes and a 20% gratuity: forty hours a month in a Business sedan is $6,200 a month or $74,400 a year; eighty hours in an SUV Business Class is $14,800 a month or $177,600 a year; one hundred and twenty hours in a first-class sedan is $34,200 a month or $410,400 a year; and a full-time 220-hour month in an SUV First Class is $51,700 a month or $620,400 a year.

To those figures add only what actually varies: miles beyond 93 on a service day, tolls, parking and Wi-Fi at cost, overtime at the contracted hourly rate, and out-of-town days at the +50% rate with the chauffeur’s hotel and the $100 travel allowance. A finance team can therefore forecast the fixed element to the dollar and track the variable element from the monthly statement.

A yearly contract that travels with you

Principals on yearly contracts rarely spend all twelve months in one city. When the diary moves — a month at a summer house on the Riviera, a fortnight of meetings in New York, a week at a conference in Singapore — the coordinator can arrange a member operator in the destination at the same published rates, briefed from the same written notes on your preferences. The home-city chauffeur can travel with you instead where you prefer continuity, billed at the out-of-town rate with hotel and travel allowance.

What the written agreement covers

The term, the start date, the block, the vehicle class, the named chauffeurs, invoicing, how and when the block can be resized, and how the contract can be renewed or ended are all fixed in the written agreement. The desk sends a draft for your procurement or legal team to review before anything is signed, and nothing on this page should be read as a substitute for it.

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