When am I charged for my airport limo?

Four moments in a booking, and which one takes the money

Quoting comes first and costs nothing: enter two addresses at /ride/, pick a vehicle, read the all-in figure. Nothing is stored and nothing is committed while you compare classes or directions.

Booking is the second moment. Your details and card go on the reservation, an SMS confirmation arrives on your phone and an email arrives with a self-serve link that can view or edit the booking up to 12 hours before pickup. Your card has still not been charged at this point.

The charge lands at the third moment, once the ride is confirmed, and it is the quoted total to the penny — the same figure on the confirmation, the same figure on the receipt. The fourth moment, ride day, involves no payment at all: gratuity, tax, fuel where it applies and the card fee are already inside what you paid, so there is nothing to hand over, no terminal to sign and no tip line to work out at the curb.

• Quote — free, nothing stored
• Booking — card saved, SMS and email confirmation, no charge
• Confirmation — the card is charged the quoted total
• Ride day — nothing to pay, nothing to sign

Why the charge waits for confirmation

Travel plans move, and a payment model that punishes movement makes people book late — which is the opposite of what a dispatch operation wants. Charging on confirmation rather than on submission keeps early booking cheap in every sense: you can reserve a 5 a.m. pickup the moment the flight is ticketed without money leaving your account months ahead.

It also keeps edits simple. Correcting a terminal, a street number or a pickup time through the self-serve link does not involve refunds or re-charges, because there is nothing to unwind yet.

Once the ride is confirmed and charged, the amount is settled — and settled means settled. A delayed flight does not generate a second charge, because arrivals are timed off live flight tracking; a slow drive does not generate one either, because the fare was never based on minutes.

The cash path, and switching between them

Choosing cash at booking means nothing is processed online at any point. You pay the chauffeur on the day, at the same all-in total the card path would have charged — the number does not move with the payment method. Because the 15% gratuity is already inside that number, there is nothing expected on top of it.

People do change their minds, usually in the direction of convenience. If you booked cash and would rather pay by card, ask the office and a secure payment link is emailed to you; it opens a card page for the same total, and the ride is marked paid once it goes through. That is also the route used when somebody other than the passenger is picking up the bill.

The pay cash for an airport limo page covers the cash option in more depth, including how it works on an arrivals pickup.

• Cash chosen at booking: nothing processed online
• Same total either way — the method does not change the fare
• Gratuity already inside, so nothing extra at the end of the ride
• Switching to card: a secure payment link by email

Edge cases worth knowing

Bookings inside three hours of pickup are made by phone rather than online — (416) 200-5070, or toll-free 1-877-200-5070, around the clock — and payment follows the same pattern once the ride is set up.

When you are booking for somebody else, your card stays on the reservation and the traveller pays nothing at any point; the can I pay for someone else's airport limo page sets out how the details are split between payer and passenger. Corporate accounts work differently again, consolidating rides onto a monthly invoice instead of charging trip by trip.

Receipts arrive by email after the ride and show the same single all-in figure, which is what makes them easy to file — the airport transfer receipt page covers what an expense claim needs.