A transfer that goes wrong usually went wrong before the car left the garage. The driver did not get bad. The traffic did not get worse. The brief was missing a field, and the missing field cost twenty minutes and a phone call.
After a few hundred transfers we are precise about what we ask for and why. This piece is the version of that brief we hand to a new concierge. If you have been with us a year, none of this is news; pass it to your colleagues.
The seven fields
Every booking, no matter how routine, has the same seven fields.
1. Flight number. Not the airline plus a time. The flight number. With the flight number we track delays independently and start the car when the wheels are down, not when you remembered to call. Without it we are guessing.
2. Guest’s exact name as it appears on the booking. For sign greeting or for the description-greeting when the guest does not want a sign. Spelling matters. A misspelled sign reads as inattention.
3. Hotel exact street address. Not “Stamba” or “Rooms.” Both are Adjara Group properties, on the same complex, two doors apart, and they are routinely swapped in handovers. The address is the truth; the brand name is the source of error.
4. Time, with a flexibility note. Either “8am sharp, the flight is on time” or “ETA 8am, please track the flight.” Both are valid; we just need to know which we are doing. A naked time with no context is ambiguous.
5. Special preferences. Water (still / sparkling / none), language for the greeting (EN / KA / RU / other), music (off / classical / left to driver), child seat (age, weight, type), notes on motion sickness, anything the driver should know before the guest opens the door. Brief is better than vague: “no music” beats “leave it relaxed.”
6. Return transfer dates, if known. Even if the return is two weeks away, a placeholder hold lets us position the car. A late “by the way, they need a return tomorrow” can mean a second-class car or a no.
7. The brief’s author and a direct number. A concierge who can be reached, not the front-desk line at 3am. When something genuinely changes, we call the named author, not a switchboard.
A good brief
Pickup. Flight TK 386, AMS-IST-TBS, arrival Tbilisi 06:35. Guest: Mrs. Helena Kovác (spelled with the accent). Hotel Stamba, 14 Merab Kostava St., Vera. ETA 7:20am door-to-door, flexibility +30 min for customs. Maybach S-class, sparkling water, no music, greeting in English. Return Friday 8:30am for KLM 614 from same hotel. Brief: Maria Pereira, +995 555 12 34 56. Thanks.
This brief takes ninety seconds to write. It also lets us deliver the trip without a single phone call from us.
A bad brief
Hi can we get airport pickup tomorrow morning ~7am, guest staying at Rooms, name Helena, flight is from Amsterdam I think? Thanks.
What’s missing: flight number (so we can’t track delays), exact hotel address (Rooms or Rooms Kazbegi or Rooms Tbilisi? the request is at Rooms Tbilisi but the booking says nothing), the guest’s full name and spelling, language, preferences, return dates, the brief’s author.
What that brief actually buys: a phone call from us at 7pm the night before to fill in the gaps, a follow-up text at 6am to confirm the flight, and a strong possibility of an irritated guest if anything moves.
Three special cases
Wave arrivals (a group landing on different flights)
Send one master brief with the group, then a row per flight. Include the wave coordinator’s number (your event manager, not us). We position multiple cars and rotate; the coordinator manages the manifest from the airport. We do not chase individual guests across terminals.
VIP arrivals that need the VIP entrance
Tbilisi airport has a separate VIP arrivals area. It costs more and requires advance arrangement; flag it on the brief, do not assume it. A “VIP” tag without that flag means our driver waits at regular arrivals.
Late changes
A flight moves. The guest cancels. The hotel changes after check-in. These are normal. Notify the named author of the brief, not the driver directly, and not “the agency line.” We re-route faster from a single source of truth than from three.
What you get back from us
Within the hour, you get the driver’s name, direct mobile, car class, and license plate. An hour before pickup, the guest gets a separate text from the driver introducing themselves and confirming the meeting point. If anything moves on our side (which it rarely does), the named author of the brief gets a call, not a message in a thread.
That is the loop. Brief in, confirmation out, driver text to guest, transfer happens, debrief if anything was unusual.
A short closing note
The brief is not paperwork. It is the difference between a transfer that runs itself and a transfer that needs a recovery. If you would like to set up a standing arrangement for regular Tbilisi pickups, write to bookings@soitblack.com.
Related: the Tbilisi airport transfer playbook and a half-day in Mtskheta.