A transfer can go wrong before the car sets off: one missing field in the brief costs time and a phone call.
After a few hundred transfers we are precise about what we ask for and why. This piece is that brief, written out for a new concierge. If you book transfers regularly, none of this is news; pass it to your colleagues.
The seven fields
Every brief, no matter how routine, should carry the same seven fields.
1. Flight number. Not the airline plus a time. The flight number. It lets anyone check a delay without waiting for a call; the airport transfer playbook sets out why that buffer matters. Without it, a delay is a guess.
2. Guest’s exact name as it appears on the booking. Spelling matters. A misspelled name reads as inattention.
3. Hotel exact street address, with the hotel name. Not just “Stamba” or “Rooms.” Both are Adjara Group properties in the same complex on Merab Kostava Street, and they are easy to swap in a handover. Arriving at Tbilisi’s hotels by car covers the drop-off side of the same problem. Give the name and the address together; for neighbours like these, either one alone is a source of error.
4. Time, with a flexibility note. Either “8am sharp, at the hotel” or “on landing, flight TK 386, ETA 8am.” Both are valid; the brief just has to say which one it is. A naked time with no context is ambiguous.
5. Requests. Anything the guest will expect or need, from music off to motion sickness to a child in the party, belongs in the brief rather than in a message on the day. Ask when you book; what can be arranged is confirmed in writing with the fare, before the car is dispatched. 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, put it in the first brief. The fleet is four cars, and a late “by the way, they need a return tomorrow” can mean a different car or a no. Multi-day bookings add four more fields on top of these seven.
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, a named person with a direct number can answer; a switchboard cannot.
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, no music. 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, and it leaves nothing to clarify by phone.
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 a delay cannot be checked), 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, any requests, return dates, the brief’s author.
What that brief actually buys: questions to fill the gaps before the fare can be confirmed, 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). How many cars, and which, depends on the flights and the party; where the party travels on together afterwards, the V-Class replaces two of them. The coordinator manages the manifest from the airport, so nobody at the kerb is left working out who is missing.
VIP arrivals with the airport’s Meet & Greet
Tbilisi airport sells its own Meet & Greet: a hostess at the gate and agents who stay with the guest until the car, listed at 220.60 euros on the airport’s page. It is booked with the airport, not with the car; flag it on the brief anyway, so whoever is meeting the flight knows the guest will come out escorted.
Late changes
A flight moves. The guest cancels. The hotel changes after check-in. These are normal. Send changes from the brief’s named author, to the address the booking went to, not to the driver directly and not through “the agency line.” One source of truth beats three.
What you get back from us
Every fare is confirmed in writing before the car is dispatched, for the car and the route in the brief. If the brief asks for anything beyond the car and the route, the written confirmation is where you find out what can be arranged.
That is the loop. Brief in, written confirmation out, transfer happens.
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 book Tbilisi pickups regularly (the corporate chauffeur version of all this), write to booking@soitblack.com or send us the first brief. A spare morning before the flight out fits a half-day in Mtskheta.