Concierges who book single-day transfers from Tbilisi ask for two things: car class and meeting point. The first multi-day booking from the same concierge often reads the same way: car class and pickup location. The booking succeeds anyway, but only because we ask back. The questions we ask back are the structure of this piece.
A multi-day chauffeur job is a different document than an airport pickup. Four fields are usually missing from the brief. Adding them in advance saves a phone call on the morning of day one and, more importantly, prevents the small misalignments that cost a guest their day.
Why the multi-day brief is different
A one-day transfer has a known shape: airport to hotel, hotel to airport, half-day with two stops. The variables are small. The driver shows, the car is there, the time is committed.
A multi-day job introduces variables that single-day jobs do not have. The driver eats. The driver sleeps. The car needs fuel. The route changes by the hour based on weather, the guest’s energy, an unbooked invitation, a closed road. The job is half driving and half coordination, and the coordination is invisible until something fails.
The four fields below are the ones single-day briefs leave out. Including them in the first message removes ninety percent of the back-and-forth.
The four fields
Driver downtime. Where does the driver wait while the guest is at lunch, at the cellar, at the monastery? On a half-day this is trivial; on a five-day, it accumulates into a working condition. The driver needs somewhere clean to sit, a bathroom they can use, and a way to eat without leaving the car too far from a possible recall. The brief should say which stops have a parking area and which don’t, and whether the host has agreed to feed the driver during the guest’s meal. We default to bringing our own food for the driver if the brief doesn’t address this; the brief that addresses it lets us coordinate something better.
Fuel reload. Multi-day routes vary in distance. A Kakheti loop is 200-300 km a day; a Svaneti round is 600 km on the long days. We refuel at the start of each day and on extended days mid-route. The guest’s morning hour is the wrong time for a fuel stop. The brief should let us schedule fuel at the previous evening or before the guest gets in the car. For Svaneti specifically, there are road segments with no fuel; the brief should not assume tank top-offs are always possible.
Lunch protocol. Three options. (1) Driver eats independently while guest eats with their party. (2) Driver eats with the party. (3) Driver doesn’t eat until guest is back in the car. Many hosts default to (2) without asking; some guests are uncomfortable with it. The brief should specify, or at least raise the question. A brief that says “driver eats independently, our hotel will provide a packed meal” is the easiest version of this; a brief silent on the topic creates an awkward thirty seconds at the first lunch.
Route control. Who decides if the day changes? The classic case: it is raining at Kazbegi, the guest has just woken up, do we push through or pivot to a different route? The default is the guest decides, but the driver flags. The exception is corporate trips where the concierge or trip lead decides regardless of guest preference. The brief should name the decision-maker. We have had three-day trips where the guest, the concierge, and the corporate boss all believed they were the decider; the resulting chain of phone calls cost everyone half a day.
Same driver vs handoffs
For trips up to three days we recommend the same driver. The guest learns the driver’s rhythm, the driver learns the guest’s preferences, the booking is simpler.
For trips four to seven days we sometimes use two drivers in rotation. The rotation happens at the hotel overnight; the guest sees a different driver in the morning and on the third day. We brief the second driver carefully on what the first has learned, and the rotation costs the guest nothing in continuity if the brief was clear.
For trips longer than seven days the rotation is mandatory. No driver works a continuous seven-day stint with us. Concierges who push for “the same driver for ten days” are sometimes annoyed by this; we hold the line because we have seen fatigue compound on long routes.
Hotel coordination
Hotels and chauffeurs work together on three things: arrivals, luggage, and the morning brief.
Arrivals. When the guest arrives at the hotel from us, we want the porter ready and the front desk briefed on the booking name. The hotel concierge should know whether the guest is going up to the room first or stopping to register. For repeat hotels (Stamba, Rooms, Marriott), we manage this through dispatch; for a one-off hotel we have not been to before, the brief should include the front-desk contact.
Luggage. Multi-day means luggage stays in the car between stops sometimes and goes up to the room other times. The brief should specify what stays and what goes. Hand luggage and one carry-on always go up. Larger suitcases for guests doing a multi-city circuit can stay in the trunk if the route allows. Specifying this means we don’t unload and reload eight bags every night.
Morning brief. The thirty seconds when the driver collects the guest from the lobby is the moment to confirm the day’s plan. The guest is fresh, the driver is fresh, and any change made in the previous night via the concierge gets reconciled. A standing 8am or 9am pickup with a five-minute window for this brief is the easy version. A guest who comes down at random times disrupts the briefing.
When “we’ll decide tomorrow” works
Side trips and route changes are part of multi-day work. We can absorb them; what we cannot absorb is large changes with zero notice.
“We’ll decide tomorrow” works if “tomorrow” gives us until the previous evening, not the morning of. The previous evening lets us refuel, plan an alternate route, brief the second driver if there is one, and confirm any restaurant or cellar reservation that the new route now requires.
The same-morning change is sometimes unavoidable (weather, a guest waking up unwell). We handle those, but they cost flexibility on the rest of the day. The brief should give us the right to flag this honestly: “if we change the route at 9am, we may not be able to include the 2pm cellar visit.” Concierges who want options preserved in spite of late changes should pre-book alternate options in advance.
Pricing
Three structures. Per-day fixed, per-km plus base, or hybrid with a cap.
Per-day fixed is the cleanest for both sides. The guest knows the total; we know the day. Works best for itineraries within a known radius (Kakheti loop, Kazbegi day, Tbilisi-area).
Per-km plus base is honest for trips with significant distance variance. Svaneti, Kutaisi, Batumi. We quote a base per-day plus a per-kilometre figure; the guest is billed at the route’s actual length. Works when the route is fluid.
Hybrid with a cap is the right answer for most multi-day briefs that have some flexibility. We quote per-day fixed up to a kilometre cap, with a per-km add-on if the cap is exceeded. The cap is set high enough that ordinary routing doesn’t trigger it.
The conversation we want is about which of the three the concierge prefers and where the cap should sit, not whether to use one. Briefs that omit the structure question force us to default to hybrid, which is usually right but not always.
The booking note
For multi-day bookings, please include in the first message: dates and the rough shape (single base or multi-stop), guest size and luggage estimate, lunch protocol, and which of the three pricing structures you prefer. We will reply within four hours with route options, vehicle, driver assignment, and a quoted price.
Email bookings@soitblack.com.
Related: The booking brief: what we ask for, and why, The Tbilisi airport transfer playbook, The Tbilisi hotels we drive to most, and Tbilisi to the border crossings.