Company for the airport run, and for the trip itself
Two different bookings share this page. The first is an airport run, a companion with you for the journey out to Heathrow or Gatwick or for the hours after you land, which carries a three hour minimum including the travel time and is quoted as one total. The second is a trip, where she travels with you for a few days and the arrangement is written properly in advance.
Both are quoted before anything is confirmed, never improvised afterwards. Travel inside Zones 1 and 2 sits inside the ordinary figures on the card; beyond that the taxi both ways is quoted in the first reply. For a trip away, flights, rooms and the rest are set out in writing and agreed before a deposit is sent.
Suited to Travel companion
Ladies the host suggests most often for this kind of evening. Any name on the list can be asked for.
Airport bookings and the three hour rule
Heathrow and Gatwick bookings run to a three hour minimum, and that includes the time spent getting there and back. This is stated the same way everywhere on this site because it is the honest arithmetic of the journey rather than a surcharge dressed up as a policy. From W1 a run out to Heathrow and back is most of an afternoon. The host quotes one total covering her hours and the fare, and you see that number before you send a deposit rather than afterwards.
Arriving rather than leaving
Landing bookings are the more common half. A long flight into Heathrow, the Elizabeth line into Tottenham Court Road or a car into town, and somebody meeting you at the hotel rather than an empty room and a room service menu. The sensible version is to book for an hour or two after your scheduled landing rather than for the landing itself, since nobody controls immigration queues. Tell the host the flight number and she will build a little slack into the arrival time without being asked.
Trips away, and how they are quoted
For anything longer than a day, the arrangement is written out and quoted as a single figure rather than assembled from hourly rates, and a weekend is quoted to the plan rather than listed on the card. She travels on her own documents, her ticket is booked in her own name, and her room is her own unless the arrangement says otherwise. The host will ask where, how long and what the days actually look like, because a working trip with two free evenings and a leisure week are very different bookings.
The deposit on travel
Travel bookings are held with half the fee in advance, and the part of that covering travel costs cannot be refunded once tickets and rooms are paid for. That is the plainest way to put it. Everything else follows the ordinary rules, settled in cash or by transfer, with a neutral descriptor on the statement. If a trip is cancelled the host tells you exactly which portion has already gone and which has not, rather than keeping the whole sum and going quiet.
Names who travel well
Vanessa is sandy brown, hazel eyed and unfussy about early starts. Cindy is blue eyed, blonde and good at the long stretches of a journey where there is nothing to do. Margo is thirty one and the most organised person on this list. Samanta is 174 cm, slim and entirely at home in an airline lounge. All four have travelled with guests before, which matters more than it sounds, and several appear under slender on the styles pages.
What is never included
The figure covers her time and her company, on the road exactly as it does in a room in Soho. It does not cover your flights, your hotel or your dinners, and it never covers anything beyond time and companionship, which is as true in another city as it is in W1. Anything that cannot be quoted honestly in advance is simply not arranged. If a request does not fit inside those terms the host will say so in the first reply rather than the last.
Travel companion, asked at the door
Short, plain answers. Anything else, the host takes by message at any hour.
Because the journey is part of the booking. A run from central London out to Heathrow and back consumes roughly that much of her day regardless of how long you actually spend together at the other end.
You do, and her ticket is in her own name. The host will give you her details for the booking once the arrangement is confirmed, and her room is separate unless the plan says otherwise.
She can meet you in the arrivals hall, which is usually simpler than a kerbside. Give the host the flight number and terminal and she will allow for the queue at passport control.
A week is comfortable for somewhere in Europe and longer is better for anything further. The limiting factor is her diary rather than the paperwork, so ask early even if the dates are not yet fixed.
More occasions
- 01 · Hotel outcall companionshipRoom visitsThis is the plainest line the house writes and the one written most often. You give the hotel, the hour and how long you would like her to stay. The host gives you a name and a figure. She walks...Step inside
- 02 · Dinner date companionshipDinner datesA dinner booking is four hours and £900, and in this postcode those four hours have a particular shape. Soho eats early for the theatres and then eats again at half past ten when the casts and the...Step inside
- 03 · Overnight companionshipOvernightsAn overnight is ten hours and £1,800. It usually begins somewhere between ten and midnight, which in Soho is not late at all, and runs through to the morning. It is the one booking the house asks...Step inside
- 04 · Girlfriend experience companionshipGirlfriend experienceThe phrase gets used loosely across this industry, so here is what it means at this door and nothing more. It is an evening with the formality taken out of it. She arrives as somebody pleased to...Step inside
- 05 · Business event companionshipBusiness eventsSoho works for a living, and its working evenings have a particular texture. Production companies on Wardour Street, agencies off Golden Square, post houses and record labels and the restaurants...Step inside
- 06 · Duo companionshipDuo bookingsA duo is two names on the same booking, arriving together at the same address at the same hour. It is asked for most often for a long night out, where a pair carries an evening more easily than...Step inside
- 07 · Companionship for couplesCouplesCouples book this house for an evening together with a third person in it, most often a dinner and a bar afterwards, sometimes a show, occasionally a quiet evening at their own address. It is a...Step inside
- 08 · Night out companionshipNights outThis is the occasion Soho was built for. Three hours at £700 is the usual shape, four at £900 if dinner is inside it, and the whole night if you would rather not decide in advance. She meets you...Step inside
- 09 · Extended booking companionshipExtended bookingsSome guests are in London for a week rather than an evening, and would rather write one arrangement than send eight separate messages. An extended booking is exactly that. Several nights, or a run...Step inside
Book Travel companion
Share the date, the venue and the pace you have in mind. The host replies with names that fit.