A chauffeur is a specific person assigned to you — not the nearest available contractor, not a stranger who accepted your push notification. The word has a precise meaning that most of what uses it today has abandoned.
Since 2002, chauffeur.co.nz has operated on a simple definition: a chauffeur is an employed person, trained by us, accountable to us, who arrives in the vehicle you booked and takes you where you need to go at the price shown before you confirmed. That is what a chauffeur is. Everything else is a variation of a taxi.
The word came from French — 'stoker', originally. The person who kept the engine running. By the early twentieth century it meant the personal driver: known, reliable, constant. The car was secondary. The person was the thing.
What happened to the word is what happens to most words the market finds useful. It got stretched. Apps began calling their contractors chauffeurs. Platforms called their acceptance-mechanic a 'chauffeur service'. The word became a synonym for 'slightly more expensive Uber', which is not what it means.
The distinction is not aesthetic. It has structural consequences. When a contractor can decline your booking, you do not have a chauffeur — you have a pending request. When the vehicle is 'a model of similar quality', you do not have the vehicle you chose — you have an approximation. When the price changes because it is raining, you do not have a fixed price — you have a starting price.
A chauffeur, in the original sense, eliminates all three of those variables. The booking is confirmed. The vehicle is the one you specified. The price is the price.
What is the difference between a chauffeur and a driver?
A driver operates a vehicle. A chauffeur is assigned to you. The chauffeur knows your name before you arrive, confirms the destination without being asked, and handles luggage without being directed. The structural difference is employment: a chauffeur is on someone's payroll with a defined standard of conduct; a driver is whoever the app found nearby. At chauffeur.co.nz, every chauffeur is employed by us — trained by us, accountable to us.
Can a chauffeur decline my booking?
No. When you confirm a booking with us, the booking is confirmed — there is no contractor acceptance step, no algorithm offering your job to available drivers. A specific chauffeur is assigned at the point of confirmation. The acceptance mechanic is an app-platform problem; it does not apply here.
What vehicles does a chauffeur use?
At chauffeur.co.nz, the fleet is three Mercedes vehicles: the E-Class Sedan (up to 2 passengers, with room for 2 suitcases and 2 carry-on bags), the V-Class SUV (up to 4 passengers, with room for 4 suitcases and 4 carry-on bags), and the Sprinter Mini-Coach (up to 10 passengers, with room for 10 suitcases and 10 carry-on bags). The vehicle you book is the vehicle that arrives — not 'a vehicle of similar quality', not a substitute. That clause does not appear in our booking terms because it does not apply.
Since 2002 — fixed prices — the vehicle you book is the vehicle that arrives — drivers employed by us.