Luggage Policy

Tell us your luggage when you enquire

Tell us what you are carrying when you enquire, not on the day. A vehicle booked for a given number of passengers is sized for passengers first; whether it also suits your luggage depends on what you are carrying, and we would rather size the vehicle correctly before your trip than find out at the kerb. If what turns up does not fit what you actually have, a larger vehicle arranged on the day is charged at the applicable rate.

This matters most where a seat count and a luggage load pull in different directions: four passengers travelling light fit a sedan easily, but four passengers each checking in for a long trip do not, whatever the seat count says. A wedding party moving decorations, a family shifting house for a season, or a group carrying sports or musical equipment are the cases we hear about most often, and every one of them is answered better by a phone call before the booking than by a discussion at the pick-up point.

We do not publish a fixed number of bags against a vehicle class, because a genuine figure would have to answer for a hard-sided suitcase and a soft duffel, a cricket kit and a set of golf clubs, as though they were the same thing, and no honest number does that. What we do instead is ask. Describe what you are bringing when you enquire, in your own words or with a photograph if that is easier, and we tell you plainly whether the class you are looking at suits it or whether a larger one makes more sense.

If you want to compare vehicle sizes yourself before you enquire, /fleet/compare sets every class side by side and /fleet/seating-guide matches a party size to a class. Both are a better starting point than guessing from a seat count, and both are free to use without giving us any details at all.

Roof carriers

Where a trip genuinely needs more than the boot holds, a roof carrier can be fitted to a vehicle that supports one. Whether that is practical for your trip is a question for us to answer when you tell us what you are carrying, since not every vehicle in the fleet is fitted for one and not everything that will not fit in a boot is suitable to go on a roof.

A roof carrier is loaded within the vehicle's own safe load limit, and the driver has the final say on what actually goes up and how it is secured, because he is the one responsible for the vehicle staying stable at speed with a load on top of it. That is not a formality. A roof carrier changes a vehicle's centre of gravity and its handling, and a driver who judges a particular item unsafe to carry that way, however it is packed, is entitled to say so and to offer the alternatives set out below instead.

Fitting a roof carrier is charged as an extra where one is used, over and above the fare for the trip itself. The amount is confirmed with you before the trip, as part of the same quotation that covers everything else, so there is no figure on this page to check it against and nothing added on the day that was not agreed beforehand.

What we do not carry

• Flammable or explosive material of any kind, including loose fuel, gas cylinders and fireworks.
• Illegal goods, or anything whose possession or transport is unlawful under Indian law.
• Live animals, except where covered by any pets policy we publish separately.
• Weapons of any kind, licensed or otherwise, unless separately agreed with us in writing before the trip.
• Unaccompanied commercial cargo — this is a passenger vehicle carrying your own belongings, not a goods carriage.

This list exists for the same reason a bank will not accept a locked box it has not looked inside: carrying something means taking on responsibility for it, and there are categories of item no operator can responsibly accept sight unseen. If you are unsure whether something you are carrying falls into one of these categories, ask us before the trip rather than at the pick-up point.

Our right to refuse

A driver may refuse to carry an item that is unsafe, that is illegal, or that he reasonably judges will not fit in the vehicle or will not travel safely once loaded. This is a real right rather than a formality, and it exists to protect you as much as it protects the vehicle: an item that shifts, that blocks a mirror or a door, or that is simply too heavy for how it would have to be stowed is a risk on the road, not only an inconvenience at the kerb.

Where a driver refuses an item, he tells you why, and where a larger vehicle or a roof carrier genuinely solves the problem, that is arranged on the spot where it can be, at the applicable rate. This is the same situation the enquire-first clause above is written to avoid: telling us in advance is how you make sure this decision never has to be made at your pick-up point at all.

Liability for luggage

Luggage is carried at your own risk. We are not liable for the loss of or damage to unattended personal belongings left in the vehicle. Mobility aids, wheelchairs and medical equipment are carried free of charge and are never counted against anything you are bringing.

The first half of that is the ordinary rule for anything you carry into a vehicle that is not exclusively yours, a taxi, a train or a flight included: keeping track of your own belongings during the trip remains your responsibility, and something left unattended, on a seat while you step away, in an open boot at a stop, is at your risk rather than ours. Where an item is genuinely lost in one of our vehicles, /legal/lost-and-found sets out how we search for it and how long we hold what is found.

The second half is not a courtesy, it is a commitment. A wheelchair, a walking frame, a set of crutches, an oxygen concentrator or any other mobility or medical equipment is never weighed against your luggage, never charged for as an extra item, and never a reason a vehicle is judged unsuitable for what you are carrying. It travels because you need it to, in the same way a seat belt or a first-aid kit does.

Fragile, valuable and business-critical items

A laptop bag, a camera case, a musical instrument, sports equipment, or anything else that is fragile, valuable or hard to replace travels at the same principle set out above: it is carried at your own judgement and at your own risk. We take the same reasonable care with it that we take with any luggage in the vehicle, and we do not treat it differently or ask you to declare it specially, but the responsibility for how it is packed and whether it travels at all is yours.

If something you are carrying needs particular handling, an instrument that cannot be laid flat, equipment that has to stay upright, tell us when you enquire, in the same way you would tell us about the rest of your luggage. Knowing in advance lets us make sure the vehicle and the way it is loaded actually suit what you are bringing.

Airline baggage rules are the airline’s

Where a trip connects to a flight, the airline sets its own baggage allowance, its own size and weight limits, and its own charges for exceeding them, and that is entirely separate from this policy. We carry what you bring to or from the airport; what the airline will accept at check-in is a question for the airline, not for us.

Lost luggage

If something has gone missing after travelling with us, /legal/lost-and-found sets out how to report it, what we do to search for it, how long we hold what is found, and how it is identified and returned to you.

Choosing the right vehicle for what you are carrying

If you are not sure which class suits what you are bringing, tell us and we will recommend a size, rather than leaving you to work it out from a seat count alone. That is a five-minute conversation when you enquire and it is the single best way to avoid a surprise at the pick-up point.

If you would rather look for yourself first, /fleet/compare sets every vehicle class out side by side and /fleet/seating-guide matches a party size to a class, and both are worth a look before you enquire. Neither publishes a bag count, for the reason set out above: we would rather ask what you are actually carrying than hand you a number that turns out not to be true for your particular bags.