Travelling with you: airports, trains and nights away from London

The airport hotel, the night before

Heathrow and Gatwick hotels take a three hour booking as the minimum, and her travel is inside those hours and inside the figure, quoted to you in advance as one number. It is worth booking earlier in the evening than feels necessary. A companion arriving at nine gives you a proper evening, and a companion arriving at half past eleven gives you an hour and an alarm clock.

Meeting a train, and the arrival hour

Give the desk the train rather than a guess at a time. Cordelia sets the meeting for after you have checked in and rebuilds the hour if the train slips, which happens often enough that it is simply part of the work. Several women live minutes from the mainline hotels and cope with delays without any drama at all.

No meeting is ever arranged on a concourse or under a departures board. It is your hotel, at the hour in the confirmation, with the room number used once and only to get her to the right door.

Days away: what the desk needs first

The dates, the destination, where you will be staying, and whether the days have anything fixed in them such as a dinner or an event. Cordelia comes back with who is free, what the trip costs as one figure, and what the travelling arrangements are. Nothing is agreed until all of that is in writing and you have answered yes to it.

Who arranges the journey and the room

You do. Flights, trains and hotel are booked by the guest and in the guest's arrangements, and the desk simply needs to know the times so a companion can plan around them. A separate room is arranged if that is what you prefer and it costs the booking nothing to say so. What the desk quotes is her hours and her company for the days in question, and that is the whole of it.

Passports, and the honest limits

Every companion on this list holds her own documents and manages her own travel requirements, and the desk checks before confirming anything that crosses a border. Some destinations need more notice than others. If a trip cannot be done properly in the time available, Cordelia says no rather than saying yes and hoping, which is the only useful answer a desk can give.

Four names who travel well

Laura is the easiest company in a strange city and takes late arrivals seven days a week. Samanta is entirely comfortable in a room full of people she has never met. Vanessa keeps evenings uncomplicated and takes Sundays by request. Violetta plans a trip around one concert and builds the rest of it outward from there.

What a day of travelling actually looks like

Far less dramatic than the phrase suggests. She is company at the airport, across a lounge, on a train, and then at dinner in whatever city the two of you have landed in. The hours in between are ordinary hours and she treats them as such, which is why the women who travel well are the ones who are easy to be quiet around rather than the ones who are entertaining for twenty minutes at a time.

Guests who book this more than once tend to book the same companion again, and the desk takes that as the only review worth having. If you have travelled with someone from this list before, name her and Cordelia will start with her diary rather than with the list.

Cancelling a trip, and moving one

Days away are agreed in writing with the dates named, and if the trip moves the desk moves with it wherever the diary allows. Tell Cordelia as soon as you know. A trip cancelled well ahead costs nothing, and one cancelled at the gate is the same conversation as any other late cancellation, handled in writing and without argument.

Her fee is handed to the companion in person at the start, and for a trip the desk writes down exactly when that start is so there is no ambiguity about it in an airport at six in the morning.