Trains out and trips away, a companion who travels well

Meeting a train

Kings Cross is best met at the water rather than the concourse, five minutes north of the platforms where the canal runs behind the old goods yard. St Pancras is a different animal again, at its best once the last continental departure has taken its crowd away with it.

Tell the desk the service and the arrival time and she is there when it pulls in rather than a quarter of an hour behind it, which is the entire point of booking this way. A first name and a platform are enough to find each other.

When the train is late

It is not a crisis and nobody treats it as one. One message moves the start time, and the women who work the stations have spent half their lives on platforms. A fifteen minute margin is built into every booking here in any case, and if a delay turns into something serious the desk resets the hour rather than quietly letting the booking run on while you are still somewhere in Bedfordshire.

Ninety minutes from the platform

This is the commonest shape of arrival here, and it tends to run in the same order. She is at the quiet end of the concourse when the doors open. Ten minutes later you are sitting down by the water behind the old goods yard with a drink neither of you had to queue for, and by the second half hour the journey has stopped being the subject. If you are staying beside the station the hotel is a five minute walk. If your onward train leaves from Euston, allow a clear ten minutes along the road between the two, and she will walk you to the right entrance rather than the nearest one.

Airport hotels and the edge of the map

Heathrow and Gatwick sit outside the zones and outside this site's districts, so they are arranged as three hours at a minimum with her return fare added and the whole thing quoted as one figure. It is worth saying plainly that a companion leaving north London at six for a terminal hotel is committing her entire evening to it, so the notice she wants is measured in hours rather than in minutes.

Going away for a day or two

A trip beyond London is quoted on the dates rather than on the hours, as one figure, once you have said where, when and for how long. Travel and rooms are arranged by you in the ordinary way; her time is what you are booking. She travels light, she is good at airports and she needs managing at neither end of the journey.

Who is best at it

Liana has waited for a great many trains and stopped minding, and she will not make you perform when you have just come off a long one. Samanta is thoughtful and wry at an hour when most people are neither. Nancy knows the station district properly, and Laura will meet an exact hour exactly, which matters when the clock is tight. The rest of the list travels too, and the rates page explains where the included travel stops.