The agreement between you and Hampshire Taxi when you book a journey, a tour or an add-on stay with us. Please read it before you travel — booking confirms your acceptance.
Read Hampshire Taxi passenger terms, including bookings, payments, cancellation, waiting time, child seats and privacy.
LegalThe agreement between you and Hampshire Taxi when you book a journey, a tour or an add-on stay with us. Please read it before you travel — booking confirms your acceptance.
Last updated 12 October 2026
These Terms govern every booking made through hampshiretaxi.com, our mobile app, our phone and WhatsApp booking lines, our partner hotels and hosts, and our corporate accounts. They form a legally binding contract between you (the "Customer") and Hampshire Taxi ("we", "us"), a licensed private hire operator based at 131 Northam Road, Southampton SO14 0QH.
We are a pre-booked private hire operator. We are not a taxi rank and we cannot be hailed in the street or accept a fare that has not been booked through our operator system first — that is a legal requirement of our private hire licence, not a company preference.
Nothing in these Terms removes or limits your statutory rights as a consumer under the Consumer Rights Act 2015. Where any clause conflicts with your non-excludable statutory rights, your statutory rights prevail.
Contents
A booking request becomes a confirmed contract only when we issue a booking reference by email or in-app confirmation. Until then no vehicle is reserved for you, however far through the booking flow you have progressed.
You are responsible for the accuracy of the details you give us: pickup address, destination, date, time, flight or sailing number, terminal, passenger count, luggage count and mobile number. We plan the vehicle, driver, route and timing entirely from those details, and errors in them are the most common cause of a failed pickup.
We accept bookings up to twelve months in advance. Bookings made less than two hours before travel are accepted subject to live driver availability and are confirmed only once a driver has been allocated.
Prices shown at the point of booking are fixed for the journey as booked. We do not use surge pricing, and we do not increase the fare because demand rose, because traffic was heavier than expected or because the journey took longer than our estimate.
Fixed fares are calculated on the route between the addresses you gave us. If the journey materially changes — a different destination, extra stops, extra passengers requiring a larger vehicle, or a diversion you request — the fare is recalculated on the same published tariff and the difference becomes payable.
Fares include the driver, the vehicle, fuel, insurance, VAT where applicable, and one item of hold luggage plus one item of hand luggage per passenger. Airport access and drop-off charges, tolls, congestion or clean-air charges, and any bank-holiday or night tariff are shown separately in the fare breakdown before you confirm — we do not add unpublished fees after the event.
Where a promotional code is applied, the discount is subject to that code's stated conditions. First-booking codes are restricted to a customer's first ever booking and are validated against both email address and phone number.
You may pay by card at the time of booking, by card on completion, or in cash directly to the driver where cash has been selected. Card payments are processed by our payment provider; we never store your full card number on our systems.
We charge no fee for paying by card with a card issued in the UK. For a card issued outside the UK we add our payment provider's processing fee, shown before you pay (2.5% + 20p for bookings made from Europe, 3.25% + 20p from elsewhere). It covers what card payments from abroad cost us. If your card turns out to be a UK card, the whole fee is refunded to your card by our office (we email you when it has been sent). Cash paid to the driver has no fee.
For airport and long-distance journeys, for bookings made through a partner hotel or host, and for any booking over £250, we may require full prepayment or a card guarantee before we allocate a driver.
Corporate account holders are invoiced under their agreed payment terms. Invoices unpaid beyond those terms may result in the account being suspended and statutory interest being charged on the overdue amount.
Where an additional charge becomes payable after the journey — waiting time, extra stops, a cleaning charge or damage — we will notify you with the reason and the amount, and may charge the card used for the booking.
You can change or cancel an upcoming booking yourself — from your account, from the "Manage my booking" link in your confirmation email, or with your booking number and email on our Manage Booking page — or by calling us. Completed journeys cannot be changed.
Cancellations made 24 hours or more before the booked pickup time are free, and everything you paid is refunded. Cancellations made less than 24 hours before pickup are charged 25% of the fare and the rest is refunded. Once a driver has set off to you, please call us: cancelling at that point may be charged at up to the full fare, because the driver's time and travel are already committed. The fee added for paying by card is refunded when you cancel free of charge.
A no-show — where the driver arrives, waits out the free waiting period, and cannot reach you on the number provided — is charged at the full fare. Please always call us before leaving a pickup point if you cannot find your driver.
If we have to cancel your booking, we will tell you as soon as possible, offer a suitable alternative vehicle or time where we can, and refund in full any amount paid for a journey we could not provide. Refunds are returned to the original payment method, normally within five working days.
Changes can be made online up to two hours before pickup. If a change affects the price — a different pickup or drop-off, a different time (for example a night-time journey), a larger vehicle or a different return — we re-price only what changed: if your trip becomes dearer you pay the difference before the change is confirmed, and if it becomes cheaper we refund the difference to your card. For cash bookings the new price is what you pay the driver. Changes requested inside two hours of pickup, or while a driver is en route, may not be possible.
Each journey of a return booking can be changed or cancelled on its own, and the cancellation rule above applies to that journey's own pickup time. The fare for a return journey is paid together with the outbound journey.
We include a generous free waiting allowance so that a normal delay never costs you anything, and we charge only for waiting time actually incurred beyond it, in minutes rather than in rounded-up hours.
Where you have given us your flight number, delays to that flight are always free — we track the live arrival and move your pickup automatically. This is the single most important reason to give us the flight number.
The passenger and luggage numbers in your booking determine the vehicle we send. A driver may lawfully refuse to carry more passengers than the vehicle is licensed and insured for, or luggage that cannot be carried safely — there is no discretion on this, and no refund is due where a refusal results from details you did not declare.
Every passenger must wear a seatbelt where one is fitted. Children must travel in an appropriate child restraint unless a legal exemption applies.
Front and rear seat capacity, including the number of usable child seat positions, varies by vehicle. If you are travelling with two or more children in seats, tell us at booking so we allocate a suitable vehicle.
We provide child seats and booster seats on request — the first seat is free and each additional seat is £10. Tell us the age group of each child at the time of booking so the correct restraint is fitted before the driver arrives.
Although licensed private hire vehicles benefit from a limited legal exemption, we do not rely on it: we will always try to supply the correct restraint, and we strongly recommend you book one. Where a seat you requested is fitted, you remain responsible for checking your child is correctly and comfortably secured before the journey begins.
Unaccompanied minors under 16 are carried only where a parent or guardian has arranged the booking with us directly, confirmed the collection and drop-off arrangements in writing, and provided a contactable number for the whole journey.
A child under three is never carried in the front seat, with or without a child seat. Every child counts as a passenger, including a baby carried on a lap, so please include them in the number of passengers when you book: a vehicle may not carry more passengers than its licence allows.
Our drivers owe you courtesy, discretion and professionalism, and these Terms hold them to a strict code of conduct. The same standard applies in the other direction. Our drivers are at work in their own vehicle, and they are entitled to a safe and respectful environment.
We operate a zero-tolerance policy on abuse of our drivers and staff. Violence, threats, racist, sexist, homophobic or otherwise discriminatory language, sexual comments or advances, and any attempt at unwanted physical contact will end the journey immediately, will be reported to the police, and will result in a permanent ban from the service.
A driver may end a journey early, at a safe location, where a passenger's behaviour makes it unsafe or unlawful to continue. In that event the full fare remains payable.
Where a passenger soils or damages a vehicle, the person who made the booking is responsible for the cost of putting it right. A soiling charge of £150 applies where a vehicle requires professional valeting and is taken out of service; where damage exceeds that, we will charge the documented repair cost and the driver's evidenced loss of earnings.
We will always provide photographic evidence, the valet or repair invoice, and a clear breakdown before charging, and you may dispute any charge through our complaints process.
We do not refuse, downgrade or surcharge any journey because of a passenger's disability, race, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age or pregnancy. Doing so would breach the Equality Act 2010 and our own code of conduct, and any driver who did so would be removed from the platform.
Assistance dogs travel free of charge in any vehicle, and no driver may refuse them. Other pets are welcome by prior arrangement, in a carrier or secured on a protected seat, at no extra cost where the vehicle is left clean.
Wheelchair-accessible vehicles must be booked in advance so we can allocate the right vehicle and a trained driver. Drivers will assist with folding wheelchairs, walking frames and luggage. Please tell us the type of chair and whether the passenger transfers to a seat.
If you would like help to find or identify your car, tell us when you book or call us when you are ready: we will tell you the car's registration and colour, and the driver will come to you and help you to the car. Help getting into the car, carrying mobility aids and help to identify the car are all free — a disabled passenger never pays more than anyone else for the same journey.
For airport arrivals we monitor your flight and adjust the pickup automatically for early or late landings. Meet-and-greet, where booked, means the driver waits inside arrivals with a name board; otherwise the driver will call or message you with a designated pickup point, which airports may change at short notice.
For cruise departures we recommend a pickup time based on your terminal's check-in window. You remain responsible for choosing a pickup time that meets your airline's or cruise line's own deadlines, and we recommend allowing a sensible margin for traffic, roadworks and terminal queues.
Airport and port operators control access, one-way systems, drop-off zones and parking charges, and can close or move them without notice. Charges they levy are passed on at cost and are itemised in your quote.
We plan every journey with a realistic margin and we take punctuality seriously. Journey times are nonetheless estimates and can be affected by traffic, weather, accidents, road closures, breakdowns and terminal congestion.
Where we fail to provide the service we contracted to provide, we are liable for the direct, reasonably foreseeable losses that failure caused, up to the greater of £1,000 or five times the fare paid. We are not liable for indirect or consequential losses such as missed flights, missed sailings, lost holidays, lost earnings or non-refundable bookings, except where the loss was caused by our negligence or by our failure to act on information you gave us at the time of booking.
We are not liable for delays caused by matters outside our reasonable control, including severe weather, industrial action, civil emergency, road closures ordered by the authorities, or acts of a third party.
Nothing in this section limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot be limited by law.
Please check the vehicle before you leave — most losses are found within minutes if reported straight away. Report a loss on our booking line or via WhatsApp with your booking reference and we will contact the driver directly.
Found property is logged and held securely for 28 days. We will arrange return by courier or by a driver where you cover the reasonable cost of getting it to you. We cannot accept responsibility for items left in a vehicle, and we do not carry cash, jewellery, medication, passports or electronics at our risk.
We do not offer private tours, hotel bookings or partner stays at the moment. If we offer them again, the terms for them will be set out here before you can book.
We collect only what we need to run your journey and meet our legal obligations as a licensed operator: your name, contact details, pickup and destination addresses, journey details, payment records and any accessibility requirements you tell us about.
Your details are shared with the allocated driver strictly for the purpose of completing your journey, and only for as long as that takes. Drivers are contractually prohibited from saving your number, adding you on social media, contacting you afterwards for any personal reason, or keeping any record of your address once the job is closed. Breach of that obligation removes a driver from the platform permanently.
We do not sell your data, and we do not pass it to advertisers. We share it only with our payment processor, our email and messaging providers, and — where legally required — with the licensing authority, an insurer or the police.
Booking records are retained for six years to meet tax, insurance and licensing requirements, after which they are deleted. You may request access to your data, its correction, or its erasure where we have no legal basis for keeping it, by emailing hello@hampshiretaxi.com.
Vehicles may carry forward-facing dash cameras for safety and insurance purposes. Where in-vehicle recording is used, footage is retained only for a short period, is accessed solely to investigate an incident, a complaint or an insurance claim, and is never shared for any other purpose.
If anything falls short, tell us. Email hello@hampshiretaxi.com or call our 24/7 line on +44 7300 024843 with your booking reference, the date of the journey and what happened. We acknowledge every complaint within one working day and aim to resolve it within five.
Your complaint is looked into by the office, not by the driver it is about. We check the booking record, speak to the driver, and reply to you in writing with what we found and what we will do about it — an apology, a refund in part or in full, or action with the driver, as the facts warrant.
Serious allegations — particularly any allegation of sexual misconduct, discrimination, dangerous driving or dishonesty by a driver — are escalated immediately. The driver is suspended from the platform for the duration of the investigation, and we report the matter to the police where a crime may have been committed.
As our operator licence requires, we report to Southampton City Council's licensing team, within three working days of receiving it, any complaint or incident that questions whether a driver or our company is fit to be licensed: for example sexual misconduct or harassment, racist behaviour, violence, dishonesty (including theft or a longer route to raise the fare), refusing a wheelchair or an assistance dog, dangerous driving or the condition of the vehicle, overcharging or cancelling a journey without good reason, or a driver asking for your personal phone number or social media. The report includes the driver, the vehicle, your name and contact details and our response, and every complaint is kept on our complaints record.
If you remain unhappy with our final response, you may refer the matter to the licensing authority that issued our operator licence — Southampton City Council's licensing team, quoting our operator licence ref. 2026/00036/45TXPO — or pursue your statutory rights.
We want every passenger to be safe with us, and we take particular care with children, older passengers and anyone who is vulnerable. Every driver who carries our passengers must hold a private hire driver licence from a UK licensing authority, which is granted only after an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check.
Every journey is pre-booked and recorded with the driver and the vehicle that carried it, so we can always say who drove you, in which car and when. Before you get in, check that the car and driver are the ones named in your booking messages; if they are not, do not travel and call us.
If you are worried about the safety or welfare of a child or a vulnerable adult on one of our journeys, tell us straight away on +44 7300 024843 or at hello@hampshiretaxi.com. If someone is in immediate danger, call 999 first.
A safeguarding concern is treated as a serious complaint under section 16: the driver is taken off our work while we look into it, we report it to Southampton City Council's licensing team within three working days, and to the police where a crime may have been committed. Unaccompanied children under 16 are carried only as set out in section 7.
We may update these Terms from time to time; the version published when you make your booking is the version that applies to it. If any clause is found unenforceable, the rest continues to apply.
These Terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction. Because our services are a contract for transport on a specified date, the 14-day cooling-off right under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 does not apply — our own free cancellation window applies instead.
If anything in the passenger terms & conditions is unclear, our team is available 24 hours a day — call, email hello@hampshiretaxi.com, or message us on WhatsApp.
+447300024843Driver code of conduct