San Francisco International (SFO)

SFO sits south of the city, which makes it closer to Silicon Valley than San Francisco itself is. For a traveller whose meetings are in Palo Alto, Menlo Park or Mountain View, the airport is already most of the way there — and the drive into the city is the longer leg, not the shorter one.

SFO, Oakland or San Jose

If the meetings are on the Peninsula or in the valley, San Jose is often the better arrival and is routinely overlooked. Oakland can be quicker for the East Bay and is usually calmer. SFO carries the international traffic and the widest schedule. The bridges decide most of this, and they decide it differently at eight in the morning than at eight at night.

What prearranged actually means here

A prearranged pickup is not a car circling the terminal. The chauffeur is dispatched against your flight and waits in the holding area airports require commercial vehicles to use, then is called forward when you have your bags. That call is usually a text from you, and the few minutes between it and the car appearing is the part travellers most often mistake for lateness.

Planning a Bay Area day

Valley days rarely fit a single pickup. Meetings run long, a fourth stop appears at lunch, and the distances between them are real. Holding a car and chauffeur as-directed for the day is almost always cheaper than the string of transfers it replaces once the waiting and the rebooking are counted.

Put the flight number on the booking

It is the difference between a car that follows your aircraft and one that follows a clock. With it, a delay costs you nothing and nobody has to call anyone. Without it, a two-hour delay becomes two hours of billable waiting — the single most common surprise on a ground transport invoice.