If you want to know how to change a taxi booking with iDrive, the answer depends on one question: has the booking been confirmed yet? Before confirmation, nothing is committed. If you are looking at a price on the journey planner, you change the search and a new price is worked out. If you are holding an emailed quote you have not accepted, you reply with the new details and ask for a revised quote. After confirmation, a change is a request. It goes to our team, the change is assessed against the vehicle and driver already held for you, and you are told the outcome, including any price difference, before anything is altered. Asking to move a time is not the same as cancelling.
One thing to know first. Our Terms of Hire and cancellation policy are published as drafts in legal review, not yet in force, and online checkout has not opened. Where this guide quotes them, it says so, and the figures are proposals that can still change. The terms that govern your journey are the ones stated on your quote and Booking Confirmation.
The decision in one table
Start by working out which state your booking is in. The status decides who has to act and what can move.
| Where you are | What a change involves | Who acts | What you end up with |
|---|---|---|---|
| Searching on the planner, nothing submitted | Edit the search: pickup, drop-off, date, time, passengers, luggage | You | A fresh price for the new inputs |
| Holding an emailed quote, not yet accepted | Reply on the same thread with the corrected itinerary | You, then our team | A revised quote that replaces the old one |
| Accepted but not yet confirmed (no Booking Confirmation) | Tell us straight away, before a Partner is assigned | Our team | The request is updated before confirmation is issued |
| Confirmed, more than 48 hours before pickup | Change request on the booking thread or via My booking | Our team, with the Partner | An amended confirmation, or a clear answer on why not |
| Confirmed, inside 48 hours | Same route, but act fast; the driver and vehicle are already committed | Our team, with the Partner | Depends on what the Partner can still do |
| Pickup time has passed | No change possible; the journey either ran or was a no-show | — | Handled under the cancellation policy |
The draft Terms of Hire are specific on the confirmation point: a booking is only confirmed when you receive a Booking Confirmation showing the assigned Partner’s details, such as the photo, registration number and vehicle class. Until then it is provisional. That is the moment a real vehicle and driver are held for you.
Changes before you accept: how to amend an itinerary and request a revised quote
Our journey planner works in two ways. On roads we already price, it shows the vehicle classes we run and an indicative fare. On roads we have not priced, it starts an itinerary enquiry and a person replies by email with a quote. The way you amend an itinerary before accepting a quote follows from that split.
On the planner
Nothing is on record until you submit, so a change is just a new search. Adjust the pickup or drop-off, the date and time, the journey shape (one-way, return, or by the day), passengers and bags, and press update. Do not correct a wrong search with a free-text note; the price is calculated from the structured fields, not the note.
On an emailed quote
A quote is priced for the itinerary it describes. If the itinerary moves, so does the basis of the price. To request a revised quote cleanly:
- Reply on the same email thread, so the original request and the correction sit together.
- Restate the full itinerary as it now stands, not only the part that changed. “Pickup now 04:30 instead of 06:00” is less useful than the whole journey written out again with the new time in it.
- Say plainly that the new version replaces the earlier one.
- Wait for the revised quote before accepting anything. Accepting the old quote and adding “with the changes above” makes it unclear which version you agreed to.
Each revision is a new version. Keep the one you accept, because that is the document that sets out what you have agreed to buy. If two versions are open on the same thread, write back saying which one you are accepting and quote its figure.
Which changes keep the price and which re-price
There is no universal list of “free” and “chargeable” changes, and it would be misleading to print one. What exists is a set of inputs the price is built on. Our draft Terms of Hire say that prices vary with route, vehicle class, duration, service type and demand. So the useful test is this: does your change touch one of those inputs?
| Change | Pricing input it touches | What to expect |
|---|---|---|
| Pickup moved within the same terminal or building | Usually none | An update to the meeting instructions |
| Pickup address moved to another part of the city | Route and distance | Likely to be re-priced |
| Extra stop added, or a stop removed | Route and duration | Re-priced |
| Pickup time moved on the same day | Possibly demand, possibly night running | May stay the same, may not; ask |
| Date moved | Demand, and whether the same Partner is free that day | Treated as a new assessment of that date |
| More passengers or bags than the vehicle seats | Vehicle class | Needs a larger vehicle, which usually costs more |
| One-way changed to return, or to by-the-day | Service type and duration | Re-priced from scratch |
| Optional extra added | An itemised extra | Shown and agreed before it is added to the total |
Two principles in the draft terms sit behind this. The total shown at booking is described as the full and final price, inclusive of all mandatory charges, with no hidden fees added afterwards. Optional extras are itemised and agreed before they go on the total. The practical reading: if a change moves the price, you should see the new figure and agree to it before it applies. If you do not agree, ask for the original booking to stand.
A change can also lower the price, for example when you drop a stop or move to a smaller vehicle. Our draft cancellation policy says plainly that the handling of changes that raise or reduce a fare has not been decided. Until it is, changes are dealt with case by case and you are told the position before anything is confirmed. Ask for that position in writing.
A note on currency
Prices are set in Pakistani rupees. For payment in pounds, dollars or euros, the draft terms say the exchange rate and conversion margin are shown and fixed at the moment you pay, so a revised price would carry its own conversion on the day it is settled. Compare rupee figures, not sterling ones.
Changes after confirmation: time, date, vehicle and route
Once a Booking Confirmation has been issued, a specific driver and vehicle are held for you. Every change is now a question of whether that Partner can still do the job, or whether it has to move to another Partner. The draft cancellation policy says a change is not a cancellation, and that it is often possible to change the date, time or pickup point instead. It also asks you to contact us before cancelling if your plans have moved rather than fallen through. That order matters. Cancelling first and rebooking later puts you on the cancellation timetable for no reason.
Changing the pickup time
Usually this follows a retimed flight or a moved family event. Small moves on the same day are often easy to absorb. Big ones are not. Moving a 14:00 pickup to 02:00 the same night is, for the driver, a different shift.
For airport pickups, send the new flight number as well as the new time. A flight number identifies the arrival without ambiguity, which a time you have converted yourself does not. If an airline changes your flight, forward the airline’s notice rather than retyping it.
Changing the date
A date change is assessed as if the new date were a fresh request, because the Partner’s diary for that day is a separate question. For car hire with a driver, or for self-drive hire, a changed booking date also moves the end of the hire. Say whether you want the same number of days shifted, or a new start with the original end date kept.
Changing the vehicle
If your group has grown, or the luggage has, tell us before the day. The draft cancellation policy notes that a driver may refuse to carry more passengers than the booking or the vehicle allows. If that stops the journey, it is treated as a no-show.
Changing the route
Route changes cover a new destination, an added stop, or a different road. Any of them can mean a different price and sometimes a different vehicle. Some roads also carry conditions that are not about price. The UK government’s FCDO safety and security advice for Pakistan notes that roads outside the major motorways vary in quality. It also warns that monsoon damage and landslides can close roads, and that major routes in and around cities may be blocked during unrest. The main FCDO Pakistan page advises against all travel, or all but essential travel, to several areas, including all of Balochistan and much of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Check that page before you ask to add a stop or reroute through an unfamiliar district. The FCDO also warns that travelling against its advice can invalidate your travel insurance. Separately, the draft cancellation policy lets a driver decline a road he judges unsafe, such as an unlit mountain road at night or a flooded crossing.
Deadlines, measured from pickup
Changes have no published deadline of their own. Cancellations do, and they set the practical limit. The draft cancellation policy proposes free cancellation when your request is received more than 48 hours before the scheduled pickup, and a 10% fee inside 48 hours. Three details in how it measures that window are worth applying to change requests too:
- It runs backwards from the scheduled pickup date and time on your Booking Confirmation, not from when you booked.
- It is measured in Pakistan Standard Time.
- What counts is when we receive your request, not when someone replies. A request that arrives at 49 hours out is outside the window, even if it is answered at 47.
For a multi-day hire or multi-leg trip, the window runs from the pickup time of the first leg unless your confirmation says otherwise. Some services run to different numbers. The draft Terms of Hire say wedding convoys, security guard hire and certain vehicle and driver combinations need at least 24 hours’ notice for Partner confirmation and vetting, and they currently propose a 72-hour free-cancellation window for convoy and security bookings, a point still to be reconciled with the 48-hour policy. Where a different window is shown for your booking before you pay, that window applies.
Why this matters for changes: if a change turns out to be impossible and you decide to cancel, the clock that applies is the cancellation clock. Ask early, and on the proposed terms the fallback stays free.
Time zones catch people out
Pakistan Standard Time is UTC+5, and Pakistan does not use daylight saving. The UK does. While British Summer Time is in force, Pakistan is four hours ahead of the UK. After the clocks go back, it is five hours ahead. GOV.UK lists the clock change for 25 October 2026.
Example, for illustration only: a pickup is booked for 06:00 PKT on a Thursday. The 48-hour mark is 06:00 PKT on Tuesday. For someone in London during British Summer Time, that is 02:00 on Tuesday, not Tuesday breakfast. A request sent over coffee at 08:00 London time would arrive inside the window.
How to make the change request so it is recorded
Our customer account area is being built to let you manage upcoming bookings and request rescheduling or cancellation from one screen. Customer accounts are not open yet, so for now the record lives in two places:
- The booking email thread. Reply to any email we have sent about the booking and quote your booking reference. The reply is time-stamped on arrival, which settles any question about deadlines.
- My booking. The draft cancellation policy describes a My booking page, opened with your booking reference and the email address you booked with, as the other route for requests. Use it where your confirmation points you to it.
Avoid making the change by phone call alone, or only through a message to the driver. A driver can agree to wait ten minutes. He cannot change what is booked, re-price it, or move it to a different day on the system, and a verbal promise leaves no record for anyone to rely on later. If you do speak to someone, follow up on the booking thread with what was agreed.
Wording that gets a fast answer
Put the reference and the change in the subject line, for example “IDR-reference: change pickup time 18:00 to 21:30, same day”. In the body, list what changes and state that everything else stays as confirmed. Include the new flight number if there is one. Then add one sentence saying what you want if the change cannot be made: keep the original booking, or cancel it. That last line saves a round of emails when time is short.
Confirm the change in writing before you travel
A sent request is not an accepted change. Until you have a written reply confirming the amendment, treat the original booking as the one that will run. Before the day, check:
- You have a reply that restates the new detail (time, date, address, vehicle), not a general “noted”.
- Any price difference is stated in rupees, and you have agreed to it.
- If the change moved the booking to another Partner, the driver’s name, photo, vehicle class and registration in your latest confirmation match the new arrangement.
- Everyone travelling has the updated pickup point and time, not only the person who booked.
On the day, check the car that arrives against the latest confirmation. The draft Terms of Hire let us cancel a booking where the vehicle, driver or service does not match the Booking Confirmation, with a full refund and/or a replacement booking for you. That protection only works if your confirmation is up to date.
Booking from the UK: what consumer law does and does not add
Travellers booking from Britain often assume a 14-day cooling-off period covers them. For car hire, it usually does not. Regulation 28(1)(h) of the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 excludes vehicle rental services from the statutory cancellation right where the contract provides for a specific date or period of performance. A car hired for set dates in Lahore falls squarely into that. Your right to change or cancel then comes from the booking terms, which is why the cancellation window, the definition of “received”, and a written record of your request matter so much.
This is general information, not legal advice.
Where a changed plan touches another booking
A single change often ripples outward. A delayed return flight moves the airport drop-off and the last night’s hotel. Make a list of every booked journey that sits either side of the change, and send one request per booking reference. A single email covering four bookings is easy to action for three and miss for the fourth.
If your trip goes on to Saudi Arabia for Umrah, the Saudi transfers are a separate booking with separate terms. Our sister company Saudi Cab Co explains its own approach in its guide to cancellation and rescheduling in Saudi Arabia. Check it before you move dates on the Pakistan side, so the two halves still line up.
If you are still at the planning stage, with dates or passenger numbers not yet settled, our sister service Pakistan Taxi, which runs on the iDrive network, has a practical list of questions to ask about itinerary changes before you pay.
Your next step
If the change is big enough that the old booking no longer describes the journey, for example a different city, a different day and twice the passengers, it is often cleaner to price the new journey first. Run it through the iDrive journey planner, then reply on your existing booking thread with the reference and ask us to replace the old arrangement with the new one. Do not create a second booking and leave the first one open. Two live bookings for the same trip are how people end up with two cars at arrivals.
Questions people ask
Can I change a taxi booking without cancelling it?
Yes. Our draft cancellation policy treats a change as separate from a cancellation and suggests contacting us before cancelling if your plans have moved. Date, time and pickup point changes are often possible, subject to the Partner’s availability.
Will changing my pickup time change the price?
It may. Price depends on route, vehicle class, duration, service type and demand. A small shift on the same day often touches none of those; a move into the night or onto another day can. You should be shown any new figure before it applies.
What is the latest I can ask for a change?
There is no separate published deadline for changes, but ask more than 48 hours before pickup, measured in Pakistan Standard Time. Under the proposed policy, that keeps free cancellation open if the change cannot be made.
Is my change confirmed once I have sent it?
No. Wait for a written reply that restates the new details. Until then, the original booking stands.
