“Meet & greet” means your chauffeur waits for you inside the terminal — typically at baggage claim, or just outside customs for international arrivals — holding a sign with your name, rather than waiting outside at the curb. Curbside pickup means you walk out to a designated pickup zone and your driver meets you there. Both are legitimate options; the right one depends on your luggage, how well you know the airport, and whether you want someone to physically walk you to the car.

If you’ve never booked a private car service before, this distinction is probably the single most confusing part of the process. Rideshare apps don’t really have an equivalent — you request a car, it shows up at a pin on a map, and you find it. A professional car service works differently, and understanding the difference before you book saves you from standing in the wrong spot wondering where your driver is, or worse, having your driver wait in the wrong place while you wait in another.

What “Meet & Greet” Actually Means

“Meet & greet” is industry terminology for a specific kind of pickup: your chauffeur physically enters the terminal, finds a position near baggage claim (or the customs exit for international flights), and waits there holding a sign — usually with your name printed on it — so you can spot each other in a crowd of strangers.

What’s included in a standard meet & greet:

• A chauffeur inside the terminal before your flight lands, based on real-time flight tracking
• A visible name sign so you can identify your driver without needing to call or text first
• Help locating you if the terminal is crowded or you’re having trouble finding the sign
• An escort to the vehicle, generally with luggage assistance included
• For international arrivals, the driver typically waits just outside the customs and immigration exit, since drivers usually can’t go past that point

What meet & greet is not:

it’s not your driver walking to your specific gate (airport security generally prevents non-ticketed people from going past security checkpoints), and it’s not a guarantee your driver will spot you before you spot them — in a packed baggage claim area during a busy arrival window, you may need to actively look for a sign with your name rather than assume you’ll be found immediately.

This is different from curbside pickup, where the driver stays with the vehicle at a designated pickup area outside the terminal, and you walk out to meet them after collecting your luggage.

Why the Terminology Trips People Up

Part of the confusion is that “meet and greet” sounds like it could describe either option — after all, you’re meeting your driver and greeting them either way. In the ground transportation industry specifically, though, “meet and greet” has a narrower, established meaning: it always refers to the inside-the-terminal, baggage-claim-or-customs pickup, never the curb. If a booking confirmation or a company’s website uses the phrase without further explanation, it’s safe to assume they mean the terminal-based version — but when in doubt, it’s always worth confirming directly rather than assuming, since the two options genuinely change what your arrival experience looks like.

Curbside Pickup — When It Makes Sense

Curbside pickup is simpler in concept: your driver parks (or circles, depending on the airport’s rules) at a designated area outside the terminal, and you make your way there after landing and collecting any checked luggage.

Curbside works well when:

• You’re traveling light. A single carry-on and a personal item make navigating from baggage claim to the curb straightforward without needing help.
• You know the airport. If you’ve flown through this specific terminal before and know exactly where the ground transportation pickup area is, curbside removes a layer of coordination you don’t need.
• You have a domestic flight with a fast connection to the curb. Domestic arrivals at O’Hare and Midway generally have shorter walks from gate to curb than international arrivals, which route through customs first.
• You prefer more control over timing. With curbside, you text or call your driver when you’re a few minutes out, and the vehicle pulls up closer to when you actually arrive at the curb — useful if your walk from the gate takes longer than expected.
• Cost is a consideration. Some car services price meet & greet as a small add-on rather than including it standard — curbside is sometimes the lower-cost default option.

Where curbside gets harder:

• Heavy or multiple checked bags. Wrestling luggage through a crowded terminal and across a busy pickup lane without help is a real downside, especially solo.
• Unfamiliar airports. If you’ve never been to this terminal before, finding the correct curbside zone — which can be a genuine walk from baggage claim at a large airport — adds stress right when you’re tired from a flight.
• International arrivals. After clearing customs, international terminals sometimes route arriving passengers through a longer path to ground transportation than domestic arrivals, and navigating that solo in an unfamiliar country’s airport is more demanding than a routine domestic curbside pickup.
• Groups or families with kids. Coordinating multiple people and their luggage across a walk to a curbside zone is more manageable with someone physically there to help than communicating by phone from outside.

Baggage Claim Pickup — When It Makes Sense

Baggage claim (or customs-exit, for international flights) pickup — the “meet & greet” option — puts your driver inside the terminal with you from the moment you’re through the arrivals process.

Meet & greet works well when:

• You’re flying somewhere unfamiliar. Not knowing your way around a terminal is one of the strongest reasons to have someone find you rather than the reverse — you don’t need to figure out where the ground transportation curb is at all.
• You have significant luggage. Multiple checked bags, golf clubs, oversized items, or anything else that’s a hassle to manage solo is far easier with a driver there to help from baggage claim onward.
• It’s your first time using a car service. If you’re unsure how any of this works, having your driver already standing there with a sign removes almost all of the uncertainty — you don’t need to coordinate timing or find a specific curb zone.
• You’re arriving internationally. After a long flight and customs, having someone waiting right at the exit — rather than navigating an unfamiliar ground transportation area on your own — is a meaningful comfort, and it’s the standard option most international travelers choose.
• You’re traveling for business and want a seamless, low-effort arrival. Corporate travelers frequently default to meet & greet specifically because it removes any friction between landing and getting to a meeting or hotel.
• Mobility, age, or health considerations make navigating a terminal independently more difficult. Having a driver right there to assist is a straightforward way to reduce physical strain on arrival.

Where meet & greet is arguably unnecessary:

• A quick domestic hop with just a backpack. If your bag fits in an overhead bin and you know exactly where the curb is, meet & greet adds a layer of coordination (finding your driver’s sign in a crowd) that curbside doesn’t require.
• When cost matters and the service is priced as a premium add-on. Some providers charge extra for meet & greet; if your trip doesn’t especially need it, curbside can be the more economical choice.

How You’ll Find Your Chauffeur

Whichever option you choose, here’s what actually happens on the ground, step by step.

For meet & greet (baggage claim / customs exit):

1. Your driver tracks your flight in real time and times their arrival at the terminal to be in position before you land — not scrambling to get there after wheels-down.
2. They position themselves at a visible spot near baggage claim, or just past the customs and immigration exit for international arrivals, holding a sign with your name (sometimes your company name instead, if arranged in advance).
3. As you come through the arrivals area, you look for the sign — it’s usually a clean, printed name card rather than something handwritten, positioned at a height and location where arriving passengers naturally pass.
4. Once you connect, your driver introduces themselves, confirms your name to make sure of a correct match, and helps with luggage from that point onward.
5. You’re walked directly to the vehicle, which is either parked nearby or will be pulled up by another team member/valet arrangement depending on the airport’s specific rules about vehicle staging.

For curbside pickup:

1. Your driver tracks your flight and times arrival at the airport’s designated pickup zone to coincide with your estimated time through baggage claim.
2. As you exit baggage claim, you head toward the ground transportation or private car pickup area — signage inside most terminals points the way, though it can take a few minutes to walk at a large airport.
3. You text or call your driver (most bookings include a direct number, not a call-center relay) to confirm you’re heading out, and your driver either is already at the curb or times their approach to your arrival there.
4. You identify the vehicle by make, model, and color, which is typically provided in your booking confirmation.
5. Your driver loads luggage and you depart.

A detail that applies to both options:

professional car services generally give you a direct line of communication with your actual driver, not just a dispatch office. This matters most when something doesn’t go according to plan — which is covered next.

What to Do If You Can’t Find Each Other

Even with flight tracking and a clear plan, arrivals don’t always go smoothly — a delayed flight, a crowded terminal, or simply missing each other in a sea of people all happen. Here’s how to handle it.

If you can’t find your meet & greet driver:

• Check your booking confirmation for a direct phone number or text line to your driver — call or text immediately rather than waiting and hoping you’ll spot them.
• Confirm you’re at the correct baggage claim carousel or exit — larger airports have multiple baggage claim areas, and a wrong-terminal or wrong-carousel mixup is one of the most common reasons for a missed connection.
• If your flight arrived early or significantly delayed, mention that specifically — flight tracking should account for schedule changes automatically, but confirming out loud removes any doubt.
• Look for the sign at a slight distance and higher up — drivers often position signs to be visible over a crowd, so scanning above eye level in a packed arrivals area sometimes reveals a sign you’d otherwise miss at ground level.

If you can’t find your curbside driver:

• Call or text using the direct number provided, and confirm your exact location — many airport curbside areas have multiple numbered or lettered zones, and being one zone off is a common, easily fixed mixup.
• Describe any nearby landmarks (a specific terminal exit number, a nearby sign or pillar) since “I’m at the curb” isn’t specific enough at a large, multi-lane pickup area.
• If you’re running later than expected due to a long walk from the gate, let your driver know — most professional services build in a reasonable grace period, but a heads-up avoids any confusion about whether the trip has been missed.

The general principle behind both scenarios:

a direct line to your actual driver — not a generic dispatch queue — is what makes these situations resolve in a couple of minutes rather than turning into a prolonged, stressful search through a crowded airport. This is one of the more meaningful, if underappreciated, differences between a professional car service and either a rideshare pickup or an unfamiliar taxi queue, where there’s no equivalent direct contact if something goes sideways.

Meet & Greet vs. Curbside — A Side-by-Side Comparison

Neither option is objectively “better” — they solve for different needs. A frequent business traveler who knows O’Hare’s Terminal 1 curb by heart may prefer the simplicity of curbside every time. A family arriving internationally with four suitcases and jet lag will almost always find meet & greet worth any added cost.

The comparison table is a useful starting point, but the real decision usually comes down to answering three quick questions honestly: How much luggage am I actually carrying? Have I been through this specific terminal before? And how much do I want to think about logistics the moment I land versus just being found? If the honest answers point toward wanting less to manage on arrival, meet & greet is almost always the better fit — the modest cost difference, where one exists, is small relative to the difference in stress and effort at a tired, disoriented moment in a trip.

International vs. Domestic Arrivals — Why the Process Differs

The meet & greet vs. curbside decision shifts meaningfully depending on whether you’re arriving domestically or internationally, and it’s worth understanding why before you book.

Domestic arrivals: are relatively straightforward: you land, walk to baggage claim (if you checked a bag), and from there it’s a short, well-marked path to either the curb or, for meet & greet, your driver is already waiting right in that baggage claim area. There’s no customs process, no immigration line, and generally a fairly predictable timeline from wheels-down to exiting the secure area — usually 15-25 minutes depending on how far your gate is from baggage claim and how busy the carousel is.

International arrivals: add several extra steps: immigration/passport control, baggage claim, and then customs, in that order, before you reach the general terminal area where ground transportation waits. This process can take anywhere from 30 minutes to well over an hour depending on the airport, the time of day, and how many flights are landing simultaneously. A few things follow from this:

• Meet & greet drivers for international arrivals typically wait just outside the customs exit, since that’s the first point where an arriving passenger becomes accessible to someone who isn’t traveling with them. Your driver can’t come further in than that, and you can’t be met earlier in the process — this is standard at essentially every international arrivals terminal, not a limitation specific to any one provider.
• Flight tracking matters even more for international flights, since the total time from landing to actually exiting the secure area is longer and less predictable than a domestic arrival. A driver tracking your flight accounts for the landing time, but the walk through immigration and customs adds a variable buffer that a good service builds into their timing rather than having the driver arrive right at your gate’s scheduled landing time.
• The case for meet & greet over curbside is generally stronger internationally. After a long-haul flight, customs, and possibly a language or layout unfamiliar to you, having someone waiting right at the exit — rather than needing to independently locate an unfamiliar ground transportation curb in a country you may not know well — removes a meaningful amount of friction at exactly the point in your trip when you’re most fatigued.
• Chicago’s O’Hare handles the vast majority of Chicago-area international arrivals, with Midway serving primarily domestic and a small set of international routes depending on the airline and season — worth confirming which terminal and which arrivals process applies to your specific flight before you finalize a pickup preference.

None of this means curbside is wrong for international arrivals — some experienced international travelers genuinely prefer it and know exactly where they’re headed. But if this is your first time landing internationally at an unfamiliar airport, meet & greet removes one more unknown from a day that already has several.

A Few Practical Tips Regardless of Which You Choose

• Save your driver’s direct contact information before you fly, not just in a confirmation email you might not have easy access to on landing — a quick screenshot or saved contact means you’re not searching your inbox with spotty airport wifi.
• Note your specific terminal, not just the airport. O’Hare has multiple terminals, and international arrivals in particular land in a specific one — providing this detail at booking, or confirming it the day of travel, avoids any mismatch.
• If your flight schedule changes — earlier, later, or a different flight entirely — let your provider know as soon as you know, even if you believe flight tracking will catch it automatically. A quick confirmation removes any doubt on both sides.
• If traveling with a group, decide in advance who will be the point of contact for coordinating with the driver. Multiple people independently texting or calling the same driver creates more confusion, not less.
• For meet & greet, look for the sign proactively rather than waiting to be spotted. Baggage claim areas are visually busy, and a driver’s sign is one of dozens if not hundreds of visual elements in a crowded space — actively scanning for your name works better than assuming you’ll be found immediately.
• If you’re unsure which option to choose, ask when you book. A good provider will ask about your luggage, whether you know the airport, and whether it’s an international or domestic arrival — and can recommend the better fit for your specific trip rather than leaving you to guess.

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How This Compares to a Rideshare Pickup

If you’ve only ever used rideshare apps for airport trips, the whole meet & greet vs. curbside framework might feel unfamiliar — rideshare doesn’t really offer an equivalent choice. It’s worth understanding the difference, since it’s part of why this decision exists at all for a private car service and not for an app-based ride.

How rideshare airport pickup typically works:

you request a ride after landing (sometimes after clearing baggage claim, sometimes as soon as you land, depending on the app and airport rules), the app assigns you a driver, and you’re directed to a designated rideshare pickup zone — which at most major airports is a specific, sometimes fairly distant, lot separate from the general curbside area used by taxis and private cars. You then need to match your ride to a specific car based on a license plate and driver name shown in the app, often in a crowded lot with dozens of similar-looking vehicles arriving and departing simultaneously.

The key structural differences from a professional car service:

• No terminal-based option. Rideshare doesn’t offer anything equivalent to meet & greet — there’s no driver waiting inside with a sign. You’re on your own from baggage claim to the rideshare lot regardless of your luggage situation or familiarity with the airport.
• No pre-scheduled certainty. A rideshare is requested on demand after you’ve landed, meaning there’s a variable wait for a driver to be assigned and arrive, especially during high-demand periods. A scheduled car service, whether meet & greet or curbside, has your specific pickup already planned and timed around your flight.
• No direct driver relationship. You’re matched with whichever driver the app assigns at that moment, with communication typically routed through the app’s messaging system rather than a direct line established in advance.
• Additional walking distance is common. Airport-mandated rideshare pickup zones are frequently located further from baggage claim than standard curbside or meet & greet areas, sometimes requiring a shuttle or a longer walk specifically because airports separate rideshare traffic from other ground transportation for congestion management.

None of this makes rideshare a poor choice for every situation — for a quick, low-stakes domestic trip with light luggage and a flexible schedule, it can work perfectly well. But for exactly the scenarios where meet & greet shines — heavy luggage, unfamiliar airports, international arrivals, tight schedules, or simply wanting a predictable, pre-arranged experience — the structural limitations of on-demand rideshare pickup are the clearest illustration of why a scheduled meet & greet or curbside option exists as a distinct, more coordinated alternative.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is meet & greet more expensive than curbside pickup?

It depends on the provider — some include meet & greet as a standard part of every airport transfer, while others treat it as a modest add-on. Confirm this specifically when booking rather than assuming either way.

What happens if my flight is delayed — does my driver still know to wait?

With a service that tracks flights in real time, your pickup time adjusts automatically to your actual arrival, whether that’s for meet & greet or curbside. This is one of the clearest advantages over arranging your own separate pickup manually.

Can I request meet & greet after I’ve already booked curbside, or vice versa?

Usually yes, if you contact the provider before your flight — this is a simple adjustment to a booking rather than something that requires rebooking entirely. It’s easiest to specify your preference when you first book, though, to avoid any last-minute scrambling.

How will I recognize my driver at baggage claim if I’ve never met them?

Your driver holds a visible name sign — typically printed with your name or, for corporate bookings, sometimes your company name instead. Confirming your name verbally when you approach is standard practice to ensure a correct match.

Do I need meet & greet for a short domestic flight with just a carry-on?

Not necessarily — if you’re comfortable navigating the terminal and know roughly where the pickup curb is, curbside is often simpler and sufficient for a light, familiar trip. Meet & greet becomes more valuable the more luggage, unfamiliarity, or complexity is involved.

Is meet & greet available at all Chicago-area airports, or just O’Hare?

Meet & greet is generally available at any major commercial airport served by a professional car service, including both O’Hare and Midway, and typically for private jet arrivals at executive airports as well — though the exact meeting point (terminal baggage claim vs. an FBO lounge for private aviation) differs by airport type.

What if my international flight’s customs process takes much longer than expected?

A driver tracking your flight accounts for a reasonable buffer, but customs delays can occasionally exceed typical timing. Staying in touch via your direct driver contact — letting them know you’re still in the customs line — keeps both sides informed rather than either of you guessing at what’s happening.

Book the Pickup Style That Fits Your Trip

Whether you want a driver waiting for you at baggage claim with a sign, or you’d rather walk straight to a curb and go, the right choice comes down to your luggage, your comfort with the airport, and how much hands-on help you want on arrival.

All Star Limo includes both options across every Chicago-area airport, with real-time flight tracking so your pickup time adjusts automatically no matter which style you choose.

Related reading:

• O’Hare Limo Service
• Midway Limo Service
• Private Jet Limo
• Chicago Limo Pricing

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