Booking for someone senior? Send these questions first

Listing photos tell you about the sofa, not about whether anyone's on the front desk at 11pm when the flight lands late. The quickest way to book a luxury serviced apartment your boss will actually be happy in is to send the residence a list of questions before you commit, and judge it on the answers.

Start with the diary and the desk

Before you open a single listing, write down where your boss has to be each day, and when. Two mornings at a Canary Wharf bank and three evenings of client dinners in Mayfair point to quite different apartments. With a split diary, favour the early starts: nobody minds a taxi home after dinner, but everyone minds a long commute before an 8am meeting.

Then look at the street itself. If a driver's collecting each morning, a mews or a pedestrianised stretch can mean a walk to the car in the rain, and very few residences list parking, so ask where a car can wait rather than assuming it can.

Most apartments have a dining table, and far fewer have a real desk with a chair you'd sit in for three hours. If your boss will work evenings from the flat, ask for a photo of the desk, and whether there's a spare screen or a TV that takes a laptop. Printing is the one everyone forgets. Hardly any apartments have a printer, so find out whether reception will print boarding passes and papers, or whether you'll be sending documents to a print shop round the corner.

The building and the bedroom

Reception, a lift and air conditioning rule out more apartments than anything else, and they're easy to check. Across the residences we list, only about half have a reception, and it's much the same story for lifts and air conditioning, so a period building in Marylebone can be lovely and still mean four flights of stairs and a fan in August. Ask whether reception is staffed round the clock or only in office hours, because for a senior traveller on an evening flight, a staffed desk or a clear plan for collecting keys is essential.

Ask for the bed size in the specific apartment, not the building's range, and whether the bedroom faces the street or the back; on a main road you'll know the difference by 6am. Blackout blinds matter in June, when it's light before 5am. And if your boss runs warm, make sure the air conditioning reaches the bedroom and isn't only in the living room.

Housekeeping, arrival and what to send

Daily maid service is rarer than people assume, with only about one residence in five listing it. Plenty clean weekly as standard, with extra visits on request, so if your boss expects hotel-style servicing every day, pick a residence that offers it or book paid extra cleans before arrival. Shirts are the other headache. Check whether the building has a laundry or dry-cleaning service; a washer-dryer in the flat is useful, but be realistic about whether your boss will ever touch it.

Overnight flights land early, and standard check-in is usually the afternoon. If early access matters, say so when you enquire, and think about booking from the night before so the flat's ready when they land. Direct guests are sometimes offered early check-in or late check-out, and you want that confirmed in writing. Stocking the fridge beforehand is a common request: some residences do it through reception, others give you a delivery window for a supermarket order, so agree which and send the list with plenty of notice. Give the residence a mobile number for your boss and one for you, and say which of you they should ring if a flight's delayed.

Put the following into your enquiry along with the dates, and ask for answers about the apartment you're booking rather than the building in general.

• Whether reception is staffed 24 hours, and if not, how a late arrival gets the keys
• Whether there's a lift, and air conditioning in the bedroom
• The bed size, and whether the bedroom faces the street
• How often housekeeping comes, and what an extra clean costs
• Whether there's a laundry or dry-cleaning service
• The Wi-Fi speed, and whether there's a desk with a proper chair
• Early check-in or late check-out, confirmed now
• Whether the fridge can be stocked before arrival