Businesses which have signed up to one of the UK’s largest car clubs say the service has helped to cut the numbers of staff commuting to work by car.

Arriving at Raymond Blanc’s legendary retreat Le Manoir was a pleasure from the moment we arrived in the car park where an extremely helpful man appeared, greeted us and took the car keys. We achieved instant calm as we stepped through an opening in a hedge and heard the expensive whirring of a helicopter coming in to land. We had arrived.

One downside to frequent-flier programs is being limited to one airline, but now thanks to The Global Points Exchange on Points.com, a loyalty program management site which lets members of participating programs trade miles, that is soon to become a thing of the past.

Our guide to the best six conference hotels around the UK.

Manchester based law firm DWF LLP are set to significantly reduce their carbon footprint in 2010 by cutting staff fleet cars and using City Car Club pay-as-you-go cars instead.

The Lexus LS600h L is not only the world’s first four-wheel drive hybrid V8 but also the flagship of the luxury brand’s range. It offers a discreet but strong challenge to its better known German rivals, says Dave Sumner Smith,

What do you get when you cross a coupé with a 4X4? An X6 ‘Sports Activity Coupé’. The rarity of this BMW suggests, however, this untimely crossbreed is the answer to a question nobody wanted to ask, says Dave Sumner Smith

The difference between a good restaurant and a good hotel is that in a good restaurant you expect to find high standards of service and product, decent value, and then also originality, flair, wit and sophistication, whereas in a good hotel you just cling to the dream that it won’t be utterly dismal.
I go to hotels quite a lot, overnighting after an evening function somewhere and, honestly, it is so dispiriting.

A rival to the original Austin Mini, the Fiat 500 was one of the first small city cars. Originally produced between 1957 and 1975, it measured 9 feet in length and had a tiny 479cc engine (hence the name 500). In 2007, fifty years after the original, Fiat revised this cheeky little car. It’s loosely based on a 2004 concept car, the Trepiuno. Dean Woodward takes one for a spin for us…

The 1970’s saw rising demand from European consumers for smaller vehicles now known as superminis. Ford answered this with the Fiesta in 1976. It was an instant success, with the millionth Fiesta produced 3 years later in 1979. Now after 33 years, over 10 million sales, the MK7 Fiesta remains one of Ford’s most popular cars. Dean Woodward takes one for a spin for us at Business Matters