It’s my first time in London. I took Uber from Heathrow to Commercial Road. UberX price on app was £71 and Google Maps showed a straight path. But my Uber driver took the route in the image and my charges shot up to £135.72. Is it usual for Uber to take that route?
Also, Uber charged £8.50 as airport pick up fee when I clearly aaw driver paying £7.50. After this they added a waiting fee of £5 for 5 mins of wait.
Is this a norm here woth Uber charging these ridiculous fees and Uber drivers not following the google maps path of 20 miles at 1 hour 9 mins estimate versus 66 miles at ~2 hours of trip?

by Equivalent_Ad_1733

30 comments

  1. I’ve had something similar when using Uber abroad. I raised a ticket with them and got a refund. I would suggest trying the same.

  2. Why didn’t you take the train???

    It all depends on the traffic at the time. If Google maps recommended heading straight there (and didn’t change due to an accident or traffic jam) and instead the driver did a loop around then obviously you got ripped.

  3. This is a normal route for an Uber from the airport to that side of London. The more direct route is much slower and goes through a lot of traffic, so the M25 route you went on makes sense most of the time. Sometimes the Uber drivers have asked me before switching to this route, but I don’t think you’ve been ripped off.

    I paid £120 for a similar route a couple of months back.

    Edit: The A406 is another option but perhaps there was traffic on that route.

  5. The Elizabeth Line could’ve got you there in an hour for under £15. Getting a taxi of any sort for a trip like that is a terrible idea, you just got double-ripped-off

  6. My recommendation would be to download Citymapper and use the public transport we have here. It’s relatively cheap and usually faster than taxi/uber

  8. It’s a common route to avoid central London traffic at peak hours when your destination is East London. You take M25 and then exit at M11 for Canary Wharf or Tower Hamlets or Shoreditch etc. BUT is only worth for the driver because you usually (the word usually is important) is less the nightmare in Central. It doesn’t worth for the rider though. Cab drivers and Uber drivers try to use it and you have to ask them not to. Dispute the fair.

  9. It’s a valid route to take the M25 all the way around as it’s usually faster than travelling through the centre. The A406 is an inner alternative orbital route but both run the risk of potentially hours of traffic.

    I just don’t know why anyone would take a taxi for a journey like this though. We have some of the best train infrastructure in the world and even though we might consider it expensive for the distance, it would’ve been less than £15 and under an hour to get you from Heathrow to Liverpool Street which is right next to Commercial Road.

  12. It’s tenuous, but it is a plausible route if there is any kind of traffic or accident on the more direct routes. I’d say it’s worth chasing up a partial refund with Uber, but they might tell you no. And Uber is always outrageously expensive here. I had assumed that was true everywhere.

    Lesson to be learned: do not take taxis for any route to or through central London unless you absolutely have to. The Elizabeth line is quick, comfortable, and very easy to use.

  14. What time was your journey?

    The traffic across central London is shit especially during the peak hours, when I’m navigating across town from around Heathrow, often it’s quicker to just go the long way (M25 or the orbital motorway that you went).

    A direct journey is usually within 20 miles, going through M25 triples that but it is often faster.

  15. There is no way on earth driving east and north to hit m25 to then go west and south to Heathrow is quicker than going through town. Even with traffic that is a ludicrous decision.

  16. I am an uber driver and can answer for this. The £8.50 is because we have to wait at the waiting lot at the airport for uber drivers while waiting for passengers to book us. The lot charges £1 an hour. Uber charges you for that as well.

    The waiting fee is because when drivers get to your location, we enter through the 5th floor of the parking lot and it is a long windy road down to the first floor to pick up (opposite is true for other terminals). GPS sees it as us already being there as soon as we get to the fifth floor and the auto count down kicks in. We don’t do it, we can’t start/stop it. Also, we only get close to £2 of the waiting fees if the whole 5 minutes is spent. Uber keeps the other £3.

    The M25 route depends purely on what time of the day it is. Google map will say 1 hour 20 minutes and will tell you it is the shortest route but once on the road the drive time keeps increasing. I’ve once taken a passenger on a similar route when I was a new driver. It first said 1 hour 40 minutes but it eventually ended up taking over 3 hours. The driver gets frustrated, the passenger gets frustrated. Not good for anyone.

    I know it could be annoying, especially when you’d been quoted far less by uber. The drivers fault here is he should’ve given you all this information beforehand. Again, like everyone else said, Elizabeth line is much faster and literally a tenth of the price.

    Edit: Uber driver probably got close to £75 for that trip, plus the £8.50, of course.

    Edit 2: I should’ve been more clear. Uber pays us £1 for waiting at the waiting lot regardless of how long we’ve waited. The other £7.50 is the Heathrow pick up fee at the car park that OP saw the driver pay at the barrier. There are times you wait over an hour but you only get the £1 waiting lot fee regardless of how long you’ve waited. It is usually less than an hour though, to be fair.

  18. Ubers are the least convenient way to get round London. The Elizabeth line would have got you to whitechapel in like an hour and cost £5.60 at peak time

  19. People making the same “WHY DIDNT U TAKE TRAIN” comment 50x when they explained repeatedly they had 5 pieces of luggage- which is expected when you, you know, travel from an airport.

  23. To be fair, every time I’ve driven from Heathrow back to East London that’s the route I’ve taken as it’s usually quicker and avoids the congestion zone. But £135m takes the piss.

  24. All these people are saying that going via the M25 is usually the quickest route for East London. This is true for East London, but op is located at the Tower of London: that doesn’t really count as East London. That is central London. In 99% of situations, going directly through central London would be faster: the only reason it wouldn’t is if there’re some horrendous road closures.

  25. The A501 (main road through cental) was closed last night.

    This is usually the fastest, route to East london regardless, as someone who lives east and often travels to the south west.

    We really need tunnels to skip through central.

  26. It should have been a Lizzie McSchnizzie Bizzie Tizzie.

    A.k.a. the Elizabeth line.

    What were you thinking?

  27. That is not the best route 😕

    He took you for a ride, no pun intended; He should have gone straight down the M4/A4 and then via the centre inner ring road A501 that’s a straightforward easy route or worst case A406 outer ring road.

    I’d ask for a partial refund! My guess is he has done this on purpose to maximise the fair.

  28. I’ve had this happen to me which is why I stopped using uber for any airport transfers. The 1st time it happened, I had no clue that he was taking a different route. He just drove.

    2nd time, driver said that there’s heavy traffic in the usual route (through the city). I said I’m not in a rush so happy to use the usual route. He still ended up using the longer route so I manage to dispute it.

    Sometimes, drivers will ask you your preferred route but it doesn’t really help if you’re new. Now, I either take the Lizzie line, picked up by the airline or hire an airport transfer (usually around £79)

  29. This is ragebait, isn’t it? Who write this posts? Serena Williams’s husband to keep the website relevant?

    No rational person in London will see this and focus on anything other than the lizzie line could have taken you there entirely avoiding the issue. So I can’t fathom if you’re just trolling to keep subscribers to r/london typing.

  30. Elizabeth line from Heathrow to Whitechapel. 45 mins journey at £5.80 on contactless

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