Which Airport Transfer Vehicle Should You Choose? Saloon vs Estate vs MPV5 vs MPV6 vs MPV7

The Four Tiers Most People Choose Between

Every fare below is fixed, includes the airport drop-off charge, and covers the whole vehicle rather than each passenger. Routes shown are our most-booked pickups.

Saloon

TOYOTA PRIUS · 4 SEATS

From

£47

person4 luggage2 cases work2 cabin

The default booking and the right one for most journeys. Two people with a case each, or four travelling on hand baggage only. Where it runs out is four passengers with four checked bags.

Reigate → Gatwick£47

Edgware Rd → Heathrow£58

Guildford → Gatwick£81

MPV5 — 5 Seater

VAUXHALL ZAFIRA · 5 SEATS

From

£56

person5 luggage2 cases work2 cabin

A seatbelt upgrade rather than a luggage one. The fifth seat is genuine; the boot is the same two cases as a saloon. Right for five people travelling light, wrong for five with checked bags.

Reigate → Gatwick£56

Edgware Rd → Heathrow£70

Guildford → Gatwick£97

MPV7 — 7 Seater

HYUNDAI i800 · 6 SEATS

From

£65

person6 luggage4 cases work4 cabin

The best passenger-to-luggage balance in the fleet, and the reason it has become the most requested vehicle. Six people with four checked cases and the pushchair still fits.

Reigate → Gatwick£65

Edgware Rd → Heathrow£80

Guildford → Gatwick£112

MPV8 — 8 Seater

FORD TOURNEO · 7 SEATS

From

£73

person7 luggage5 cases work5 cabin

Where the MPV7 stops. Seven passengers with five checked cases actually fit here, which they do not in the tier below. Also the answer for a group carrying golf bags or ski equipment.

Reigate → Gatwick£73

Edgware Rd → Heathrow£90

Guildford → Gatwick£126

Every Vehicle, Verified Capacity

How many suitcases fit in a taxi depends entirely on which one you book. These are the figures our fleet actually works to, not manufacturer boot litres. A large suitcase means a standard 23kg checked bag; a cabin case is airline hand-baggage size.

On the difference between a saloon and an estate, read down the suitcase column rather than the passenger column and the fleet looks completely different. The jump that matters is not saloon to estate — that's a cabin case. It's the step into MPV6 and MPV7, where hold luggage actually increases.

What the Executive class actually buys you

Not luggage room, which is the common misunderstanding. If you're booking an executive taxi to Heathrow or a City arrival, what it buys is the vehicle itself and how it presents: no taxi roof sign, no door stickers, no rooftop advertising — visually a private executive car rather than a booked minicab. For a board-level arrival, a hotel pickup, a wedding or a client collection, that discretion is usually the whole point of the booking. Leather interior, more rear legroom, and a quieter ride come with it.

The MPV5 vs MPV6 Decision

What is an MPV taxi, and does the number after it matter? This is the single most useful thing on this page, because the two vehicles look almost identical on a booking form and behave very differently on a driveway.

The MPV5 exists to solve a seatbelt problem. Five people need five belts, and it provides them — but the boot is the same two cases as the saloon you'd have booked for four. Five passengers each with a checked bag will not fit an MPV5, and that's the booking that most often goes wrong.

A 6 seater taxi to Gatwick costs roughly eight per cent more than the MPV5 and adds a hold case plus a cabin case. On a Gatwick run from Reigate that's about £56 against £60 — four pounds for a third suitcase. For most five-person airport bookings, that's the one to take.

Why the MPV7 Has Become the Most-Booked Vehicle

How much luggage in a 7 seater taxi, and why has demand climbed so steadily? Looking at the capacity table it's obvious: six passengers with four suitcases and four cabin cases is the best passenger-to-luggage balance anywhere in the standard fleet.

Two things make it work. The first is that four hold cases is the point at which a normal family holiday actually fits — two parents, two children, four checked bags, and the pushchair still goes in. For a family taxi to the airport, the second is the high roofline and side-door loading, which matters more than the numbers suggest when you're lifting a 23kg case at 3am in the rain.

Where it stops being the answer is seven passengers with seven cases. The MPV7 carries six comfortably; a full seven with full luggage is an MPV8 job. Booking the 7 seater and hoping is where the morning goes wrong.

Gatwick Airport — Fares by Vehicle

Whether you want to book a 7 seater taxi, an estate or a standard saloon, Gatwick is the most-booked airport across our South East routes. The £10 Gatwick forecourt fee is baked into each figure.

Anyone hunting a cheap airport taxi should read the Reigate row across, because the whole pricing logic shows up there: eighteen pounds separates a saloon from a 7 seater taxi on a short run. Split across six passengers that's three pounds each for a vehicle that actually fits everyone's luggage.

Heathrow Airport — Fares by Vehicle

For an 8 seater taxi to Heathrow or any smaller tier, Heathrow sits west of London, so fares favour western and central pickups. Every figure below already absorbs Heathrow's £7 forecourt fee.

Long Heathrow runs are where vehicle choice matters most for comfort as well as luggage. A ninety-minute journey in a Zafira with five adults is a different experience from the same trip in an i800, and the fare difference on those routes is proportionally smaller than the comfort difference.

Luton, Stansted, London City and Southend

The same MPV airport transfer tiers apply to every airport. These fares are from central London (W2) and Oxford, two of the most common pickup points for these four.

Southend follows the same structure and is quoted on the same basis; because it draws mostly from Essex and East London rather than the South East corridors above, the fare depends heavily on the specific pickup postcode.

The uplift pattern is consistent across every airport and every distance: estate +15%, MPV5 +20%, MPV6 +28%, MPV7 +38%, MPV8 +55%. Once you know your saloon fare, you can work out any other vehicle in your head.

Cost Per Person Reverses the Picture

Because the fare covers the vehicle rather than each passenger, the bigger vehicle is frequently the cheaper one once it fills up. This surprises people who assume the small car is the economical choice.

A 7 seater taxi carrying six works out cheaper per head than a saloon carrying four, and the 16 seater is the cheapest per person in the entire fleet. For a group that fills the vehicle, size is an economy rather than an extravagance.

Wheelchair, Pet and Cycle Vehicles

Three specialty options sit outside the standard tiers, and all three need requesting at booking rather than mentioning on the day, because they come from a smaller pool of vehicles.

The cycle vehicle is worth knowing about if you're flying with a bike, since a boxed bicycle will not go in any standard saloon or estate and generally needs seats folded even in a larger MPV. Booking the right vehicle from the start avoids arriving at a car that physically cannot take it.

What Golf Clubs, Skis and Child Seats Actually Cost You

Your airport taxi luggage allowance isn't only about suitcases. These are the items people forget to declare, and each one quietly consumes capacity you were counting on.

Child seats are free with us, which sometimes means they get left out of the luggage maths entirely. Two children in seats plus four checked bags in a five-seat vehicle is a tight fit even in an MPV6; for a family that shape, the MPV7 is usually the honest booking.

The child car seat law, and what it means for booking

Do taxis have child seats, and are they compulsory? Ours are free on request, and yes — in England children must use a child car seat until they are 12 years old or 135cm tall, whichever comes first. That's a legal requirement rather than a preference, and it changes the arithmetic in a way that catches families out: a fitted child seat occupies a full passenger seat, so if you're bringing your own, count it as a passenger when choosing your vehicle. A family of four with two child seats is effectively a six-seat booking, not a four-seat one.

Pushchairs are bigger than people remember

Can I take a pushchair in a taxi? Yes, but size it properly. A full travel system — bassinet, chunky frame, wheels that don't fold flat — can take up half a saloon boot on its own before a single suitcase goes in. If you're travelling with a pram and two or more large cases, an MPV6 is the realistic minimum. A compact fold-flat buggy is one suitcase of space; a travel system is not.

Why Two MPVs With the Same Name Aren't the Same Car

Worth being straight about this, because it's the reason capacity figures across the industry disagree with each other. "MPV" is a category, not a specification. Some people carriers are built around a deep boot; others sacrifice it entirely for a third seat row. A Kia Sedona or Chrysler Grand Voyager can take four cases while carrying six passengers; plenty of other six-seat MPVs manage only two in the same configuration.

This is why the numbers on this page are tied to specific vehicles — Vauxhall Zafira for the MPV5, Ford Galaxy for the MPV6, Hyundai i800 for the MPV7 — rather than to the word "MPV". When you book a tier, you are booking to that capacity, and the vehicle allocated will meet it.

The practical benefits nobody lists

Two things about the larger MPVs matter more in practice than on paper. The first is sliding-door access rather than a hinged door, which in a tight driveway or a busy terminal forecourt makes loading a child or an elderly passenger far easier. The second is the raised cabin height — you step in rather than drop down into it, which sounds trivial until someone with a bad back is doing it at 4am with a case in hand.

Oversized items: the actual thresholds

Put any of these in the notes field when booking rather than mentioning them to the driver. A vehicle assigned knowing about the surfboard arrives able to carry it; the same vehicle assigned without that information frequently cannot.

What Actually Happens If the Vehicle Is Too Small

Worth spelling out, because the consequence isn't a mild inconvenience and most booking pages skate past it.

The driver arrives, the luggage doesn't fit, and the options narrow fast. If a larger vehicle is free nearby, it's dispatched and the fare difference is charged — you lose twenty minutes and pay the gap. If nothing is free, which is common between midnight and 5am when the fleet is thinnest, the journey can't run as booked. At that point you are arranging transport at short notice, at the worst possible hour, with a flight to catch.

The same problem in reverse catches people on arrivals. A group landing at Gatwick with more luggage than declared can find themselves stranded in the terminal while a second vehicle is found, which is both expensive and a poor end to a holiday.

Which One Should You Actually Book?

Count large suitcases first, then passengers. This table reads in that order.

When Two Smaller Cars Beat One Big One

The per-head table makes the large vehicle look like the obvious answer, and usually it is. There are three situations where it isn't, and they're worth knowing before you book.

When the numbers don't quite reach

Seven passengers with seven checked bags exceeds the MPV7 and needs the MPV8. But if that group splits naturally — four adults on one flight, three on another an hour later — two MPV6s at different times can work out better than one MPV8 waiting around. On a Reigate to Gatwick run that's roughly £120 across two vehicles against £73 for one, so it only makes sense when the timings genuinely differ.

When pickups are in different places

A group assembling from three addresses across a county is not one job with detours; it's usually two or three separate pickups. Each additional collection point adds mileage and time to a single-vehicle booking, and at some point two saloons collecting independently beat one MPV7 zigzagging. Tell us the addresses when booking and we'll say honestly which way works out better.

When the luggage is genuinely unusual

Four passengers with two boxed bicycles is not a bigger-vehicle problem, it's a specialist-vehicle problem. A cycle friendly vehicle takes two passengers and a folded bike; two of them handle the group properly, where a single MPV8 with bikes wedged across folded seats does not. The same applies to surfboards, large instruments and anything over about two metres.

Getting the Booking Right First Time

Getting a taxi quote right takes four habits that prevent almost every vehicle problem, none of which take more than a few seconds at the booking stage.

Count hold bags, not people

Write down how many 23kg checked cases are actually travelling, then find the vehicle row that takes that number. Passengers are the second check, not the first. This single reversal of order is what separates a smooth 4am pickup from a stressful one.

Declare the awkward things

Golf clubs, skis, pushchairs, instruments, bikes, anything unusually long or heavy. None of them cost extra to mention and all of them change which vehicle is sent. A driver who knows about the golf bag brings something it fits in.

Round up when you're between tiers

If your luggage sits exactly on the limit of a vehicle, the tier above is typically a few pounds on a short run and removes the entire risk. On an early-morning departure, when there's no second vehicle available at short notice, that few pounds is the cheapest insurance in the whole booking.

Book the return at the same time

Coming home from a fortnight away usually means more luggage than going out, not less — duty free, presents, things that seemed like a good idea on holiday. If the outbound was tight, size the return one tier up rather than assuming it'll be the same.