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ViaVan launches in London with £3 Zone 1 rides

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ViaVan, a joint venture between Mercedes-Benz and US start-up Via, has launched in its ‘shared journey’ service in London.

From what I can gather, it is basically ‘UberPOOL with a minibus’.

A ViaVan will be heading in roughly one direction, say from Wimbledon to Central London, and will pick up people from ‘near’ their homes or wherever they are along the way.  Each passenger will be dropped off ‘near’ their final destination.

All rides will be shared.  The upside is very aggressive pricing – during the launch period, all rides inside Zone 1 will be priced at a flat £3.

I am pretty sure that this is not a service for me, but you may think differently.  There isn’t much of a website – see here – but full details are in the app.

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How to get FREE car rental status and other benefits via UK credit cards

How to get FREE car rental status and other benefits via UK credit cards (April 2025)

If you hire a car in the UK, you can get special benefits (discounts, upgrades, free additional drivers etc) if you have elite status with a car rental programme. You can get elite status for free via certain American Express cards.

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American Express Preferred Rewards Gold is an excellent card in its own right. You receive 20,000 Membership Rewards points for signing up (convert to 20,000 Avios amongst other things), four airport lounge passes and £120 of Deliveroo credit. Even better, your first year is free.

There are two car rental benefits:

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Category

General

Comments (54)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Nick says:
    20 Apr20 April 08:34

    Go – thank you very much. I have used your code and signed up an received £20 of credit and believe you will have too. The app has now generated my code – nicholas8w6. Which someone can use. If HFP readers keep signing up using a code posted here and then paste their own, we will all end up with £40 credit which goes a long way at £3 per ride.

    nicholas8w6

  • Save East Coast Rewards says:
    20 Apr20 April 09:24

    TfL run a similar service, £1.50. They even have priority lanes on some roads. ????

  • ambient says:
    20 Apr20 April 09:28

    Re: viavan. I could be wrong but doesn’t this service already comprehensively exist? I think I’ve seen these big red things running up and down London’s roads picking you up from ‘near’ where you are, and dropping you off ‘near’ where you want to be, often by circuitous routes to pick other customers up?! And all for one low flat fare!

  • Gerald5b7 says:
    20 Apr20 April 09:31

    Here is another option for a promo code that will offer you £20 in credit –> gerald5b7
    Many thanks

  • Chris says:
    20 Apr20 April 10:19

    OT one (though it is BITS)

    Lloyds upgrade voucher – is it possible to have different classes for the outbound and inbound leg? Online you certainly can’t (it only offers the reduced avios when both legs are in the same cabin class)
    but is it something you can do by phone?

    • Tim says:
      20 Apr20 April 10:38

      You can’t do it online but you can phone up and do it by phone. You have to use the whole voucher in one go in a single booking so only upgrading a one-way only makes sense if you are travelling with another person so you can both upgrade one direction.

      I always travel as family of 4 and have done this a couple of times – Booked 4 one way CE RFSs over the phone to Avios and when it comes to debiting the Avios they manually adjust so that they fewer Avios are taken due to the voucher. They then manually remove the Voucher from your account too and can’t “half remove it” so everything has to be done in one shot.

      Avios phone line agents are great and have always understood how to do this. If you don’t book before avios closes you will have to deal with the idiots in the BA call centre and things may not be as smooth.

      • Chris says:
        20 Apr20 April 10:48

        It isn’t a single – not really, it’s a return trip I want but out in PE as there’s no CW or F and back in F – is that possible as far as you know?

      • Chris says:
        20 Apr20 April 10:57

        Scratch that, can’t use a lloyds upgrade voucher into F, has that always been true?

        • The_real_a says:
          20 Apr20 April 14:06

          You have never been able to upgrade to F in the 4 years i had the card. Mixed class redemtpions are fine via phone.

      • Alexey says:
        20 Apr20 April 17:10

        Question about upgrade voucher – if I have existing booking on Ba ( using avios ) can I use that voucher to upgrade it ? or it have to be booked on avios site ?
        also thinking about upgrading return leg only ( for 2 ) to minimize tax , is that possible or have to be one way bookings ?

  • JPV says:
    20 Apr20 April 10:49

    OT: Need to book a round trip from ORD to EDI in feb of 2019. I’m trying to travel as cheaply as possible, don’t mind travelling in Y.

    Is there any use for avios or amex MR points that can lower the cash cost of this journey while still giving a somewhat reasonable value?

    I’m aware long-haul economy is usually a no-go for avios, but I hadn’t realised quite how expensive BA fees are even ex-USA.

    Was thinking of amex > spg > AA but by my calc I would need 45k AA miles, which is 40k SPG points, which is 80k MR. Cash ticket is ~£500 so it doesn’t seem like a great value.

    Any clever alternatives I’m not thinking of?

    • John says:
      20 Apr20 April 11:02

      Try Aer Lingus ORD-DUB-EDI

      • JPV says:
        20 Apr20 April 11:09

        Thank you for the suggestion! I hadn’t checked Aer Lingus. Still looking like 0.55p per avios in the best case unfortunately. Perhaps I need to adjust my expectations

        • Chris says:
          20 Apr20 April 11:22

          Does it make a difference if you book on IberiaPlus, if availability exists

        • JPV says:
          20 Apr20 April 11:31

          Chris, thank you for the help!

          the fees for the BA routing are the same (more or less) on iberia plus.

          Can’t get the Aer Lingues routing to show on IB for any of the dates I’ve tried (unless there are some extra knobs to twiddle somewhere?)

        • FlyUpTop says:
          20 Apr20 April 13:27

          You may need to call up BA for availability on Aer Lingus, BA do not always show correctly or using the Avios platform.

    • Lumma says:
      20 Apr20 April 11:59

      Have you checked the cash fares on Norwegian from those weird airports in the north east of America direct to Edinburgh, then a cash or points redemption from Chicago to these airports.

      American, united and south west all seem to fly Chicago to Providence for example

    • The_real_a says:
      20 Apr20 April 14:10

      Price up delta redemptions as the dynamic pricing can throw up very cheap options if your dates match up. I had great value even redeeming on partners inc. virgin for very little cash.

  • Faithy says:
    20 Apr20 April 13:15

    OT Can you refer from BAPP to gold or gold to BAPP?

  • Tilly says:
    20 Apr20 April 18:02

    The £3 fare is only within zone 1? What about a fare zone 1 to LHR T5?

    • Rob MC says:
      20 Apr20 April 18:07

      When you go on the app the area that you can travel in is highlighted. I believe the zone 1 is only for the £3 fare.

      • Lochlann says:
        20 Apr20 April 21:22

        It’s showing as to or from zone 1 for me – I’m about 50 yards out of the service area so £3 is a bargain!

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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