Five ways to make the trip, what actually drives the cost of each, and the point where one becomes cheaper than another. Including the cases where you should not book us.
See every published fareIf you are one person with a cabin bag and your flight is at a civilised hour, a scheduled shuttle bus will be cheaper than us and it is not close. You are buying one seat; we sell the whole vehicle. No amount of arguing changes that arithmetic, so we will not try.
The reason this page exists is that "cheapest" stops meaning the shuttle surprisingly early — usually at the second passenger — and almost nobody does the sum before booking.
Sold per seat, on a fixed timetable, usually with other stops along the way. Cheapest for one person. The costs that do not appear on the ticket are the departure times you have to build your morning around, and the stops between you and the terminal. Con-x-ion is the main operator on this corridor; check their current fare and timetable directly.
Priced at the moment you book. On an 85 km run the figure can be reasonable off-peak and unpleasant at 5am on a Monday, and you will not know which until you open the app. Uber publishes how surge pricing works if you want the mechanism. The other thing to know is that a driver who accepts a Gold-Coast-to-Brisbane fare is committing to a long trip and may not accept it at all.
The option that looks cheapest and often is not, because two costs hide. Airport parking is charged for every day you are away, not for the trip — see Brisbane Airport's parking rates. And somebody has to drive home from Brisbane and come back again, which is roughly four hours of driving across the two trips that nobody puts a number against.
For an overnight trip, driving usually wins. For anything past two or three days, the parking alone tends to pass the transfer fare.
Possible, and the cheapest thing on this list for a solo traveller who is not in a hurry, but it is not one journey. From most of the coast it is a local leg to the station, the Gold Coast line north, a change, then Airtrain into the terminal. Each leg is cheap; the total time and the luggage handling are the real price. Worth checking the current fares and connections on TransLink.
One vehicle, door to door, at a price fixed before you book. Our fare for this route is published for every suburb we serve, which is the part worth comparing: there is no quote form and no figure that changes once you have committed.
One way, per vehicle, GST and the Gateway Motorway toll included. These are the figures the booking form quotes, not "from" prices.
| From | Sedan | Sprinter 14 | Per head at 14 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ormeau · Coomera | $195 | $385 | $28 |
| Helensvale · Hope Island | $210 | $420 | $30 |
| Southport · Runaway Bay | $235 | $440 | $31 |
| Surfers Paradise · Broadbeach | $245 | $485 | $35 |
| Burleigh Heads · Varsity Lakes | $255 | $485 | $35 |
| Palm Beach · Elanora | $265 | $505 | $36 |
| Coolangatta · Tugun | $280 | $530 | $38 |
| Tamborine Mountain | $300 | $530 | $38 |
Every suburb has its own fare and five more vehicle classes sit between these two — see the full price list. Child seats $15 each, luggage trailer $30.
Take Surfers Paradise, our busiest pick-up for this route. The sedan is $245 for the vehicle. Split it:
The crossover is the second passenger. That is the whole point of this page: a couple travelling together are usually choosing between roughly $123 each door to door, and a slightly cheaper seat that leaves on someone else's timetable.
For groups it stops being close. A Sprinter from Surfers Paradise is $485 for up to fourteen people — about $35 a head, one vehicle, everyone's luggage, no connections.
Three things decide this more often than the fare does.
The hour. A 4am departure from the Gold Coast for a 7am flight out of Brisbane is where the options thin out fast. Shuttles may not run that early, rideshare is thin and expensive, and the train is not an option. Our fare at 4am is the same fare as at noon — there is no after-hours loading on an airport transfer at all.
The luggage. Two adults with two large suitcases each do not fit in a sedan, and discovering that on the driveway at 4:30am is its own kind of expensive. Our sedan carries two large bags; an SUV four; a people mover six.
Children. Queensland requires an approved restraint for children up to seven. Rideshare cannot reliably provide one. Ours are $15 each and fitted before we arrive — see child seats.
We have not quoted any competitor's fare on this page. A rideshare price is set at the moment of travel, and shuttle, parking and rail fares change without notice. Any figure printed here would be out of date before you read it, and quoting a rival's price from memory is how comparison pages end up dishonest. The links above go to each operator so you can check today's number yourself.
For one person travelling light, a scheduled shuttle bus is almost always the cheapest, because you are buying one seat rather than a whole vehicle. A private transfer is priced per vehicle, so it only becomes competitive once two or more of you are travelling.
Two. From Surfers Paradise our sedan is $245 for the vehicle, so at two passengers it is about $123 each, which is close to a shuttle seat and beats it on time. At three or four it is clearly cheaper than buying that many seats.
It depends where on the coast you start, and the range is wide. The sedan fare runs from $195 at Ormeau and Coomera to $245 from Surfers Paradise and $280 from Coolangatta. Every suburb has its own published fare rather than a from price.
Driving looks cheapest because the two real costs are easy to forget. Parking at the airport is charged per day for the whole time you are away, and someone has to drive back from Brisbane, which is roughly two hours of driving nobody counts. For a trip of more than two or three days the parking alone usually passes the transfer fare.
No. The fare is fixed by suburb and vehicle and does not move with demand, the hour or the day. A 3am pick-up on New Year's Day costs the same as a Tuesday lunchtime, and the Gateway Motorway toll is already inside the price.
Allow between an hour and an hour and a half for the drive itself. The measured times are 56 minutes from Southport, about an hour from Surfers Paradise and about an hour and a quarter from Coolangatta, in normal traffic. Weekday peak between Coomera and the Logan Motorway can add noticeably to that.
Pick-up, drop-off, vehicle. The fare comes back straight away, and it is the same figure whether you travel at 4am or midday.
Get an instant price Or call +61 481 437 772 — 24 hours, 7 days.