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I got to Maidstone services and immediately found a van with a Berlin number plate. They couldn't take me, though, because - as most people do - they had booked their ticket in advance and there they must state which and how many passengers are in the car. (if they go for the cheapest option, they cannot amend their ticket)
What worked instead was asking the group of polish freight drivers in front of their vans. Most of them have a ticket with p&o ferries and don't need to state how many passengers are in the front. No questions were asked by the ferry/ticket operators. So, as of today, go for the commercial drivers instead of private people
'''Personal experience, October 2019'''
We (1 male, 1 female) went to the Maidstone service station, approaching lorries to get a lift to France. A British driver told us since Feb 2019 most lorries can't take an additional "driver" aka hitchhiker for free and are not taking hitchhikers anymore. Interestingly Romanian and Polish trucks are excluded from this regulation since they usually drive a lot further and are expected to have a second or even third driver in the cabin. So if you want to hitch with a lorry, go for the PL and ROM plates.
The British driver also told us, you can't add extra passengers to the tunnel ticket so we'd be better to ask for ferry passengers. We then phoned the two biggest ferry companies to check and yes - on most tickets you can add on additional passengers without any fee.
At Maidstone itself we couldn't find anyone going to Dover, so we went to the petrol station close to Folkeston and found a guy taking us all the way to Hamburg!
