Originally Posted by
xenole
I pay £2.80 on the tube. Only used the Hex once and it took me twice as long what with delays etc.
Even on a good day, it's not worth paying 8x as much to save 5-10 minutes if not at Paddington in the first place
The trouble is when you come to travelling during peak hours
...the Picadilly then becomes £4.60 or even worse, £5.00 if going back outside central London to Zone 5 or 6 (which basically means you're paying a premium for the inconvenience and added tediousness of travelling via central London when really you're just doing a Z6-Z6 or Z6-Z5.
During peak hours it's even harder to do anything productive during the journey.
I suppose if you arrive at LHR on a weekday around 08:30 or 18:00 you'd be joining the tube during peak hours, whereas, taking the Heathrow Connect could mean that by the time to reach Paddington and swipe-in your Oystercard, you're actually joining the Underground during Off-Peak hours; the total cost still remains twice the price for similar journey times, but 50% of the journey should still be somewhat productive.
Picadilly:
Z6-Z5:
£5.00 (Peak)
Heathrow Connect:
Heathrow Connect: £9.50 Single
Z1-Z5: £3.00 (Off-Peak)
Total:
£12.50
I have journeyed from Heathrow to Feltham and then onwards to Clapham Junction a few times before now, and the Feltham to Clapham services are similarly slow but if you get the semi-stopping service it's one notch less on the tedious scale!
I've only done this when travelling by bike though and getting from/to Heathrow T1 to/from Feltham has also become a chore with the T1-4 HEX running less frequently than in the past necessitating a cycle around the perimeter road.