Originally Posted by
alanR
You are at Heathrow, so even on separate tickets the best option is to fly to Edinburgh.
From landing at LHR it will be a minimum of 8 hours before you reach Edinburgh if you take the train allowing an hour or so for "things".
Even with the hassle of flying and allowing LOTS of time between flights you would be in Edinburgh 3-4 hours before the train - plus you might strike lucky and not have to collect and recheck luggage at Heathrow.
Makes more sense to take the train back to London from Edinburgh, then after your stay take the Eurostar to Paris - under 3 hours even allowing time to check in - which means you'd be in a Paris street cafe before you left Heathrow
Thank you for the reply. There is no flight availability (on BA at least) anytime 9/5/15 from LHR > EDI. Yes, the train schedule is just shy of 5 hours from King's Cross to Edinburgh. We arrive at 5:55am, so there's deplaning, customs, baggage, breakfast, tube to King's Cross, etc. Realistically, I'm thinking we could make a 9:30ish train, which would put us into Edinburgh around 3PM. Just in time for hotel check-in. I was debating having us take the Eurostar, but EDI > LCY - open-jaw - LHR > CDG for 4500 Avios seems unbeatable. I took the Eurostar last time I was in London, and it was wonderful. I haven't flown through CDG at all. I'm trying to balance cost and time, and without having done much of this before, I may be vastly off on my expectations.