Returning to the LGW/LHR connection issue, and please excuse the length of this post ...

... I had a look yesterday about the TLL option for ex-EU, as it seems so popular. It seems, according to Matrix, that if I get the Red-Eye JER-LGW, I have just 3 hours (=MCT) to catch the LHR-HEL-TLL flights. However, that timing puts me on the M23/M25 at the worst possible time, anti-clockwise. Is 3 hrs possible? Possibly ... or not, and with no subsequent flight options that day, common sense suggests a night-stop near LHR.

All of a sudden, this becomes faintly farcical. The CE fare came up at £300 each, with a total of 280 TP after the x-Channel: so far so good! Then add another £40 Flex return on NEX, and another £100+ of the hotel near LHR, and all of a sudden this starts to look like (a) Inconvenient, (b) Expensive, (c) Time-consuming, and (d) not worth the aggravation.

The 3 hour MCT surely works most of the time, but having seen the traffic in the opposite direction on the M25 on many mornings, I wouldn't feel happy building a 'no options' trip on the basis that it should work, even if the NEX coach actually diverts somehow around the worst congestion.

I'm risk averse, basically!