Originally Posted by
dulciusexasperis
Yes, unfortunately you can't avoid it at LHR. Whenever possible, I would try to avoid LHR as I consider it one of the worst airports anywhere to fly in/out of. They have no idea of how to make it more hassle free for travellers and almost seem to want to make it as unpleasant an experience as possible.
Connecting at LHR can be beneficial. Imagine flying SFO-BOD. Option 1: Flying into AMS, going through immigration there, and connect to BOD. Option 2: Fly into LHR, avoid large queues at immigration and enter Schengen at BOD, where queues won't be quite as bad at peak times.