Westbound Piccadilly line services can go to two different branches, either Heathrow or Uxbridge, but the stations have clear electronic signage saying where the trains are going. This is repeated on electronic signs inside the trains and on audio announcements at every station for the benefit of blind customers. (What you want to hear is "This is a Piccadilly line service to Heathrow Terminals 1, 2, 3 and 5")

I think the Tube is an easy system to understand when you are on it, even if the lines look complicated on the map.

Thank you, thank you. So very gracious of you to take such time.

I'm looking online to purchase the oyster cards. Is that 15 per person or will the 15 take care of both our fares?

Thank you. Every bit of info helps with familiarity. I do appreciate the time.

Thank you for your insight. Most the time I would do carry on luggage but this time we're going as light as possible. One handbag with only the necessaries.

I'm using a Chase Sapphire credit card. Will I still need GBP? If so, how much?

Okay now I am curious what this option is? I do like the CX lounge in T3.

If your arrival on London falls on the weekend then £15 should be enough for both of your fares.

If your arrival is on a weekday then it looks like your return to Healthrow will fall during peak time since you said you'll be returning to LHR at 5pm. You'll need a total of £16.4 to cover both of your fares assuming your trip into central London did not occur during peak time.

FYI the definition of the peak time is 06:30 to 09:29 and from 16:00 to 18:59 Monday to Friday.

There's a program to allow people departing from other terminals access to T1-T2-T3 for shopping purposes. Even if you gain access to T3 using that program, you aren't supposed to be able to gain access to the lounges in that terminal unless you are departing from that terminal. As it is the CX Lounge is currently closed.

Assuming it is on the Visa, Mastercard or American Express network, it should be accepted at any "cash point" (British name for an ATM) and indeed widely accepted in London for card transactions. However, you should tell your own bank that you are leaving the country, because I understand that US banks find it suspicious when cardholders use their card abroad and tend proactively to block the transaction.

London is a great city (I live here :D) and I think it is an easy one for Americans to explore. I hope you enjoy your trip.

Each passenger needs their own oyster card for a journey - the gates won't open if you try to use the same card twice - so you will need two cards. Alternatively if you have a contactless debit/credit card or Apple Pay it will be much easier to use that without the need for oyster at all. It looks like Apple Pay works with many US banks now:

https://tfl.gov.uk/fares-and-payment...ment/apple-pay
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204916

To second what Microwave explained above, the British Library, the Railway Children and King's Cross St Pancras station are all very close to each other - no cabs necessary.

The Railway Children is near a very trendy regeneration area called Granary Square behind St Pancras station and across the canal. There are some excellent restaurants and cafés there - Dishoom in particular is great, but you may not have time for that. [Edit: On second thoughts, you could easily manage lunch at Dishoom if you fancied it - say if you booked a table at 12.45, that would give you an hour or so at the Library beforehand and time enough to get to the show at 2.30.] Otherwise just head for a wander around the square and canal - it's buzzing in nice weather.

Note if you're running late and/or hungry when you get to the British Library, there are a couple of decent cafés in there - one has a terrace with some outdoor tables, but Granary Square is a nicer setting.

We arrive next Wed. Trip into the city will be dependent on arrival time and how we take to get to train. Since we leave next Tuesday I doubt we'll be able to get tickets ahead of time.

I was looking to see if there was a way to email theatre and ask about same day tickets and probability of availability. Any signicant delay out of PHL could mess up the plan. I didn't find out before having to run to work but I did see the railway has a 2 for one deal connected to the theatre. Still looking into that because I don't know if the tube is considered a qualifying train for the deal.

Well, it would need to be an EXTREME delay to really mess up the plan. Even if you land 2 hours late, that's 11am. Airside by 12. You could swap the Heathrow Express for the Tube to make up a little bit of time but it wouldn't be necessary - get to the Library about 1 either way. An hour there and you could still be at the theatre before 2.30. So, I'd say you're fine for time - but by all means ask about on-the day tickets. Best is to call the box office at the actual venue, but ATG always make it difficult to get hold of them directly, so you'll probably have to try the central ATG box office first and see if you get any joy there, unless you can find the direct number online somewhere.

Tube tickets don't get the discount, but you can go to southwesttrains.co.uk, search for a same day return from Feltham to London for your arrival day, then select an Off Peak Day Travelcard (£12.10 each) and select to collect at Heathrow Term 123. That ticket will then (a) cover your Tube journey to/from Heathrow (not the Heathrow Express) and (b) entitle you to use the Days Out 241 discount voucher. You'll need to locate the ticket machine in Heathrow Central on your arrival to collect it though.

[Note: edited suggestion above as realised makes sense for OP to pick up a NR Travelcard at LHR instead of a throwaway ticket just for the discount.]

I agree that there is no real benefit for accessing T3 if departing from T5. That said, once in the departures area at T3, it is very easy to backtrack to the arrivals area and then either clear immigration if one wants to go into London, or go back through flight connections to take the bus to T5. And while it is easy to do this at T3, it is very difficult to do this at T5. Once one is in the departures area at T5, the only way out is to go to a specific BA customer service desk, where an escort is available once an hour to escort you back to the arrivals area, and they will only do so if you have at least three hours before your departure. (I learned this last week when I wanted to go for a run during a long layover. They were quite surprised by my request; they told me that the request to leave is almost always due to wanting to have a cigarette!)

Actually there's a much easier (unofficial) way of doing it - you simply take the transit train to T5C, stay on the train, and you'll then return to arrivals in T5A where you can enter through the UK Border.

There are many threads on this over in the BA forum. Here's one example:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...procedure.html

I looked into this. The return to Heathrow is the one snag. Since it's during peak Tube times the South West ticket won't be valid:

Journey: FELTHAM TO LONDON WATERLOO £24.20
Journey Details
Outward - Wednesday 13th April 2016
Depart Arrive Seating Travel by
09:41 Feltham
10:26 London Waterloo Reservation not possible South West Trains
Return - Wednesday 13th April 2016
Depart Arrive Seating Travel by
23:58 London Waterloo
00:29 Feltham Reservation not possible South West Trains
Ticket details
OFF PEAK DAY TRAVELCARD £24.20
2 Adult(s) Full Fare @ £12.10
Travel is allowed via any permitted route.
Unlimited off-peak travel by bus, train, tube within relevant London Zones for 1 day.
Journey price £24.20

Edited to take out my math. It was incorrect.

No that's not right. Peak/off-peak is a very complicated business over here, but all you need to know for these purposes is that the £12.10 Off Peak Day Travelcard you'd be buying is valid on all Underground services within Zones 1-6 after 9.30am, so will get you back to Heathrow after your show.

It's the same as the Off-Peak Day Travelcard available from TfL explained here; it's just that this one will be issued on an orange National Rail ticket.

Also to clarify - I'm not saying you actually take the train from Feltham to Waterloo. You'll take the Piccadilly Line from Heathrow to King's Cross. Putting in Feltham to Waterloo on southwesttrains.co.uk is just a way (one of many ways in fact) of buying a Zones 1-6 Travelcard for collection from a National Rail machine. Confusing I know, but there is method to the madness.

Thank you for this. You've just made my life much easier.

Don't know what time it's getting to be where you are. It's now 6:37 p.m. in Michigan.

I do understand the reasoning behind your plan for the SWT ticket and I do understand that I wouldn't be buying it for travel between London and Feltham. That I get.

When I went to buy it online I couldn't find a spot to click to pick up the ticket at Heathrow. That has all been resolved and I'm picking them up at Heathrow. I have now purchased the theatre tickets and the SWT tickets.

We're now planning to have a lovely day in London (current forecast is 62 and partly cloudy) and if it all goes well I can tell my friends how travel savvy I am. :D I already told my daughter how my flyertalk peeps have helped me out and I now have a new bff's in London. :D I don't really talk like that all the time, I just like to make my daughter smile and roll her eyes.

I think we saved 30 GBP. Theatre tickets were 37.50 and train tickets were 24.20. Without the 241 it would have been 75 and 16.40.

Thank you everyone so much for your gracious help.

The bank knows about the travel. We got both Euros for Italy and 40 GBP from our bank.

I know I caused confusion about going around T3 and T5. I'd read about shopping at Heathrow so in my mind the airport was like a giant mall with concourses and gates. I now understand that's not the case.

And I thought a spa might be another option for time at Heathrow. This is from an article in Travel + Leisure:

"Airport Spas Are Taking Pampering to New Heights

In fact, many of the latest airport wellness efforts have been championed by airlines—see, for example, the beauty bars at Delta’s Centurion Lounges (in San Francisco, Vegas, New York LaGuardia, and Dallas), the British Airways’-led Elemis Skincare-branded spa at London Heathrow Terminal 5, or the ultra-lush Aurora Spa in Qantas’ First Class terminal at Sydney International."

I had a day in 2014 in PHL. I was able to get from domestic to international and pretty much go all over the airport with my boarding pass. It was a crazy mixed up day and I ended up coming right back to MI that afternoon.

I think we experienced something similar in MIA and ATL. Our gate was on one end of the airport but we were able to visit all concourses for shopping and eating.

Is it the difference of our US airports with Concourses as opposed to Heathrow with Terminals?

Not really. LHR is just a big spread out place with different terminals being built and rebuilt at different times, for different airlines.

In the US: LAX has multiple terminals that aren't connected airside. So does JFK, and LGA. ORD's international terminal is a completely separate building from the primary domestic terminals. DCA has multiple concourses that are not connected behind security (although all in the same building). There are other examples.

To be fair Heathrow does feel like a giant mall. It's just some parts of this mall is not easily accessible from other parts.


Not really. There are plenty of US airports with similar level of inaccessibility between their airside sections. Atlanta is an exception rather than a rule among the super busy airports.

LAX's terminals 4, 5, 6, 7, and TBIT are now connected airside.

:confused:

Yes, I am aware of that fact. But AFAIK terminals 1,2,3 and TBIT are not connected airside. Hence, as my post said "multiple terminals at LAX are not connected airside."

Then I wasn't contradicting you :D

Oh dear, I seem to have opened a new can of worms :rolleyes:

Is is possible to make a connection in LHR from BA coming from Chicago with only a 1 hour layover to an AA flight to Pisa?

If you book this as a single ticket, then both flights will be operated by BA (AA does not operate LHR-PSA, and neither AA nor BA would sell you a ticket with a one-hour connection from AA to BA at LHR) and you will be protected if you miss your connection; that is, BA will find some other way to get you there. That said, note that BA operates only one LHR-PSA flight a day, so if you miss it, even though BA will have to find a way to get you there, it may involve taking a bus to LGW or taking another connecting flight to get there.

Indeed, AA86 (BA1543) arrives at 06:35 which gives a 2:10 T3-T5 connection to BA604. BA294 arrives at 07:45, T5-T5.

You can make this connection a bit more comfortable (if you are worried about the short layover) by flying ORD-EWR-LHR instead, although that is a 3 hour layover in Newark.

Actually they will for a T3-T3 connection - remember BA operates several routes from T3. For example:

New York (JFK) to London (LHR) — Wed, May 11
American Airlines Inc. 100
Dep: 6:10 pm
Arr: 6:20 am

Layover in LHR
Thu, May 12
1h 5m

London (LHR) to Marseille (MRS) — Thu, May 12
British Airways 366
Dep: 7:25 am
Arr: 10:20 am

But you're right that they won't sell a T5<->T3 connection of less than 1h30.

It's going along nicely. Got rail tix with no problem. Little late in landing. Got to library 11:45. Now relaxing and absorbing this beautiful day at Vinotecca. Not much need for food after eating twice on plane.

It's really turned out to be a lovely day. :) If I weren't busy this afternoon I may have offered to come buy you a glass of wine! Enjoy the performance and safe travels.

It all went as planned. Did 2 crosswords on the tube rides. Play was delightful. Nice introduction to a classic neither of us had heard of. Back at LHR. South lounge. Having yet another bite to eat. Very tired. Tomorrow we'll have lazy morning before picking up car. We have the most beautiful B&B in Susegana. Great food so we'll have to wander the acres of vineyards

Glad it's all gone off well. Enjoy Europe. :)

Yes it did go well and I want to thank everyone again who so generously offered suggestions. When we walked thru T5 DH was VERY glad he hadn't been trapped there for 11 hours.

JFK - LHR
 

I need to make a trip to Zagreb in June, and was looking at both BA and AA into Heathrow early morning from JFK. Question is I have a 1h:55m stop over if the planes arrive on time. Is this enough time to get off the plane, collect my bag and get to T5 check in/security in time?

Thanks

If you are flying onward to Zagreb on BA, you won't have to collect your bags at LHR as they will be checked through. All you will need to do is follow flight connections and go through transit security. If you fly AA from JFK-LHR you will have the added time of a bus transfer from T3 to T5, but 1hr 55 minutes is well above the minimum connection time and should be fine.

it should be enoughg time.
 

Assuming you buy the ticket all on one itinerary, you will not need to reclaim your luggage. You should be able to just check it all the way through to Zagreb. All you'll lneed to do in LHR is go through security and take the bus to T5. 1:55 is doable if the first flight is on time. Again, you will not need to reclaim your luggage - they should be able to check it all the way through from JFK, and you'll pick up your luggage in Zagreb.

T3-T5 - no fun but possible, just be in a I gotta move state of mind. I've seen lots of people with short connections skip along all chatty then sweat while running - especially if you are at midfield T5 and need another train ride to get there.

Actually It is not a single ticket. I am flying LHR - ZAG on a avois ticket seperately. Sounds like I may need to hotel overnight to be on the safe side!

Even if you are on 2 separate tickets AA will be able to check the baggage through - in the worst case they will manually add the LHR-ZAG segment to your SABRE record to be able to print the baggage tag. If you fly JFK-LHR with BA beware that BA is changing the check-in system to Altea FLY - there is a thread on BA forum - double check to ensue they can add the segment manually in Altea. If JFK is still on IBM CORECOM/BABS it is for sure possible for add the connection manually.