What is the most cost effective route to Heathrow?
 

I might have some spare time coming up, which gives me an opportunity to burn some Avios.
The cost of travelling to Heathrow and parking would dwarf the cash I'd have to spend on Avios redemptions to Europe.
I'm trying to find the cheapest route to get to, and fly out of Heathrow.
I live in the Midlands.
I wouldn't want to hitch, but would welcome any ideas, knowledge or sensible (!) suggestions people might have?
Are there any threads/websites I should be reading?

see if you can get a cheap advanced train fare either to London (which will likely bring you into Euston from where you get the Piccadilly line to LHR, or to Reading from where you can catch the railair coach to LHR.

have a look at the London Midland, Virgin trains and cross Country Trains websites and possibly also Chiltern Railways.

Megabus?

The Midlands is a big area - you could be closer to MAN so perhaps you could be more specific.

It's normally a National Express coach that would be cheapest - and usually by some margin.

And an added bonus is a coach will take you straight to either T5 or the Central Area so no messing about changing trains at least twice which you would have to do if you went into Euston, then either the Tube or HEX to LHR.

There is also a advance booking system for off-peak fares too called "Megabus" - ah, I see somneone just mentioned that.

I used to get the Mega Bus from Loughborough to Victoria some years ago for £1, might be a little more these days.

Left about 5am so very little traffic into London then just got the tube from there for about £5.

National Express coach may go straight to Heathrow from the midlands these days.

Piccadilly doesn't run from Euston so a change is necessary. Or a 10 minute walk from Euston to Kings Cross where the Piccadilly line does run from

Easier than going through Euston is to take a train that stops at Watford Junction and get the 724 coach link from there. It's only hourly but can be an efficient route if the timings work for you.

That said, a direct NX coach from your starting point in the midlands may well be easiest.

Depending where in the Midlands you live, do remember that a reward flight saver also gives you a free connecting flight, so you need to check that it's not cheaper to get to Manchester or Leeds first.

If you're near the Chiltern Line, one option would be to try and get an advance fare to Northolt Park station, then take the 140 (I think) bus to the Central Terminal Area, then head over to T5 from there. Yes it would take a while, but you say you are time rich.

There's also a bus from High Wycombe but this will cost more than from Northolt. Not sure of exact fares so you need to do the analysis.

Using a similar line of thought, depending on where you start an advance fare on FGW might get you to Slough where you can hop on a local bus to the airport.

But that said, megabus into London and tube out is probably going to be cheapest overall.

Not so much 'cheap' as 'good value' is the Europcar Airport Special. £49 IIRC for a one-way airport rental. In the past, I have been able to stack these with cash back, miles, and discount codes to make it a very good deal.

Also, depending on when you are travelling, the London Midland Great Escape. £15 for unlimited travel on the LM network, although that's coming to an end soon.

Echo the advice to look at flying from Manchester. Although that depends on where you are starting from.

Don't write off hitching. Cheap, fast, frequent and only a small chance of being murdered.

I suppose another question is, if you have't got the cash to spend on getting to LHR, will you have the cash to enjoy the time at your destination? No point burning Avios (and cash!) just for the hell of it if you aren't going to get any fun out of it.

But by the time you add fuel and insurance waiver (x2) and reepat on the return then you're going to be struggling.

Hmmm....

You're looking at £35 for the flight. Depending where you go (stay?) I'd suggest you can easily get by on £50 a day. I can quite see the appeal of not spending £100 on the transport, if it means you can spend another two days away.

OP - just another thought however - have you really checked out the parking options properly? NCP run the car park at the Hilton T5 and it was very cheap when I looked at Christmas.

The very cheapest way, if you are well served by it, will be Megabus to Victoria, District Line to Earls Court or South Ken and then Piccadilly to Heathrow.

The disadvantage is that you will be limited in your options as to which flights you can take without staying the night before.

Your flight from the Midlands to Heathrow will be free of charge as an RFS :D

Very good suggestion.

If that doesn't work Kevincm is the man to give you advice on how to get to LHR on the cheap from the regions. He's used to setting off from Birmingham at some god awful hour of the day in order to catch a bus to LHR to connect to his gruelling long haul flight in budget economy. Come to think of it I haven't seen him around lately.......did he win the lottery?

Kevin is busy flying Birmingham to Birmingham!
http://boardingarea.com/ghettoife/20...an-bangladesh/

Thanks for the link. ^

Good to see he's still doing cheap...."Virgin Trains did the honours to Birmingham Airport for a paltry £3 return". :D

You can do it for well under £50 a day if you're frugal. My last trip to Gran Canaria cost me an average of £21 a day all-in, which isn't unusual for me (and I wasn't being as tight as I could have been if I stayed in one location!). My style of travel however is not exactly the standard people on Flyertalk will generally be accustomed to!

And more in response to mad_rich, the reason why I do pretty much everything I do as cheaply as I possibly can is it allows me to have 5 months of holidays a year as opposed to, for example, one. Nothing to do with whether I can afford to spend more on a particular trip (not that I'm saying you're necessarily implying that!).

From London the cheapest way I've found to T5 is the N22 night bus. £1.45 from Aldwych, through the West End to T5, with an Oyster card, runs every 20 minutes during the night.

I like your style, but I was thinking somewhere more mid-range like Istanbul, rather than the costa del lager...

;-)

I'm pretty confident I could live in Istanbul (it's on the list!) for less than £21 a day as well! Just looking at prices, I'd say I could do it for a tenner.

Though in its defense, there is much more to the Canary Islands than beach resorts full of overweight, sunburnt Europeans strolling around with a can of lager!

I'm around still. I just don't post as much these days sadly (due to my olde home shuttering and I can't get into the grove of BA forum).

My routing is based on 2 key points:

Time of day
Cost

If it's a god-awful 7:45 to Washington Dulles or Chicago, then there's no option: National Express. Expect to pay anything from £37 to £56 for a return ticket.

However, if your flight is during the day, Chiltern Railways have been known to do £6 fares between Birmingham and London (then Bakerloo/Piccadilly Line to Heathrow) with walk-ups starting at £28.90, Virgin Trains do £7.50 fares (but walk-ups are expensive).

If I have time, I normally travel down to LHR the night before on a cheap train, stay in the Holiday Inn Ariel, and then go to terminal. (which can work out cheaper than National Express)

Megabus is an option, but again - you've got to account for the move from Victoria to Barons Court, then Piccadilly line.

Or.... (Here's a good one - even by my standards). Up to Manchester (cheap by coach) - and then RFS (subject to capacity)/

As others have already asked, whereabouts in the Midlands? East Midlands? West Midlands? Watford?

I live near to Worcester.

Thanks to all for the useful suggestions so far.

If anyone has more, please keep them coming

I figure, like others, that the less I spend on transport the more I can spend in the destination and increase my travel frequency

Worcester to Victoria by Megabus £5 single, Victoria to Heathrow by tube £3 off-peak single or £5 peak single with PAYG Oyster card (plus one-off cost of Oyster card deposit if you don't have already)

That would be a pretty horrific journey as the megabus takes 4h20 just to Victoria!

Could you get a lift to Cheltenham? There is a direct NX coach from there to Heathrow which is just two hours. It's £19.50 each way (not including discount codes which you may find) - maybe not the cheapest option but probably the best value if you can get to Cheltenham.