cwl

I appreciate Heathrow Airport seeks to maximise is parking revenues by adjusting prices depending on anticipated demand. This does produce pricing anomalies where it is cheaper to book a longer stay.

I can't imagine LHR penalising a car park user for leaving the car park early. But any experiences with arriving a calendar day late? I can find examples of making a booking arriving on a Tuesday at 23.59hrs being £16.00 cheaper than a booking arriving at 00:01hrs on a Wednesday with the same exit date and time. If I book for a 23.59hrs arrival but arrive at say 05:00hrs the next morning would the T5 ticket barriers have an issue with recognising my booking against my registration?

LHR booking conditions seems silent on repricing if you arrive late so I would contest LHRs right to reprice if I am "delayed" but its difficult to reason with a ticket barrier. I've arrived early and late in the past without an issue but that has always been the same calendar day.

Any experiences with arriving at a LHR car park the next calendar day against the reservation arrival date?

chriswiles

My assumption is you can arrive any time during the allocated period. I arrived early the other day. You're not supposed to arrive more than 10 minutes early, realised I'd booked 11am, turned up 9.50am and it let me in and I didn't get charged anything extra.

You can arrive 05:00 the next morning and the barrier will recognise you're within your booking.

xenole

I've just been looking for a September stay, and for T3, around £160 for long stay for 11 days or so, or £4 more for business parking.
Add about £50-£100 more for T5 parking.

Did look at the usual £6.50/day Hounslow west tube station car park, but that's now 7 days max parking and closed at weekends so no good unless I was doing a short mid-week jaunt.
Double the price at Hatton Cross, and the same 7 day restriction.

Hotels aren't that cheap (£87 for the T5 PI and £126 for the Bath Road Holiday Inn), but cheaper than driving and parking. Would only be there for 7hrs max overnight, so 50/50 on this one.

1Aturnleft

Remember to also factor in the ULEZ fee if applicable to your vehicle which kicks in from the end of August.... £12.50 per day in my case just to drive to/fom the M25 to LHR which now makes private hire (taxi) or LGW more appealing to me than self drive to/from LHR.
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lcylocal

As ever if you book official parking it is worth keeping an eye on whether the price drops as you can amend the booking and get a refund for the difference.

Paren

Yes, I do this all the time.

Also, good rates on TopCashback too, plus Heathrow Rewards points (which in turn you can also use to pay for your parking if you wanted to redeem points this way).

itsmeitisss

Valet parking is often cheaper than standard short stay for booking for a few days

tjcxx

That is interesting. I see the restrictions you mention on Saba parking's website. But in practice I have been using the car park through weekends and longer than 7 days, for years, including 2 occasions in 2023. I have signed up through the paybyphone website to ANPR charging. That way you just drive in, park, drive out, and they charge your credit card afterwards. You do have to take care to park in the correct area if there at weekends. And realize that during weekends your car is in the middle of a lot of parking movements of market visitors.

xenole

I always parked at the exit side rather than the entrance side where the market is. Don't want to risk parking there over a weekend and finding I've been clamped, towed, or a £100+ fine slapped on me.

tjcxx

(re. Hounslow W)
It's just entered my head that the two restrictions "closed at weekends" and "maximum stay 7 days" together are not logical. I think I'll carry on with plans, though I don't have long stay flights booked until September.

gms

I think that Heathrow's current pricing strategy is going to backfire as demand slows. I live 30-40 minutes drive from Heathrow. Public transport isn't generally viable for me (unless I have a lot of time to spare!). I used to drive to Heathrow and park on-site for most trips, other than long hauls. Now, the parking prices are so crazy that if I'm doing anything that requires longer than 2 days parking, it is generally about the same cost to take a taxi. So I now almost automatically just do that. I appreciate they are trying to recoup lost revenue and have regulatory restrictions regarding how much they can increase other airport charges. However, when travel demand starts to slow and they can no longer rely on people automatically paying high prices, they will have lost a chunk of their customer base for good.

xenole

Not understood that myself either. Queried it when someone first mentioned it here a few months ago and was told it was TFLs decision.
Some experience of the car park in the past has been that when you go to pay at the machine, they don't have any record of your number plate.....1 day stay then

My experience of the market is that it's a handful of stalls at the entrance side that don't even go near 85% of the car park. Surely charging the £6.50/day would have been the better option rather than free at weekends.
Sure someone has parked there, or is local enough to know what's what.

Anyway, I just booked a flight down from MAN and I'll stay in a hotel. Little cheaper than driving and parking. Really can't be bothered with the M6 etc. and it's constant 50mph speed limits + the bumpy Brum bits.
(Assuming BA don't cancel the flight and I have to drive down anyway)

simonkenyon

The 7 day thing is news to me. We parked there for a fortnight a couple of weeks ago with no difficulty, and have done so frequently in the past. Just checked the PayByPhone app and it lets you pay for 14 days. My other half is parking there tomorrow for a long weekend away so I'll him to check if there are any new signs up.

On longer stays in the past I have noticed that someone's made a chalk mark on the wheel and wheel arch of the car to check whether it's moved. We've never had a ticket or a clamp though.

binman

They won’t care! The T5 car park is generally rammed with cars that cost 6 figures and whose owners don’t care how much it costs. I stopped using Heathrow parking post coved and switched to taxis.

Better still is get a lift from family and friends. Just add their car reg to a business account for the drop off fee before you go. It’s amazing how often it doesn’t get picked up and you don’t get charged.

xenole

The BA app on my phone (the one one with the shopping portal and pre-paid Mastercard on it) mentions 7 Avios per £ for parking. Not sure if that works out a better deal for some than Topcashback or whatever (assuming they pay out)?