aktchi

There was some confusion in posting, so my apologies if this question re London tubes gets posted twice: Does "day travelcard" cover LHR or is there an extra charge for that destination? Thanks.

Aus_Mal

Yes it's covered as long as you buy a Day Travelcard which includes Zone 6.

Note that the Heathrow Express isn't available for use with a Travelcard - you'd have to catch the tube (Piccadilly line) or bus.

kaiflyer

LHR is Zone 6, so you can get a travelcard that covers this zone. It only does so on the underground, NOT on Heathrow Express or Connect

Check out www.thetube.com

aktchi

Thanks. I'll make sure to buy the all-zone card and to take the tube (piccadilly line), not Heathrow express.

alanR

ALL Travelcards cover bus travel throughout the whole of London not just the zones the card is valid for.

So it is possible to take a zone 1-2 card and use it to get to Heathrow.

The shortest bus routing only takes twice as long as the Tube

Redhead

And the tube still takes about an hour from central london. If time is an issue, consider the Heathrow Express which takes only 15 minutes

alanR

The HEX puts you in an area of central London where it's almost certain you'll need to take a trip on some other form of transport to get to your destination,

In any case if there are 2 or more of you it's cheaper to get a car service into London which will take you door to door.

aktchi

Thanks for all the responses which proved extremely helpful. I'll like to summarize my experience:

Leaving out the expensive HEX option (with a few passengers you might as well take a cab), the best train+tube route from the East Croydon station to LHR was a regular (non-tube!) train to Victoria station, then District line, then change to Piccadilly line.

The Victoria station had a set of unavoidable stairs, surprising for such a busy commuter station. Change between District and Piccadilly lines was smooth, just across the platform, at both Baron Ct and Hammersmith stations (maybe there are others as well, but these two for sure).

However, lesson for the future: While we enjoyed our research and our journey, all considered I feel that the bus X26 would have been our best option.

Somehow, to our hosts as well as myself "bus" had sounded automatically slow and "train" automatically fast, but the fact that we had to take three trains, go from one platform to another and then wait for the next one, negated the train's speed advantage. X26 would have taken us from E Croydon station to LHR directly and any time difference would have been insignificant.

alanR

Comes from the era it was built when no-one thought they'd be 3 million using the Tube system just to get to work each day let alone millions of tourists carrying everything including the kitchen sink