Car Service Logistics from Heathrow

[dickinson]

My dh and I are flying to Heathrow at the end of July 2024.  Our plane lands at 10:30 am.  We are meeting someone else (flying from elsewhere in the US) who is arriving into same terminal (3) but two hours earlier than us.  I know when looking at different car services they talk about following your plane.  What if ours is on time but our friend's is several hours late?  Do car services deal with things like this?  Also, some car services say they wait for X amount of time for no charge whereas some ask you what time you want to be picked up.  What do we say?  I don't know how long it takes from getting off the plane to picking up our bags.

 

My backup plan is to take the tube from LHR to our hotel which would solve this problem but at the moment am leaning towards a car service.

 

Thanks for the help.

[Globaliser]

I think that the best plan is (almost) always to go to your hotel separately.

[princeton123211]

1 hour ago, dickinson said:

Our plane lands at 10:30 am.  We are meeting someone else (flying from elsewhere in the US) who is arriving into same terminal (3) but two hours earlier than us.  I know when looking at different car services they talk about following your plane.  What if ours is on time but our friend's is several hours late?  Do car services deal with things like this?

They generally don't deal with things like this-- when you make a car service booking there is the assumption on their end that there is one arriving flight, not two. Way too many variables. 

 

If the first party is ok waiting 2+ hours on arrival for you then fine-- you would just give the car service your flight arrival info and base it off of that. If the first party is late for some reason you'll have to make the decision to leave without them or pay significant waiting time to the car service company. 

 

1 hour ago, dickinson said:

Also, some car services say they wait for X amount of time for no charge whereas some ask you what time you want to be picked up.

Generally most reputable car services for an international flight pickup have a 1 hour grace period they will wait without a fee but check with whoever you book with. 

 

1 hour ago, dickinson said:

What do we say?  I don't know how long it takes from getting off the plane to picking up our bags.

It will depend on a number of factors-- are you flying first or business class? Do you have priority baggage handling because of airline status? Are you seated in the back of the airplane? Immigration at Heathrow is generally pretty straightforward and doesn't take a ton of time-- although for morning arrivals there can be a significant amount of people at the same time. I would say you have every reasonable expectation that you'll be curbside 45 min to an hour after arrival at the gate. Maybe a little bit quicker. 

 

Frankly for this I would just do an Uber from Heathrow-- you can increase the size of the car to an XL if your friends are on time or you can just go on your own on arrival. Your friends have a much higher tolerance for waiting around than I would-- coming off a red eye flight the last thing on earth I would want to do is wait around Heathrow's arrivals area for 2+ hours, no matter how much it saved me splitting a car service with someone else. 

[dickinson]

Thanks for your ideas.  The other party is single and never been to London so is not interested in going alone to hotel in London by herself. She will wait for us. When flights were first booked it would have been dh and I waiting for her but our flights have already changed where we come in two hours after her.  Still plenty of time for things to change again 😉 

[dickinson]

FYI- I emailed Simply Airports. They. said they would follow both flights.  We will probably book with them but have as a back up all the info on how to get to our hotel via the tube.

[princeton123211]

15 minutes ago, dickinson said:

We will probably book with them but have as a back up all the info on how to get to our hotel via the tube.

Even the Heathrow Express into Paddington Station then a quick Uber or black cab ride to the hotel might be better. At that time in the morning all you are doing is sitting in traffic getting into London. 

[dickinson]

1 hour ago, princeton123211 said:

Even the Heathrow Express into Paddington Station then a quick Uber or black cab ride to the hotel might be better. At that time in the morning all you are doing is sitting in traffic getting into London. 

Thanks.  Will consider.

[John Bull]

IMHO it's best to keep it simple by quoting only the second inbound flight.

 

The Heathrow Express (or Elizabeth tube line) to Paddington would work for a hotel in the Paddington area, but for an un-confident singleton using it for a hotel in many parts of central London it would be a costly or complicated disaster.

 

JB 🙂