The CHEAPEST way to get from Heathrow Airport to London

#London #travel #HeathrowAirport
• Chris Rand looks at the CHEAPEST way to get from Heathrow Airport to London, and at the same time mentions the many other ways the trip can be done: by chauffeured car, black cab taxi, Uber taxi, coach, or either of two train lines. No wonder people get confused!

Edited transcript:

So... you've arrived at London's Heathrow Airport and now you need to get into the city itself. There are signs everywhere showing you different ways of doing it. The cheapest way by far is London's Underground trains or what's called the 'subway' in some countries. This is what this video is about. I will show you what the Underground looks like in a moment but first, let's see the different methods of getting into London, and the difference in costs so you can make up your own mind.

First of all, don't even think about hiring a car to drive inside London – just don't. The city is not geared up for it, and the parking is terrible. Having got that out of the way, the most expensive way of getting into London would be a chauffeur car service. These need to be booked in advance. Heathrow Airport is 17 miles or 28 kilometres from the West End of London, so expect the journey to take anything from 40 minutes to an hour, or much more, depending on the time of day. Obviously a chauffeur car is super comfortable and you might even be met at arrivals by the driver. However you will have to pay 100 pounds or so.

Next are the London Black Cab taxis. Now, taxis are great: they're comfortable, and like Private Car Services they take you door-to-door, which may be essential for some people. But the road journey is unpredictable and this can rack up the cost as you sit in traffic, so they're an expensive option although very convenient. Then there are Uber taxis. These are probably cheaper than black cabs but you'll have to wait for them to arrive and then go and find them somewhere in a garage, and they usually can't take all the luggage and people that a black cab can.

The fastest public transport is the Heathrow Express train. This is an upmarket train option; trains leave every 15 minutes and take just 15 minutes to get into London. However they are expensive, and you'll be taken to Paddington rail station, which might not be anywhere near where you want to end up. So bear in mind you'll then have to take a long taxi journey, possibly.

There are coaches these leave every few minutes and are comfortable, but are subject to the same road delays that taxis have to face. Expect the journey to take over an hour but you might like to look into it, particularly if the coach goes to where you want to end up.

The Elizabeth line is the newest rail option. This seems like a conventional underground train, but actually it's a train line and is quite a lot more expensive than the traditional Underground, at least from Heathrow. Again if it takes you exactly where you want to go that's great, but otherwise it's only a bit quicker than the cheapest travel option, which is... London's good old Underground.

Heathrow is served by the Piccadilly line, which has been in operation for many many years and is a smart choice if you want to save money. It's not the most comfortable way of getting into London and it's not the quickest, taking an hour or so, but it is the cheapest and it goes to a lot of places, so you may not have to go very far at all to get to your final destination.

So how should we use the Piccadilly line? Well, the smart thing to do is not to buy a ticket! The airport has ticket machines everywhere for different services, just ignore them if you know what you want. Here's why. London's Underground has three ways of paying; firstly, you can buy a paper ticket from the machine. Don't do this! It costs more. Secondly you can buy a prepaid card which can be used on multiple journeys. This is called an Oyster card in London. It's like the Metro card in New York or the Ventra card in Chicago, the Clipper card in San Francisco and the TAP card in LA. They're all over the world now. It's worth getting a card like this if you're in London for a few days but perhaps not straight off the plane.

The third way to pay, and the one I'd suggest if you've just come off a flight and want the least hassle, is just to tap your credit or debit card at the Underground's entrance gate – or if you have your phone set up for contactless payment, just tap that instead. I can't see how paying for a ticket could be more simple.

Once you've gone through the ticket barriers you just go down to the train. As you can see, the station is clean it's airy, it's safe. It won't be a quick journey into town as there are an awful lot of stops; it can be cramped at the busiest times of day. But if you've got an hour or so and you don't really mind all that, it's a perfectly good way of getting into London and it does go directly to a lot of railway stations and parts of town where a lot of hotels are.