Can you use Railcards on Heathrow Express trains?

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• DevonDiamond says:

  7 Aug7 August 03:55

  On railcards – 1/3 off them at the Trainline at present – Use the code SUMMER33 at the checkout to get your discount

  • Andrew J says:

    7 Aug7 August 06:47

    Makes sense as there’s industrial action for a third of the summer!

• Ls says:

  7 Aug7 August 06:19

  You can also add your railcard to your Oyster card. Travelling to central London to Heathrow on the Elizabeth line is £2.30 each way off peak. And is about 20 minutes.

  • H says:

    7 Aug7 August 06:53

    And remember the gold card trick if you cannot get a railcard any other way – costs about 180 but gets you a third discount on all tfl off peak fares

    • Dominic says:

      7 Aug7 August 10:27

      What’s the gold card trick?

      • Rob says:

        7 Aug7 August 10:37

        You can buy a Network Rail annual season ticket between two stations on the Isle of Wight, about 10 feet apart, which triggers the 30% discount on all other rail fares.

        • H says:

          7 Aug7 August 10:39

          The cheapest one to my knowledge is between lapworth and Hatton – maybe at some point I should find out where these places are!

  • aseftel says:

    7 Aug7 August 07:04

    NB you can’t add a Network Railcard, Two Together Railcard or Family & Friends Railcard to an Oyster card. If you have a Gold Card season ticket, you can add that to your Oyster card too.

    • Richie says:

      7 Aug7 August 07:48

      I thought they were planning to integreate all cards into oyster, the pandemic has probably changed that.

      • bsuije says:

        7 Aug7 August 10:12

        I would imagine that it’s not possible to add the Two Together & Family & Friends cards to Oyster because one of their conditions is that you have to travel together with other people.

  • John says:

    7 Aug7 August 07:55

    Is that 20 minutes to Marylebone? Does anybody know the expected travel time between Farringdon and LHR once the Elizabeth opens fully? Or the opening date for Bond St?

  • Yagamimo says:

    7 Aug7 August 08:51

    TFL single journey finder says the Elisabeth Line from LHR to Paddington is £10.80 each way off-peak. How did you manage to get £2.30?!

    • H says:

      7 Aug7 August 10:40

      That fare is correct for the tube but not the Elizabeth line

    • Rob says:

      7 Aug7 August 10:42

      Can’t be £2.30 because Heathrow charges £5 IIRC to use the tunnel (which it paid for).

    • Ls says:

      7 Aug7 August 15:41

      I did it for £2.30. Whether I accidentally touched on the wrong terminal, so it thought I’d used the tube instead of the Elizabeth line is another question…

• TimM says:

  7 Aug7 August 06:43

  Ryanair has probably the best yield management algorithms. Unless some people have paid for extra empty seats, their planes are usually full. Their fares come down if sales are behind the curve, not simply sold off in forever more expensive buckets. Short notice, it is often possible to snap up the last seat for less than the taxes (on the basis that they will make their profit out of you in other ways).

  • Backpacker says:

    7 Aug7 August 08:59

    Yes – but ryanair sucks more than any other airline on the planet. IMHO. 🙂

    • Concerto says:

      7 Aug7 August 09:40

      More so than Spirit? I have a feeling Spirit might be even worse.

    • martin says:

      7 Aug7 August 10:07

      Flew with them for the first time in ages last week and it was… fine. There was a bit of mental gymnastics involved in working out what combination of bags would work with both our BA outbound (where we didn’t want to risk losing anything in the bowels of Heathrow) and what we’d paid FR for on the way back, but other than feeling marginally more like a sardine with Ryanair, the experience of sitting inside a metal tube for two hours was pretty similar.

    • Richie says:

      7 Aug7 August 10:45

      Try a Spirit red eye flight in the US.

    • marcw says:

      7 Aug7 August 11:47

      Really? You just have to play their rules.

    • TimM says:

      7 Aug7 August 12:15

      BA short-haul economy is pretty atrocious these days. I don’t think there is much in it.

      I was fascinated by Rob’s review of the new Aer Lingus A321XL business class. Why can’t they use the same seats i short haul? There simply is no option to have them at any price and short-haul can be up to 5 hours! There must be a market opportunity.

      • Rob says:

        7 Aug7 August 13:23

        Lingus does actually use those planes on short haul routes too, bookable as AirSpace. You can’t use Avios though. The planes need to keep busy after early morning arrivals before flying back to the US later in the day.

  • Matarredondaaa says:

    7 Aug7 August 10:43

    Rarely seen cheap last minute fares and if sales are good on Ryanair last minute fares are seriously high.

• Ryan gill says:

  7 Aug7 August 08:59

  I guess I couldn’t buy a family railcard and use it for a discount while travelling with our 4 year old, before she turns 5?

  • Thegasman says:

    7 Aug7 August 09:48

    Don’t think you have to give names & dob’s for kids on family & friends railcard so you could use it with proviso you would have to buy a ticket for your daughter as if she was 5. It’s a 60% discount for kids so you’d end up in credit if 40% of kids fare is <33% of adults.

    • Ryan gill says:

      7 Aug7 August 09:52

      Thanks for that. Seems logical. Cheers

  • martin says:

    7 Aug7 August 10:22

    HEx lets you use a Family & Friends railcard – you have to add a child ticket (it’s priced at £0!) and it’ll then discount the adult tickets.

    The other time a F&F railcard is useful for an under-5 is if you want to reserve them a seat on a long-distance train (with reservable seats). It means you have to buy them a child ticket, but at least means you won’t have the risk of them sitting on your lap for hours!

    • Rob says:

      7 Aug7 August 10:39

      You can also add fake kids for £1, if you only have 1, to block out tables of four.

    • Ryan says:

      7 Aug7 August 11:41

      Just to clarify, your ticket will be invalid if you travel with children who are not there.

      If there are children, then of course there is no issue.

      • Ryan says:

        7 Aug7 August 11:44

        To clarify, that is to purchase tickets with a family railcard when there are no children in order to reduce the adult fare.

• G says:

  7 Aug7 August 09:59

  Anyone with a 1-6 TfL Travelcard as part of a season ticket will also be able to use the Elizabeth Line to Heathrow for ‘free’.

• Ryan gill says:

  7 Aug7 August 10:07

  Thanks for that. Seems logical. Cheers

• ADS says:

  7 Aug7 August 12:00

  Some price examples

  Sun 14th Aug £25
  Sun 21st Aug £25
  Sun 28th Aug £25
  Sun 4th Sep £25
  Sun 11th Sep £25
  Sun 18th Sep £25
  Sun 25th Sep £25
  Sun 2nd Oct £25
  Sun 9th Oct £25
  Sun 16th Oct £25
  Sun 23rd Oct £25
  Sun 30th Oct £25
  Sun 6th Nov £5.50

  This looks suspiciously like seasonal pricing rather than volume pricing

  • Flyer68 says:

    7 Aug7 August 14:01

    The £5.50 fares disappear at 3 months from date of travel.

• u07ch says:

  7 Aug7 August 15:38

  Does the Star Alliance Gold / BA GGL complimentary upgrade to Hex Business still work? Documentation on the sites doesn’t have dates so not sure if still valid.

  • Rob says:

    7 Aug7 August 16:37

    Yes, I believe so.

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