Get a free First Class upgrade on Heathrow Express if you are Star Alliance Gold

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• Lumma says:

  18 Aug18 August 04:51

  Does anyone actually check your ticket? I can’t ever remember seeing a ticket inspector on the Heathrow Express. Or do they just have someone monitoring first class to stop self upgrades?

  • daveinitalia says:

    18 Aug18 August 11:17

    Prior to the barriers being put in at Heathrow in preparation for the Elizabeth line they used to do a full ticket check on each train. Now since the barriers they only seem to do checks in first class. You can pay for travel on the HEX with Oyster or contactless now so they know that as long as the barriers are in operation at each end then passengers in standard will have paid the correct fare. The HEX uses dedicated platforms at Paddington so these gates are configured not to let out those with non HEX tickets and to charge the higher fare on Oyster/Contactless.

    Since becoming GGL I’ve only used this benefit once and it was because the Elizabeth line was terminating at Paddington. The first class ticket checker was only interested in seeing my GGL status in the app when I said I paid contactless as seemingly he had no way to check my card.

• PB884 says:

  18 Aug18 August 05:25

  The 10 or so times I’ve done this, my ticket was checked every time.

• e14 says:

  18 Aug18 August 06:06

  No Expiry data on the SAS Eurobonus Gold stored in the iphone wallet

  • Bernard says:

    18 Aug18 August 18:22

    It will update automatically when you expire or SAS leaves Star, whichever comes first.

  • Deek says:

    19 Aug19 August 08:20

    The *A Gold icon will change next month when they move to SkyTeam, but you could try taking a screenshot now and showing that to the inspector and see how long you get away with it 😀

• Steve says:

  18 Aug18 August 07:04

  Those seats look like the could do with a damn good clean.

  • daveinitalia says:

    18 Aug18 August 11:19

    HEX is no longer a comfortable experience. Ironing board seats in standard and the seats in first are about as comfortable as the old standard class seats just better spaced out. The old HEX trains had a really comfy 1-1 layout in first class

• Stu says:

  18 Aug18 August 14:23

  15 to 25 minutes. I feel your pain!

• CheshirePete says:

  18 Aug18 August 16:43

  I used the GGL benefit once using a standard fare with my guest using my 241 railcard and apparently this invalidates the offer so I was told! But he wasn’t bothered when I offered to move back to Standard! Those fine print rules……

• Bernard says:

  18 Aug18 August 18:23

  Or just take Liz line (when it works) and save yourself a fortune for a few minutes more. Even the latter is questionable if your destination is not Paddington.

  • TGLoyalty says:

    18 Aug18 August 21:47

    My admittedly only 4 times using it I really didn’t really see the advantage. Actual time taken was much of a muchness when considering transfers etc

    I gave it two goes and ever since just take Liz or Tube.

• Andy Stock says:

  19 Aug19 August 14:51

  The Heathrow Express should be closed down.

  The slots should then be transferred to the Elizabeth Line, with trains operating fast from Heathrow 123 to Paddington and then all stations to Abbey Wood / Shenfield.

  This would then help deal with overcrowding on the Elizabeth line stopping services between Hayes & Harlington and Paddington at peak times. Since you would separate most of the airport passengers from local commuters.

  Much better use of capacity than operating next to empty Heathrow Express trains 4 times an hour.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.