I have arranged to pick up elderly friends at Heathrow T2 on Wednesday morning. I know you can only pickup via the car parks and we agreed upfront on using Short term at terminal 2. The online info all says to meet at the pickup area in the car park. We agreed this in advance to avoid hassle with mobiles and texts etc on the day. Also it minimises the eye watering parking charges they have agreed to pay for me as they are happy to wait a few minutes for my arrival. I will monitor their flight info online,
I now find that on checking the details on different “authoritative” websites they just refer blandly to the car park meeting point or give three different locations for that meeting point in the car park, over three levels (Levels 0, 1& 2). Does anyone have recent experience as to where the car park meet point actually is and is it signposted?
The complication is that they have been away for weeks without mobile roaming and may not have charged their phones. So potentially they will not be contactable on the day when they arrive and they will be looking for the agreed car park meeting point rather than me in the crowd. Surely there can only be one car park meeting point in use on the day but does anyone know for sure please?
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Sorted.
Another trawl of the sites identified the private car pick up point (to Level 2, row B). The others were for mini cabs etc which came up on my previous search without saying clearly they were specific to hire driver, mini cabs and so on.
Last edited by: martin aston on Mon 7 Nov 22 at 15:47
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Teaching you to suck eggs probably but if you can geta message to them it's worth also telling them where you are expecting them to be (and asking them to charge their phones!!). I picked someone up at Gatwick today and waited in Horley till they called me with the car park and level info.
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Or get them to jump on the tube one stop and pick them up at Hatton Cross. There's a Tesco close by where you can lurk until the flight lands.
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Similarly at Gatwick, Horley is only 10 minutes down the road and there is an easily-located Waitrose and right next to is a Wetherspoons. So you can park with the posh people and eat/drink cheap with the poor while waiting :-)
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>> Or get them to jump on the tube one stop and pick them up at Hatton Cross.
>> There's a Tesco close by where you can lurk until the flight lands.
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Great instructions but no lifts at the tube station. I have used this car park many times for terminal 4 collections.
Prior to the collect arrivals charges:-
For Terminal 5, I used to park near Horton Road near the garden centre.
For Central area terminals I used to loiter with the many chauffeurs just north of the tunnel in the A408 Sipson area.
All collections did need the " we have our bags " phone call to "start the engine".
I can no longer offer the free collection service to friends and kids so am not fully aware of the latest set up.
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It’s impossible now at Heathrow to do a convenient totally free dash and set down or pick up. You can use the longterm car parks and buses free but anything near the terminals is chargeable and camera or parking controlled.
The Tube option is a feasible one if you are up to the hassle. Bear in mind however that my pick ups are elderly with a full set of luggage so hopping on the tube is not great. Not least they will be knackered.
To put in in perspective their flight from Oz is already in the air. They must have set off from their kids’ house to get to the airport about three or four hours ago. They now have changes at Singapore and Zurich before scheduled landing at 8.00 tomorrow morning. Door to door will be around 30 hours.
Hopefully all will go well if the plane is on time and we rendezvous as planned.
Let’s just hope the “Just p%ss everyone Off” oil protestors don’t intervene. So far the last two days protest don’t seem to have hampered the airport and I don’t need to use the M25.
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'Or get them to jump on the tube one stop'
I do that at Manchester Airport. Jump on a tram and take the first stop. It's easier when the old man picks me up, things like that stresses him out. Easier for me when he drops me off. It stresses me out when he kicks me out at a random roundabout in the airport vicinity and it's peeing down. The tram takes you right into the complex.
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I'm with BBD here, We get the train from Manchester Airport if going North and laugh at all the poor saps trying to cling to the edge of platform 14 at Piccadilly in all the huddled masses.
My daughter lives not far away from the aerodrome so we drive to hers and she drops us at the station. Last time it was a nightmare for her with barriers and paying to get out. This time she'll drop us of at the tram station before the terminus, Shadow Moss Road ( opposite the houses demolished in the air disaster in the mid fifties ) Free tram into station complex and just walk round to heavy rail platform.
Ted
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Well my pick up today at Heathrow went pretty well. Even with the oil protests I got a clear run along the M4 and straight into the airport.
I relaxed a bit too soon though and found myself driving towards the drop-off zone too late to abort. So I’ve had to pay a fiver online for a thirty second loop around the zone. I paid more attention second time. The initial error was mostly my fault but in my defence the signage splitting the stream into drop off and pickup is not until the last few yards/seconds and the left hand lane seamlessly takes you to drop off while going to pickup means making a conscious move to the right hand lanes.
Anyway I managed the pick up within the minimum £5 for 15 mins and I have to say it was well organised and very close to arrivals.
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You mean you spent an extra fiver? I did that at Luton in Sept, wrong lane but couldn't back out. The ticket showed my entry time and somehow the exit time 15 seconds later, I mailed it to them and they refunded pretty quickly.
I did include evidence that I was meaning to go to the long term parking. If you had a second ticket you could use that as evidence of your intent.
Last edited by: smokie on Wed 9 Nov 22 at 14:23
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I ended up in the Central Area at LHR twice on the same day back in May - got wrong laned leaving the A4.
As I was in the Belringo and potentially over height I followed signs that took me through the drop off area but keeping right and not stopping meant I wasn't charged. No barriers; looked as though ANPR was in operation.
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There is no way of telling if I was clocked by a camera or not. But I reckon it’s a virtual certainty. The thought of fighting a “fine” for non payment or chasing a refund with a call centre is not worth it. Tight as I am I think a fiver is worth it to avoid the aggro.
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Heathrow T2 pickup. Any recent experience? SOLVED - martin aston
