Heathrow passenger pick up

[Tim Lamb]

Moderately OT but may interest others here..

Collecting two elderly American visitors, one with a replacement leg, from Heathrow T3 tomorrow morning and struggling to get my head around the short term *meet and greet* parking set up!

Slots are bookable but pricing seems dependent on lateness of booking! Are the cheap slots only available within a few hours of need?

Set down for departure seems much more straight forward although pre-payment necessary.

T5 seemed simple enough but years ago now.

Any up to date advice?

[NY]

Airports really have you over a barrel. Either you pay to park to drop off/pick up, or else your passengers pay to get public transport from a nearby station where parking is free. Either way, it costs money. Picking up is worse, because if the plane is late or there is a hold-up in baggage reclaim, you pay through the nose.

[Theo]

No experience but I think 'meet and greet' is where the airport people meet and greet *you*, ie you drop off the car with them before going to catch a flight, rather than dropping off in a remote car park and taking a long walk/catching a bus.

It sounds like you want 'short stay', which is £5.30 for the first half an hour, no need to prebook:

Can you find somewhere to lurk off-airport, until your people give you a call that they're most of the way through and you come out to short stay?

Theo

[Tim Lamb]

Ok. Terminology confusion on my part!

Awkward if it involves using a smart phone.

Probably. My daughter will travel by train to do the actual meet so I just need to have my car within easy walking distance from the T3 arrivals. There is *off airport* 2 hours free parking mentioned. My car inbuilt sat nav is not up to date so the whole activity is creating a degree of nervous exhaustion!

Thanks.

[Tim Lamb]

Hmm. Booked today, a 1 hour slot is quoted at £74.00! Their advertised prices refer to booked on the day!

[John Rumm]

A cheap smart phone also gives you a continuously updated satnav with real time traffic information...

See above :-)

There is an argument for having the smartphone even if it is not your "proper" mobile, and it can live in the car... That way you can access parking payment apps and satnav.

[Robin]

IME it's not safe to assume everyone understands that real time traffic inf and apps to pay for parking require a cheap smart phone with *data*

- contract or PAYG - not one with an old PAYG call/text only tariff where you can just stick £5 credit on every year or 2.

In the first lockdown I went back to one of the latter :)

[Theo]

That appears to be because you can only prebook per whole day. If you turn up you can get it the hour (or first 30 / 45 mins).

I assume it's pay-on-exit of some form, so you know how long you've stayed at the time of payment.

Short stay is priced so that you don't stay there for weeks, although they will happily take cash off you if you have money to burn.

Theo

[Tim Lamb]

Clang!

I do actually possess a MOTOe5 but object to Google knowing where I am in the world, roughly what I am doing and who are all my contacts:-(

Word is that T3 short term parking is *take a ticket and pay on exit*. Now why wasn't that mentioned on their glossy website? By that time I should have a fully adapted mobile phone user as a passenger anyway.

I'll let the team know how I get on.

[Richard]

I don't have money to burn and they are still happy to take my cash. Did a pick-up from Heathrow recently. Arrived 10 minutes after the flight landed and was still screwed by delayed baggage/immigration/whatever. £14.50 for parking :(

[Mark Carver]

Presumably you don't have a credit card either, or don't you mind the banks knowing your movements ?

[Tim Lamb]

A point. Mostly I'll be sitting at my desk for on-line purchases but which fuel outlets I frequent might be valuable:-)

[GB]

If your visitors are elderly, one with a replacement leg, would they be eligible for 'special assistance' in the airport? There's often miles of walking in the airport, and if they can't do it now is the time to speak up, so they get taken on one of those golf buggy things the airports all have.

From the customs hall exit to the short stay car park is a few minutes walk for an able bodied person. Will your visitors need help with that?

Will you be allowed to pick them up somewhere closer than the car park?

I think I'd give special assistance a call. 020 8757 2700 <-- Number from Google.

Finally, if you want to save money, you can park off the airport, and wait for your daughter to call you.

[Tim Lamb]

Good thinking but they are American and well travelled. I'll pass on your suggestion to my daughter who is doing the arrivals hall bit.

His golf clubs are being delivered! so not immobile.

[Andrew]

Really ?. Which provider ?, because I thought that the "add £10 credit and make 1 call per 6 months and the credit just lasts and lasts" is history.

Now PAYG seems to be more like a rolling contract but every month unused credit is lost.

[John Rumm]

Indeed... although with a giffgaff PAYG SIM, if you load it with £10 of credit, then so long as you interact with it in some way once every six months, then it will stay active and in credit.

(they suggest send a text or make a call, I have found that just logging into the account on the web is usually enough)

[John Rumm]

All mobile phone operators know where you are - its kind of part of the bargain you have to go with if you want the thing to work as a phone "everywhere" :-)

(you can turn off location history if you want, and don't have to upload contacts)

[John Rumm]

Lots of them promote it as that, but it is not necessarily the case, but you may have to dig past the up front offers to find what you need.

For example giffgaff will promote their "goodie bags" (fixed priced bundles of calls, text, and data that last a month), but you don't have to use them, you can just recharge and use in true PAYG style if you want).

[Tim Lamb]

Snip

Only if it is switched on:-)

Also I don't think Vodafone have any interest in which sites I frequent.

Hmm.. transferring previous phone contact list would be very tedious without using Google.

[Robin]

And as I think I said before, that will run TomTom. And you can do so without data if you don't care about live traffic information: it uses offline maps you download off the 'net at home. So neither Google nor TomTom have a clue where you've been or who is in your "little black book" as was.