How To Avoid Paying Peak Fares To Heathrow

You might have seen in the news recently that Tfl, as part of its pandemic bailout deal with the government, has raised the fare for trips to/from Heathrow. All trips to or from Heathrow on the London Underground or Elizabeth Line from Zone 1 are now being charged at peak rates.

It doesn’t matter when you travel, if your journey starts or passes through Zone 1 you will be charged the peak rate fare.

In this post, we want to look at how you avoid paying the new peak fares to Heathrow…

What are the Peak Fares To Heathrow?

If you use the Piccadilly Line from/to Heathrow the fare is now £5.50 for all trips that go to/through Zone 1. Previously if you travelled off-peak this would have cost you £3.50. Alternatively, if you use the Elizabeth Line from/to Heathrow the fare is now £12.80 (£11.50 from paddington) for all trips that go to/through Zone 1. Previously if you travelled off-peak this would have cost you £10.80

This means you will likely see a £2 increase in your ticket cost on either service in each direction. This will add £16 to the bill for the return trip for 4 Adults.

How can I avoid paying Peak Fares To Heathrow?

There are a couple of ways you can potentially avoid paying peak fares to Heathrow. How useful these are of course depends on how much you value your time…

1. Hatton Cross (the station before Heathrow) is not included in the fare increase. You could, in theory, exit the station at Hatton Cross and tap straight back in again. It doesn’t matter whether you use the same or a different card to complete your journey. As journeys between Hatton Cross & Heathrow are free this entire journey would cost you £3.50 off-peak.
   
2. Break your journey at Earls Court. Earls Court to Heathrow T5 (and vice-versa) is only £1.90 off-peak. How much you will save depends on your final destination. For example, if you continued on after touching out/in again to Kilburn Park off-peak it would cost you £2.60. This would give you a £1 saving on the new always peak fares, £4.50 total.
   
3. Take the bus! Depending on where you live you could get all the way to/from Heathrow for just £1.65. If you are in Zone 1 already you could get the N9 bus centrally (Charing Cross) which will take you all the way to Heathrow Airport. Take a look at the local bus connection to Heathrow here – https://www.heathrow.com/transport-and-directions/by-coach-or-bus/local-buses
   
4. Avoid Zone 1 altogether. Obviously, this will be impractical for some and will add to your journey time. If you put your start point and end point into the single fare planner. It will give you the routing you need to follow to avoid Zone 1 (if at all possible.)
   
   For example, if you were travelling Upminster – Heathrow (Zone 6 – Zone 6) You are offered the following routes…

The key thing if you take one of these routes you MUST touch your oyster (or contactless) card on the pink readers. If you don’t it will assume you went via Zone 1 and charge you £5.50

For example, the route via Stratford, Gunnersbury and Turnham Green would mean the following trip…

Upminster – West Ham (C2C) – 28 min
West Ham – Stratford (Jubilee) – 3 min
Stratford – Gunnersbury (Overground) – 57 min
Gunnersbury – Turnham Green (District Line) – 3 min
Turnham Green – Acton Town (District Line) – 3 min
Acton Town – Heathrow T5 (Piccadilly Line) – 28 min

Total journey time 2h 2 excluding any changes/ waiting time which I would imagine will add another 30 min easily to your journey making it 2h 32. Compare this to 1h 40 going Upminster – West Ham (C2C), West Ham – Green Park (Jubilee) and then Green Park – Heathrow T5 (Piccadilly).

The above journeys (avoiding Zone 1) would only cost you £1.90 off-peak or £3.30 peak. If you travelled off-peak it would mean a £7.20 saving per person per return journey.

Conclusion

As you can see if you want to avoid paying peak fares to Heathrow unfortunately you will have to put up with a longer journey and an awful lot more changes. Is it really worth the saving made?