How to get a discount on Heathrow Express train tickets (2025 edition)

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• Lumma says:

  3 Feb3 February 07:36

  I also get 75% off working for Network Rail (and don’t get anything off TFL services). So it’s both cheaper and quicker than just using the Elizabeth line, but as I live on the Elizabeth line, I’m not sure that I want to get off at Paddington and carry luggage.

  Since they’ve added 5g in the tunnels, I can decide en route if I want to buy a HEX ticket though

• HH says:

  3 Feb3 February 07:49

  I found myself short on time last Thursday to get to T5. Pleasantly surprised that, with a Railcard discount, the walk-up fare was £16.65 vs. £12.20 for Elizabeth Line. I will definitely use it again in future.

  • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

    3 Feb3 February 08:04

    Fine if you’re are starting at or near Paddington.

    If you’re not the time taken to change trains there can significantly eat into any perceived time savings of taking the HEX over Lizzie as well as bump up the costs.

  • BlairWaldorfSalad says:

    3 Feb3 February 11:45

    The Lizzie has no bag storage and is a victim of its own success in terms of crowding. Unless HBO, it’s a tough task. I can see the attraction still of the HEX

    • Roy says:

      3 Feb3 February 19:22

      Yes. I tend to favour a shorter cab ride followed by Heathrow Express to taking a cab all the way to the airport.

• David Cohen says:

  3 Feb3 February 08:24

  With the impending nationalisation of GWR into GBR, they really need to hand the train paths for this niche service back to GWR/TfL to operate increased Lizzie Line semi-fast services to the airport and increased long distance services.

  • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

    3 Feb3 February 08:52

    Whist GWR operates the HEX as per contract with HAL the train paths are actually allocated to HAL (it’s actually outside of the franchising system like Grand Central and Lumo)

    The latest renewal of the HEX train paths last until 2028 and unless or until HAL hands them back and ceases the HEX service they aren’t available to TFL or GWR or whoever else Network Rail allocates them to.

    One thing the government said is it won’t make any changes to train operating companies until there are break points in the contracts to avoid paying compensation.

    • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

      3 Feb3 February 08:55

      Just remembered the technical term is “open access operator”

  • ChrisBCN says:

    3 Feb3 February 11:24

    Whilst I agree with transferring the train paths to Elizabeth Line (and maybe a deal can be done to transfer before 2028) there is one other complicating factor – from Paddington to the Heathrow spur, the Express runs on the fast lines, the Elizabeth on the slow (stopping) lines. That means you can’t just replace Express with Elizabeth unless you make them non stop (and scheduling/service patterns means you couldn’t easily do this). There needs to be a bit more juggling around of GWR services to do this (it’s possible, just not as easy as people make out, and you have to do it as one of the twice yearly timetable changes).

• Pete says:

  3 Feb3 February 08:36

  The single journey fare from Zone 1 on the Elizabeth line to Heathrow is £13.30

• JAG says:

  3 Feb3 February 10:24

  If you have time, Elizabeth line to Slough and then the bus to LHR is much much cheaper then the EL into LHR

  • Roosit says:

    3 Feb3 February 12:13

    Is there an advantage of going to Slough over doing the same but getting off at Hayes & Harlington?

    • JAG says:

      3 Feb3 February 12:39

      When I last traveled (coming from Woolwich) yes Slough was cheaper than Hayes & Harlington

      • John says:

        3 Feb3 February 21:15

        How could that have been the case?

        Woolwich – Slough £14 peak £9.40 off peak

        Woolwich – Hayes&H £5.10 peak £3.50 off peak

• Paul says:

  3 Feb3 February 10:34

  No good to man nor beast if you live west of Heathrow.

  Rather than focusing on a pointless and never to be built 3rd runway, there should be direct mainline rail services for the north west and south. LHR is the worst European hub airport for ground transportation access. It’s also stupidly expensive.

  • ChrisBCN says:

    3 Feb3 February 11:33

    22 trains an hour towards London, 20+ bus routes, coach services from National Express, RailAir flixbus, Flightline (and others) does not make it the ‘worst European hub airport for ground transportation access’.

    When Old Oak Common opens, the North West (and other places) will be one change away from the airport. The West and South connections are poor though; the spare/hidden two platforms at T5 really need to come into use with a through route heading west towards Reading in one direction and south towards Woking in the other, but there is no political appetite/money/pressure to do this.

    • Paul says:

      3 Feb3 February 17:17

      FRA CDG AMS MUC ZRH GVA and many, many more have national high speed railways inside their terminals connecting to all parts of their home country and beyond often without a change. Here we rejoice that the planners of HS2 have failed to deliver a usable integrated railway.
      Few people will willingly take a bus to an airport unless there is no other option and that’s why there are 20 so called bus routes. There is no other option. From Bracknell, less that 24 miles from LHR a bus takes an hour if you travel at 5 am but otherwise is 90 minutes plus. Buses are not a realistic choice, any more than an over priced private railway line is. And remember Heathrow gets a cut of Elizabeth line fares too which are artificially hiked if going to the airport.
      This country tolerates mediocrity.

      • Roy says:

        3 Feb3 February 19:28

        Well, it’s a private railway because the government didn’t want to pay for it. British governments seem to be uniquely opposed to the levels of subsidies necessity to delivery an effective public transport system.

      • Londonsteve says:

        3 Feb3 February 21:59

        Agreed. Heathrow has many transport connections because without it, it would fail to function. But it’s not a patch on the sort of options available at other European hubs. The huge black spot for Heathrow is the lack of ability to board an intercity service directly at the airport. In other European countries the western mainline would have been diverted so that all services stop at Heathrow to and from London. The proximity of the line and the density of the schedule makes this an obvious option.

• gerjomarty says:

  3 Feb3 February 11:56

  I travel to Heathrow from Cambridge and am mildly amused by the abundance of options and how difficult it can be to work them out.

  I’ve found the best combination going either direction (travelling after 10am only) is actually to purchase a Super Off-Peak Day Travelcard from Cambridge to Kings Cross. It’s Zone 1-6 validity allows use of the Elizabeth line or Piccadilly line, not Heathrow Express. With a railcard this is £27.90 (£20.55 at weekends). Counterintuitively, it’s also the best option when travelling from Heathrow back home, even though no ticketing website will tell you this if you input Cambridge to Heathrow. Save even more by going via Liverpool Street with an easy connection to the Elizabeth line for £22.55 (£16.25 at weekends) with railcard.

  These paper “outboundary travelcard” tickets are available for many towns/cities within the orbit of London. They don’t _usually_ beat stations that now have contactless to London, but can still sometimes if you have a Network Railcard (which is a railcard that cannot be loaded onto an Oyster card to grant discounted PAYG travel)

  Easy, right?

  • ChrisBCN says:

    3 Feb3 February 12:35

    Ticketing is a mess 🤣

  • Londonsteve says:

    3 Feb3 February 22:55

    How can you buy a Cambridge to London Travelcard if you’re departing from Heathrow unless it’s a day return?

    • gerjomarty says:

      4 Feb4 February 11:31

      It is indeed a day return, though it doesn’t have “day return” in the ticket name. The outbound, travelcard, and inbound ticket all come on a single orange ticket. It’s valid to not use the outbound and just use the travelcard and inbound portions.

      This will only work for about another year, because extending the contactless area outwards means one-way prices will normalise to be ~half of the day return price. Unlike today, where one-way prices are only about 10p less than the day return price.

• Harry Holden says:

  3 Feb3 February 12:12

  We can play what about iffery about getting to LHR from anywhere except London.

  Travelling to LHR by public transport for most of the country is a ball ache. Involves multiple modes of transport, multiple changes and many stairs and escalators. Some stations have lifts but these are crowded, with queues and they significantly slow your journey through the station (thinks Kings Cross). National Express require changes from most Northern cities. And that is before you start to think about how much it costs – taxi to the station, train to Kings Cross, underground to Paddington, train to Heathrow. It’s just farcical and stinks of a country for which shareholder dividend is the only thing that matters. Great for shareholders. Sorry to everyone else. Without the sorry.

  Add that we cannot do anything at a reasonable cost in a reasonable time in this country makes me think it will never get better. The construction industry in the UK generally still only works Mon-Fri, single shift. How many sets of roadworks are there on the nations motorways and trunk roads where you sit in a queue to drive past some cones and do not see a soul even leaning on a shovel?

  • Andrew. says:

    3 Feb3 February 14:19

    Aberdeen, Birmingham, Cardiff, Newcastle, Manchester & Inverness to Heathrow all require just one mode change to reach Heathrow.

    Contactors, mostly self employed, have families too and can pick and choose the contracts they want to work on.

    Our “Group Property” department have tried to dictate working hours and demanded contractors reach the sites by “Active Travel”. It wasn’t successful.

    • Roy says:

      3 Feb3 February 19:42

      Manchester is a bit of a stretch. You can do Euston to Heathrow by tube, but it’s not direct – and by that argument you can do pretty much any London mainline station to Heathrow without an additional mode change.

      Not having done it myself, from Euston I’d probably change onto the Elizabeth line at Tottenham Court Road (which is, technically, a mode change). Unless I’m missing an option?

      • ChrisBCN says:

        3 Feb3 February 20:46

        Yeah Euston to Heathrow is not easy; you could Northern line to TCR or Circle/Hammersmith & City to Paddington, then change to Elizabeth. Or walk to Kings Cross and take the Piccadilly all the way (luggage/ability/weather dependent).

        If coming from Birmingham, you could take the poxy small train to reading then the Railair coach, but I do not recommend that! Much better when HS2 starts.

        • Roy says:

          4 Feb4 February 16:43

          Circle/H&C involves an (admittedly short) walk to Euston Square, and then steps, so may not be the route of choice for those with lots of luggage.

          Of course, Euston itself has no step free access, although it does at least have escalators.

        • Roy says:

          4 Feb4 February 22:12

          Ah, of course, the way you get from Manchester to Heathrow without a mode change is to fly! 😀

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