Heathrow Airport – you might have heard of it

I’ve just booked myself a ticket back home because I have to take care of some legal stuff.  I’d been trying to do it through the British Embassy in Beijing but because of the increased levels of bureaucracy I worked out it was cheaper to fly back to the UK to take care of it than to take multiple trips to the capital.  The latest wheeze from the boys behind the bulletproof glass was I needed my birth certificate which had to be requested from the UK, and could take anywhere between 4 to 6 weeks and even then, given the amount of pilfering that goes on in our mail room, there was little chance of it finally reaching me.

Since I’m not employed by a company in the west, I don’t get free trips home in business class, quaffing large quantities of champagne before passing out on a seat that reclines into a bed.  Until I figure out how to fiddle my expenses like my coworkers, the trip comes out of my own pocket.  For some reason the tax on tickets is much higher inside China, so it saves me at least a hundred quid to fly from Hong Kong.   This means my itinerary is something along the lines of Bus to Train Station -> 14 hour overnight train from Wuhan to Shenzhen -> clear Chinese immigration and walk across Checkpoint Charlie type bridge to clear Hong Kong immigration->pick up train to central Hong Kong -> pick up bus to airport -> fly to UK.

I was having trouble getting my US credit card to clear for a purchase in Chinese Yuan for a ticket to the UK so while I was on hold with the bank, I checked how much it would cost to fly direct from Wuhan (last time I looked it was 2,600 GBP).  This time it came up the same price as a ticket from Hong Kong to London.  I hung up, went across the river and paid for a ticket in local currency.  On Cathay Pacific too, so no worries about an irate cabin crew pouring hot coffee in my lap in response to an inopportune comment about forthcoming strikes.

I thought I was sorted until I tried arranging transportation from Heathrow Airport to Waterlooville, (a large town 9 miles north of Portsmouth and about 70 miles from the airport).  You’ve probably heard of Heathrow Airport, you know, the place where you can get a flight to almost every major city in the world.  Apparently National Express aren’t up to speed about its importance; the first bus to Waterlooville doesn’t depart until 4.30pm – I arrive at 6.20am.  I tried paying the princely sum of 56 GBP (no pound symbol on this keyboard) to travel by the gloriously titled Heathrow RailAir Link which should really be called the Heathrow BusAir since you ride on a bus, but I suppose they call it that because they charge you as if you were riding a train.  It actually costs more than the overnight sleeper on the 500 mile trip from Wuhan to Shenzhen.

I went ahead and tried to buy.  It approved my credit card, but first asked me where I wanted to have the tickets sent.  I could overnight to any address in the UK for 7quid 50, or select First Class and get them in 2 to 5 days.  Living in Asia, that’s not a lot of use, so I selected “pick up at a ticket machine at the station”, except there is no ticket machine at Heathrow Airport.  There are ticket machines at Gatwick Airport and even at remote stations in the Scottish Highlands on the line to Thurso and Wick, but not at Heathrow –     67,056,379 passengers in 2008.

I thought that maybe it was just a mistake on the webpage and called the helpline.  I was transferred to a chirpy service clerk who carried on like we were the best of mates and we was trying to arrange the itinerary for tomorrow night’s pissup.

“yeah yeah mate” he said “no ticket pick-up machines at Heathrow, but you can buy a ticket from the ticket machine when you arrive”
I wanted to be sure I had understood
“so, unlike the ticket machines other stations, the ones at Heathrow will let you buy tickets, but not issue ones that have already been purchased”
“that’s right, they are special ones, but you can buy a ticket from the ticket machine when you arrive”
“but that will be more expensive”
“well, you could arrange to pick up the ticket from a different station.  If you are going to Portsmouth, you could arrange to pick up from London Waterloo”
“what, buy a return to Waterloo, pick up the ticket, go back to Heathrow and start my journey to Portsmouth?”
“oh yeah”
He transferred me to a manager who had one of those “dear me, sir is having one of his jokes isn’t he” attitude “a ticket pickup machine in Heathrow, I don’t think so”, with just the right amount of delay before adding a‘sir’ to emphasize the irony.  Wanker

So I settled for a bus ticket to London Victoria Coach Station, then a walk across the city to London Waterloo to pick up a train to Portsmouth.  So convenient, and a bargain at 50 quid.

I can’t wait for 2012 when large numbers of visitors arrive in the capital
“The Olympics? here? I don’t think so.  Sir”

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Author: cyanide bunny

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16 thoughts on “Heathrow Airport – you might have heard of it”

  1. Yeees! Let’s make it as difficult as we can…

    I can’t say I’ve had much trouble at Heathrow, except for the occasion that I wanted to buy a UK sim card for my phone. Looked around as I came of customs – not a phone shop in site. I finally found someone who not only worked at Heathrow, knew the airport and (most unlikely!) also understood my brand of English. I had to go through to the ‘Departure’ area to find a sim card to use in the UK – now just what sort of logic is that!

  2. Thanks for this CB – sorry about the earlier trouble! 🙂
    It’ll be a few hours before people start coming on line.

    I’ve taken the liberty of inserting a “More” tag in your post after the first paragraph so that it doesn’t all appear on the home page, hope you don’t mind. You’ll soon learn all about the “More” tag, have a squiz at the FAQs.

  3. i had the very same sim card problem in Heathrow too. couldnt believe it wasn’t possible to buy one inside the airport.

    Bearsy. will remember to insert a More tag next time. i’m very lazy when it comes to HTML.

  4. Morning CB, welcome.

    I was lucky on my last trip, I had a relative living in Swindon at the time, he took a day off, collected us and drove us to our hotel in Sussex Gardens. In the past I’ve simply just caught a taxi, after the expense and discomfort of the longhaul flights can’t be bothered cramming into trains or shuttle buses.

    I don’t have a £ sign either works for me. I don’t have a ‘€’ sign anywhere though, if I need one I simply copy and paste one from the wiki page!

    UK sim cards, ha ha, on our last trip, I walked up to Edgeware Road, found a phone shop and bought 2 cards for £5, they both had £5 airtime on them!

  6. CB, you’ll soon get over your Expat Syndrome. The trick is not to expect to much by way of logic/convenience/service then you’ll be Essex-girl-happy too. 😉

  8. You may like to consider this option. Get the underground train from Heathrow into London to Victoria Staion. Walk a shotrt way to Victoria Coach Station and then get the coach to Portsmouth. The coach will travel down the A3 road but I do not know whether it stops at Waterlooville. If it does not, get off at Portsmouth and get a bus or taxi, it is not a long way to Waterlooville.

  10. thanks for the suggestions. my point was that National Express only runs services to major cities, they don’t bother stopping anywhere on the way. I can buy a Greyhound bus ticket for one pound that passes straight through waterlooville on the way to Portsmouth, then get on a local bus which takes 40mins to work its way back up the island. Similarly, the underground train, while cheap, takes more than an hour to get to Victoria. I can take the Heathrow Express but that will set me back 36 quid. It just gets me every time that the third busiest airport in the world has such a limited and expensive transportation system. I know, i sound like an expat…

  11. I dodge Heathrow like the plague, I find it best to go to Schipol and then fly back to Birmingham which has far better transport links and is actually quite efficient.
    Obviously especially so for Wales.
    Plus it has the added advantage of not being a mad jehadist target route.
    Come to think of it, I can’t take the SE quartile of the UK anymore, more like landing in Islamabad. The sooner I get over the Welsh border the better!

  12. CB – It rather begs the question as to why you need a simcard immediately on landing at Thiefrow. I mean, you can buy them elsewhere in the “Sarf” you know, even in Hampshire which is only separated from Dorset by the New Forest. Smiley.

    OZ

  13. “I can’t take the SE quartile of the UK anymore, more like landing in Islamabad.

    I think you are being a bit harsh there Christina and I have the permission of my local mullah to say so.

  14. OMG #13 – I was going to ask about this “feeling and sounding like an expat” thing which seems to be emanating from Jazz and Christina. However, I’ve not been to the SE quartile for a decade though I used to fly from Heathrow to “Orstrayia” (is that the right spelling, Bearsy?) at least five or six times a year before we emigrated. I thought perhaps I had missed something in the interim.

    Having said that, flying into Brisbane you are obviously arriving in Australia because of who checked your passport and kit, likewise at Changi, Kai Tak and almost everywhere else I can think of, including such diverse places as Papua New Guinea nad Tahiti. But don’t even talk to me about those Aryan guards at Munich, Hamburg and suchlike. Imgaine the scene – passport control at Innsbruck airport jusr before New Year, 199?. A small kiosk, one raw overhead light glinting down on a large Austrian immigration officer with chiselled cheeks, a lantern jaw and a shiny black cap-peak pulled down over piercing, blue eyes. “Zo, Herr und Frau Zangado, you are hier fur zur skiing?” A Zangada, brightly, “No, ve are here for zur trinking.”

    I fainted on the spot! The resulting investigations were not pretty. 😦

    But ‘Eafrow?? Even back then, it could have been anywhere on the sub-continent, with staff to match but with even lower standards of service and facilities.

    OZ

  15. Try flying into Bucharest not long after the communist leader and his spouse got shot, sporting a beard and glasses neither of which figured in your passport photograph, my, how we all laughed!

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