Short stay car park at Heathrow - pre book price is way higher!

cockneyrebel

 Can anyone help here?  We need to pick up someone at Heathrow and will be parking for up to four hours.  The car park "on the day" charge looks to be around £21 or so, but if I try to pre book it comes up as £73 regardless of the duration - I tried it for just one hour and it was still £73.  Their website says it's always cheaper to pre book so I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong!  I tried their chat but 'No agents available'.  Any advice?  Or shall we just turn up and pay on the day?

razord

Heathrow "helpfully" only let you book 1 day minimum on the website. Of course, they don't tell you that's what they're doing anywhere.

It's 100% cheaper to just turn up for short stay for anything under a day, and I really think it's disgraceful they don't make that clear on the site.

cockneyrebel

Thanks, I thought I was doing something wrong!  That is truly disgraceful.  I knew parking there would be expensive, £73 seemed excessive but I almost did book it - it was only when re-checking where the car park was that I found the page with the hourly charges and realised it should be cheaper.  I bet they get lots of people prebooking and just pocket the extra cash.  

Westin

Gatwick do the same. I think it very misleading. 

TELLIT01

Why do you have to park at the airport for that long.  Can't you park away from the airport and drive in once the people you are picking up have collected their luggage?  That's what taxi drivers do.

SiliconChip

TELLIT01 said:

Why do you have to park at the airport for that long.  Can't you park away from the airport and drive in once the people you are picking up have collected their luggage?  That's what taxi drivers do.

I haven't driven to Heathrow for a very long time, but these days most airports will only allow pick up from short stay car parks (or possibly at a long stay one if a longer walk from the terminal is acceptable), stopping anywhere else bears a high risk of a no stopping fine.

TELLIT01

I wasn't meaning to suggest stopping at the roadside within the confines of the airport, or even around it.

Looking on Google Maps, there are big supermarkets within a couple of miles.  Park there and have a coffee rather than feeding Heathrow's coffers.  My nephew got caught out at Birmingham Airport when we was picking his girlfriend up.  He told he to call once she had her bags - she called and he headed for the pickup/dropoff car park which has a fee of £3 for up to 15 minutes.  That would have been great if she had taken any notice of what she was told to do.  She actually called him when she entered the baggage hall and was there for nearly an hour.  That cost just under £50.

Moral of the story?  Make sure people follow instructions, and check the car park costs.

Bigphil1474

Agree with above - you could look for the nearest motorway services and park up there , and ask your passengers to ring when they are ready and drive the last bit from then. You might need a short stay for under an hour.