alanRow

http://www.fodors.com/community/air-...t-heathrow.cfm

blainea

Do NOT do this. Work it out otherwise however you can. I just flew Reykjavik to Oslo and Oslo to Heathrow (both on SAS as a Star Alliance Partner) and had a mere 1 hour layover at Heathrow before booking my flight to San Francisco. United ASSURED me this was adequate when I questioned them. But even with literally running through the Heathrow terminal, we BARELY made our flight and, since most of the plane had already boarded by the time we got to the gate, we would not have been able to find overhead space for carry-ons had we not used our miles (plenty of them!) to fly first class. The layover went like this: SAS landed on the tarmac, we walked into a brand new section of Heathrow without clearly marked signs, followed our plane's pilot for @10 minutes while we all tried to find the door to access inside, finally found it, had to go through security, had to go through passport control, were sent to the United check-in desk for some documentation check, had to go through security AGAIN, then had a 15-minute bolt (we made it in 10 by running flat-out, but the overhead signs actually billed is as taking 15 minutes) to the United gate, then were ping-ponged between the gate agent and another nearby gate agent for yet another 10 minutes while they re-issued our boarding pass. With literally running and a waive of the line at the United documentation desk (because an expeditor deemed us WAY too late for the flight and signed off on us, saying "Just run!"), the entire process took an hour and 15 minutes. United did not offer us another connection when I booked this but, were I to do it again, I would do ANYTHING to avoid this craziness. Oh, one last thing: United's partner SAS at Reykjavik insisted on checking our bags through only to London, saying we HAD to pick them up and recheck there before flying to SF. At our Oslo connection, we pleaded our case to a SAS gate agent, who was aghast at this move and was kind enough to actually have the SAS baggage handlers in Oslo physically remove our bags from the Heathrow-bound plane and retag them to SFO. Had we needed to get our bags at Heathrow, god knows what would have happened -- but I can promise you we wouldn't have made this flight. Don't let them do this to you. It is UNBELIEVABLE that any airline that has been in business for more than 2 days would think you could make a one-hour connection at Heathrow. You CAN'T.

eliztravels2

The original post on this thread is five years old. No wonder some of the replies are contradictory. If you have something to say or ask on the topic, please start a new thread.