I'm looking at the print out from transport London re Oyster card, travel card, etc. Page 10 says peak times are 4:30 to 9:30am Monday to Friday and all other times are off-peak. But on page 6, when looking at the prices of Oyster fares vs. cash fares, it looks like peak is from 7am to 7pm Monday to Friday. Can anyone explain this discrepancy? When is peak and when is off-peak? Or is it different for Oyster cards vs. day travel cards?

Also, Are those times calculated by when you start your journey or finish? We are leaving Heathrow at 10a.m. on a Friday morning and will need to take either a 5:55 tube which gets us to the airport at 6:43 a.m. or a 6:10 a.m. which gets us to the airport at 7:03. I can't figure out if this is peak or not peak. Can anyone tell me?

Also, is it advisable to get to Heathrow 3 hours prior to an international/long haul flight? Or do we need more or less time? We'll check in on-line before hand, but still have to check bags and go through security.

Thanks in advance. I've been lurking on the Africa boards (we're going on safari) and just started reading this board, but you guys are a wealth of info here too. Thanks again.

bookmarking.

Have a great trip, Traverlor07

Sorry! Here's the website:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloa...ckets-0709.pdf

Peak 4:30am to 9:30am refers to Travlecard usage which for the 1 & 3 day cards come in peak & off peak varieties

Peak 7:00am to 7:00pm refers to single fares whether both using cash or a PAYG Oystercard

www.londontoolkit.com/briefing/travelcard.htm
www.londontoolkit.com/briefing/oystercard.htm

If you've checked in online, get to the bagdrop slightly later than the airline says, reading their rules carefully. Each airline has different rules for when they stop accepting baggage, and it's their rules that count. Virtually all flights out of Heathrow are international.

I've not once this year taken more than 20 minutes to get from the tube station, through online bagdrop, through security, into the airside lounge - and I've travelled cattle class every time I've usaed Heathrow this year, and get no frequent flyer queue jumping privileges. Each time I've then had hours to rue the foolishness of listening to the professional Heathrowphobes on this site who love inventing scare stories about how it took them four hours to get through security.

The most charitable explanation is that they're so travel-lagged they're confusing Heathrow with the disgraceful way Homeland Security treats non-Americans at JFK, where imposing multi-hour waits in a queue on guests is official government policy.

To clarify: Every airline tells you when they close baggage acceptance. They often also advise you when to arrive. Treat the latter with a huge pinch of salt.

Virgin, for example, recently told me they close acceptance an hour before takeoff, and advised me to be at their desk two hours before takeoff. The acceptance process - including the inevitable wait behind the pillock who hadn't checked online - took three minutes. Arriving at their terminal 75 mins before takeoff would have been more than ample. From memory, BA close acceptance rather later than Virgin