Heathrow Express Discount

[lookingforit35]

A simple bit of advice really. Is it worth me queuing at the ticket window?

I have an annual season ticket to London from Kent - a "Gold Card". One part of the Heathrow Express website suggests I will get a discount, the other says it's just "Network Cards".

I'm sure the ticket office at Paddington will help, but if I'm in a hurry I would prefer to use the machines and avoid the inevitable queue!!

Thanks

 

[MidnightFlyer]

HX have their own booking office at Paddington - it's quite quiet usually. It's a grey and blue building at the entrance to the HX platforms.

 

[156402]

A simple bit of advice really. Is it worth me queuing at the ticket window?

I have an annual season ticket to London from Kent - a "Gold Card". One part of the Heathrow Express website suggests I will get a discount, the other says it's just "Network Cards".

I'm sure the ticket office at Paddington will help, but if I'm in a hurry I would prefer to use the machines and avoid the inevitable queue!!

Thanks

I had a similar situation last year and also have a Gold Card from Kent to London. I went down to my local station and bought the ticket (with discount) from there, it was around the £11.00 mark, 2011 fares. Ticket was issued to a destination of Heathrow Rail.

To be honest, I was not expecting the discount from what I had seen and read.

 

[LondonJohn]

I had a similar situation last year and also have a Gold Card from Kent to London. I went down to my local station and bought the ticket (with discount) from there, it was around the £11.00 mark, 2011 fares. Ticket was issued to a destination of Heathrow Rail.

To be honest, I was not expecting the discount from what I had seen and read.

My understanding is that HEATHROW RAIL is the Heathrow Connect but from checking it would appear that this now brings up both uptions. I guess something must have changed at some stage.

NRE is showing discounted fair tomorrow at 1330 as £12.50 Heathrow Express discounted with Annual Gold(Network) Card or £6.00 for Heathrow Connect.

I live in Stratford and have a paper ticket Z1-3 and was going to travel to Ealing Broadway using the Central Line before picking up the connect for about £4.60. . I have found out that if I go Stratford-Westminster on Jubilee Line and change to District Lines to Earls Court, I can touch in at Earls Court Z1/2 border whilst changing trains and then pick up the Piccadilly Line to Heathrow for 95p on my Gold Card discounted oyster. Negligible journey time difference, 1 extra change nice tidy saving. Thats one of the downsides in getting a Wimbledon-Z1-3 Season ticket so you get the free SWT weekend travel tickets but a downside worth a few mins of extra time on journeys outside your boundary.

 

[island]

Buying from a non-HEX office you will have a ticket issued between London Terminals and Heathrow Rail (H584), routed ANY PERMITTED or NOT HEATHROW EXP. Buying from a HEX office, it will be Paddington to Heathrowexp, routed HEX ONLY for HEX, don't know about HC.
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And to actually answer the original question, I got a HEX ticket with Gold Card discount last year, although it was printed as NSE.

 

[bb21]

I have a Heathrow to Hayes & Harlington ticket issued from a HEX ticket office as:

HROW CONNECT - HAYES
DIRECT
VALID ONE DAY

I wonder what the SET gateline staff would make of it if I presented it at London Bridge or Charing Cross intending to travel to the printed destination.

 

[Dave A]

I don't know if this has changed since I left mid last year (very unlikely as it didn't in 4 years); GOLD card discounts are subject to the exact same T&C's on HEx/HEc as the Network Railcard.

I'm not sure if the main ticket office or TVM's will offer this discount (the HEx TVM's don't) but, unless you get a very badly trained member of staff (there are a few sadly), there should be no problems in getting it from the HEx Ticket Office.

 

[island]

If I buy a gold card-discounted single from Paddington to Heathrow now, will it cost £12.50 or £13?

 

[Dave A]

Depends who serves you...

The correct procedure to issue this ticket would be for the staff member to follow the Network RailCard T&C's, meaning £13 (I presume is minimum fare still?), however they rarely did (even with me bugging them), and probably still don't.