very very early morning flight from Heathrow. Hotel night before???

[mckenzie]

We are going to Florida for christmas and fly out of Heathrow at 7.40am on Dec 23rd. The travel agent is recommending a 4 hour check in!! Should we perhaps stay at a hotel at the airport and check in the night before? We are flying with united. Any tips please very welcome.

TIOA

bump

yep

my parents do this all the time as unsocially timed flights are cheaper by more than the price of the hotel

or book a taxi

I have booked the taxi MrsB but it still means getting up in the middle of the night. I thought if we could check in the night before and stay in a hotel we could then leave it much later to get to the airport. Do all airlines do early check ins do you know?

mckenzie

I do not think that United offer a twilight check in service (unlike Virgin Atlantic for instance).

You may actually be able to check in online 24 hours prior to your flight departing so you can print off your boarding passes at home if you have a printer. I believe they have an online check in facility.

I also think that arriving three hours prior to departure will give you sufficient time (also those desks don't often open any earlier than 3 hours prior to departure).

I would thoroughly recommend the hotel option, never mind the sleep it totally takes out the stress when traffic suddenly builds and you start thinking you are going to miss your flight!

Check in desks definitely do not open more than three hours before flights (travel agent offers bad advice shock). If I was staying in a hotel with no traffic worries I would be leaving the hotel three hours before the flight.

If you are going United then you are flying out of T3, there are dozens of hotels along the bath road just outside the airport all served by the hotel buses.

Hotel buses at Heathrow are not free (unlike every other international airport in the world) and if you are a family it may be cheaper to get a taxi, if you book through the hotel check the price otherwise they will get you a luxury chaffeur car which will charge you £20 for the 5 min run.

A quick skim of travelocity shows prices starting at about £60 for a family room, some of those are not on the Bath Road so are a little further out, but the Crowne Plaza (stayed there - nice hotel) is coming up at £70.

thanks for the replies and the tips. I've just been told T1 Dad, by the travel agent. Off to double check the message

T1 is correct I was out of date with all the terminal changes at Heathrow after the opening of Terminal Calamity

Still T1-T3 are all on the same side so the rest of the message holds true.

I live just off the bath road and the new premier inn looks nice . from my house to airport terminal is 4 mins lol . But I do like the plaza

The Travellodge which they built for T5(but is actually just on the other side of the M25) comes up at 50 quid a night usually, and thats a family room. Takes about 10mins to T1, and I wouldn't get there more than 3 hours in advance.

We stayed at the Park Inn when we had an early flight last year. It's at the airport so very convenient and quick, especially if you check in the day before, and the rooms are well sound-proofed We got a good deal on one of the lastminute/expedia/ebookers/... websites (sorry, I can't remember which one).

Definitely recommend the hotel option. Much better for everyone's stress level.

thank you everyone for all the replies.
We've actually decided to go for the 'get up before the birds and take a taxi to the airport' option.
Reasons being we are only, at that time of the morning, about 40 mins from Heathrow and we have two routes available. Also, there is a possiblility the children won't settle because they are in an exciting hotel bedroom and end up having a late night AND an early morning. And the hassle of the extra packing for the overnight stay.
I've found out we can do an on line check in the night before which means we wont need to be there quite so early so that's our plan.
Fingers crossed - we've already had our flight times changed once already. Please don't let them bring it further forward

3 hours is the usual for long haul. its the security that holds you up at heathrow, cant imagine it being that busy at that god forbidden time in the morning.