Heathrow - West Drayton or Hayes & Harlington hack

A few years ago Transport for London hit Heathrow travellers with price rises - which spawned the Hatton Cross hack.

As well as the tube charging a premium for airport travel, the Elizabeth Line also whacks on a hefty surcharge for venturing into the airport grounds.

A trip from Bond Street to Heathrow T5 will set you back an eye watering £13.90 with no discount for travelling off peak.  At this price even the ludicrously expensive Heathrow Express starts to look reasonable!

But if you alight at West Drayton instead - which has up to 7 trains per hour in peak - you benefit from a massive discount!  A whopping £10.10 off peak.

From West Drayton or Hayes & Harlington stations it's around 20 minutes on the bus into the Central Bus station for Terminals 2 or 3 - which uses up £1.75 of your saving.

If you just miss the bus at West Drayton, and if you don't have heavy bags, you may be able to canter down the road and jump on your bus at the end stop if there's a decent amount of traffic!

From West Drayton it's also easy to get to hotels or venues around the Bath Road - but to get to T5 it gets a bit more complicated with an extra bus or (free) tube / train required.

With the Heathrow premium applying to all Liz Line trips, this hack also works from other stations.  So for example Ealing Broadway to Heathrow will set you back £8.40 or £7.50 off peak.  But going to West Drayton costs just £3.20 or £2.30 off peak.

West Drayton is on the main Slough / Reading route rather than Heathrow spur - so if you're taking advantage of this saving, make sure you board the correct train!

There's also the 278 and SL9 buses from Hayes & Harlington to the Central Bus station - so you can take a Heathrow train and take a bus from H&H if that works better.