Getting to London cheaply

Transportation, Travel and Trips
1
Hi All,

I'm considering moving to Basel next year, but I have family and friends in London and I'd like to be able to visit them every few weeks so I'm evaluating my options. I've Googled and found cheap flights from Basel to Gatwick on EasyJet, but the folks are in north London and that's a real trek from Gatwick. Any suggestions? Am I missing some options?

Cheers!

2
My parents are in Watford, and fly Luton to Geneva/Zurich. It seems to be very reliable, they have have never once been late in 15 years of coming over here, but of course you have the expense of getting from Basel to one of those airports.

3
There are direct trains from Gatwick Airport to Luton Airport Parkway, stopping at St. Pancras station in north London,

http://ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/servic...journey/search

Gatwick Airport (GTW) to London St Pancras (STP) journey time is 46 minutes, single ticket is about £25 .

4
Thanks, I found the Gatwick train, but at that adds 50 quid to the trip so it might work out cheaper to get a more expensive flight into Heathrow. From there I just need to sit on the Piccadilly line for an hour or so and then I'm at my destination. I'm still unsure of my options, since I've been living out of Europe for some years.

5
You could fly Zurich or Geneva to Luton, and catch the direct bus to Victoria coach station.

It stops in north London

£10 single. £15 return

Journey time: 1h15 to 1h45

Luton Airport

Bricket Wood

Brent Cross

Baker Street

Finchley Road

Marble Arch

Victoria Station

http://www.terravision.eu/london_luton.html?af=17&cm=46

.

6
Easyjet to Gatwick. Only cheap if you book well in advance. Factor in luggage (you'll want to be bringing food back most times!) and the train ticket to Kings Cross. It's £19 return. http://www.firstcapitalconnect.co.uk...twick-airport/

BA to Heathrow. Not bad prices if booked a few weeks in advance. Slow but cheap Picadilly line train into central and NE London.

Swiss to London City. Odd prices these, as I now know to watch the prices go up, then drop (often substantially) less than a week before you want to fly. The DLR followed by Northern Line to get to N London is suprisingly quick.

Sbrinz mentions flying Basel to Luton. You'd need to charter your own plane.

7
Just take the normal train, it's 3 minutes slower , the train runs on the same tracks less than half the price

8
for North London recommend Luton, it is a relatively small airport & I am always surprised how quickly I get out of it.

believe easyjet also have coaches into London.

check out thetrainline.com as well for connections for whatever part of N. London you are going.

You have to get a cute little bus from just outside the airport to the Luton British rail station, about 10 minutes to get there. you either get it included on your train fare or pay separately. You may also wish to get the TFL travel daycard included in that fare.

For other days, get an Oyster card for using London public transport; see TFL.gov.uk for further information.

9
I'll repeat what I just said above, using different words. There are no flights between Basel and Luton.

10
You are right again, no direct flights, which surprised me! Sorry I didn't realise that, they only fly from Zurich or Geneva. I will modify my post.

11
Easyjet ran a Basel-Luton service for a few years, which I hated. Why? Because we were expected to use it for trips to our Welwyn office, rather that the Swiss (was Crossair) flight to London City, which was itself removed from the schedules for a while. And I hate flying Easyjet, even with Speedy Boarding and now having proper reserved seats. Still too much standing around waiting, and as Adrian says not always the cheaper option by a long way.

Thankfully, for me at least, they then stopped that route in favour of the Gatwick flights, and by then the Swiss ones to LCY had been reinstated, so back to my preferred option

I believe that it's down to cancellations. Like most airlines they have a limited number of seats available at low prices, which tend to be booked up well in advance. If some of these are then cancelled close to the time those seats will be made available at the original prices.

12
As the cheaper seats don't get refunds it's nothing to do with cancellations. It's just trying to fill the plane for the highest ticket price. If you have 50 empty seats better to fill them for 99 CHF than have lots of spare capacity.

13
They use some sophisticated algorithms to work out what seat price vs. advance bookings vs. occupancy is most efficient, and the same calculations apply whether or not they've made an additional profit by the non-refundable cancellations. Airlines do not generally drop prices near the flight date - quite the opposite in fact. It's not in their interest to do so, as those people who would normally be booking at that stage will pay the higher prices if they need to make the journey.

If they were applying the sort of strategy you describe it would be a very short term, and ultimately self-destructive, policy, as quite soon they wouldn't get any bookings in advance, without which they wouldn't be able to afford the risk of operating flights at all.

14
They just stop the route like Easyjet did Basel to London.

Ultimately Airlines have on average lost billions over decades, the pension fund deficit on BA exceeds value of the airline.

Concorde seats were £3,000, that's £30,000 in todays money, airlines are not able to increase prices with inflation, which is why airlines will always be a bad investment.

15
Don't forget that return tickets on British trains are not twice the price of a single ticket like they are in Switzerland! I tend to buy a return even if I am not sure I'll use it for LCY (via Stratford) to Ashford in Kent. The difference is £1.

An Oyster card for the DLR part of the trip also reduces costs.

16
did a quick search on the site, the train fares single start from £10 & return was less than £15. Yes can be as high as around £25 single, depends what class and train company you use. also do not know what part of N London you are going, the Thames Link does go further than St Pancras, eg. Kentish Town on route to Luton.

some years ago I worked near Gatwick. was always surprised how many people got the Express train to Victoria, as the slower train much cheaper & not such a time difference, unless you had good reason to get their for set time. there was also some anomaly that cheap day tickets were 24hrs, i.e. no rule after 0930hrs

for Gatwick the train station is via the South Terminal, if you land North Terminal, factor in the time it takes to get from one to the other.

17
saw an article today, Ryanair will be starting a service from (London, Essex) Stansted airport to Basel from April 2014

Stansted to London destinations.

Depends where in London you want to get to.

There is the Express Stansted British Rail service to London Liverpool Street, makes a one stop at

Tottenham Hale (Tube /undersground) Victoria Line, zone 3, see tube map whether convenient to you? (Strongly suggest you either have an Oyster Card before you travel or get it at Tottenham Hale before you travel further; cost saving & also very convenient.)

There are a number of cheaper coach options into London.

Ryanair do offer one as part of their check out at a reduced rate. Important for you to note where your drop-off/ pick up point for the coach in London would be, if you have no idea of London, ask for advice here.

Also be aware to find out where exactly the points of picking up the coach in London would be, i.e. Liverpool Street, I once had an extremely long walk from one side of Liverpool Street round to the other side for the coach with suitcase & hand luggage in tow!

Did a quick search of coach services to London, one for £9 one way for London Victoria. Cheapest train fare £23.40 one way or £32.80 return

There is plenty of parking at Stansted at a Price

It is a large airport so also seems to take a while to get through, luggage drop off, customs/scanning, passport control & then the final walk to to boarding gate. as I rarely use it, I like to allow myself an hour or 2 to get through them all. If you do more often, guess you can cut the time.

18
There are Stansted-Geneva flights operated by EasyJet during the winter season.

19

If I were you, I’d check flights to Luton and Stansted as well before deciding. Gatwick can be a bit of a trek if your family live in north London, especially when you add the train journey. Sometimes paying a little extra for a flight into a closer airport can save you a lot of time and hassle. It really depends on which part of north London you need to get to.

20

I’d always travelled from Heathrow to central London with the Picadilly line. It took a while, but a good book hides the time.

Most recently, I was in London for the first time since the Elizabeth line was built. It was marginally faster (about 45 mins vs 55 mins - mostly due to waiting time) but more expensive, costing about double. Not a big deal if you would anyway hit the daily cap.