Globaliser

It would probably also be worth doing this for the entertainment value. I'd love to see the driver's face when they notice a group of two dozen people plus luggage all intending to get on to a late night bus. There's a more serious question: Has the OP worked out what they're going to do to get back to Heathrow in the morning? They'll need to know whether they're heading for Terminal 3 (if the flight to Chicago is operated by American Airlines) or Terminal 5 (if it's BA again), and to plan the journey. If they're going to get the bus again, they'll need to know which bus stop to go to as (according to Google Maps) routes 4 and 7 will depart from different stops. Plus they'll need to check the timetable, especially if it's an early flight.

Yes, you are - and the flight number is BA633. It is also sold by American Airlines as AA6849, but the prime flight number is British Airways'. I'm pretty sure that you're heading for the "Holiday Inn Express London - Heathrow Terminal 5", at 5 London Rd, Slough SL3 8QB. However, you may want to be aware that there is also a "Holiday Inn Express Slough" at Mill Street, Slough SL2 5DD, so that there's no confusion on the day. The postcodes will completely disambiguate this, especially if you end up in an Uber and the driver is using a satnav. (BTW, "Slough" rhymes with plough/plow.) The applicable timetable for First Berkshire's number 7 bus (wef 2 April 2023) is here. (Note that this is not a Transport for London bus, and will not be a red "London bus".) As gumshoe958 says, the last buses depart from Terminal 5 at 2210, 2310 and 0010. The first will be too early for you, given that you're a 2155 arrival, but one of the last two should work. (It should take you closer to one hour than two to get out of the airport.) Google Maps says that the bus stop you want is on Sutton Lane at Sutton Place here, just after the bus turns right at the hotel. Have you asked the hotel whether it can organise cars to pick you up from the airport? It may have an arrangement with a local minicab company in Slough. Transport to/from Heathrow airport will be a frequent need for its guests.

What was your original itinerary? Assuming that you were originally on a non-stop flight, I would regard this as unacceptable. It's almost faster to walk to Munich.

On this basis, I've had another look at Athens-Munich on Saturday 3 June. The Star Alliance flights are: LH1757 0600-0735 A3802 0835-1015 LH1751 1255-1430 LH1753 1525-1700 LH1755 1925-2100 There is no 1100 flight. But there is still a flight pretty close to 1500. So I'm a bit confused as to what's going on here. In addition, I'm not sure that you do have to accept what LH (or A3) chooses to open up as award space if the problem is caused by that airline's cancellation. You should try pushing on the basis that you have rights under Article 5(1)(a) and Article 8(1)(b) of Regulation 261/2004 to be rebooked onto an alternative flight that day, even if there is no award space. Although you could choose to take a flight that's earlier than the originally scheduled time, by definition you would have no problem getting to a later flight (so either LH1753 or LH1755).

It sounds implausible to me. Assuming you are flying to San Francisco, and that you mean 3 June 2023, it wasn't hard to find these alternatives: LH1751 Athens to Munich 1255-1430 (also sold as UA9527) LH458 Munich to San Francisco 1620-1900 (also sold as UA8883) LH1279 Athens to Frankfurt 1400-1605 (also sold as UA 9312) UA927 Frankfurt to San Francisco 1730-2000 (also sold as LH9126) You may have to push to secure either of these, because space is tight. But as you are an involuntary rebooking because one of your original flights was cancelled, it is worth pushing. I think that Regulation 261/2004 may have some part to play here, but I'm not an expert in how that works when a flight is cancelled a long time in advance.

In London, most places take Amex. When I'm using my Amex as my primary card, the vast majority of the transactions for which I can't use Amex are for bills like taxes or electricity. I think that there only two of my regular shops (a local dry cleaner and a local coffee shop) that don't take Amex. But because of these occasional exceptions, if Amex is your primary card then it's useful to have a secondary non-Amex card. Either a Mastercard or a Visa will do.

In all likelihood it will be. You should be fine for this one, then. The official Minimum Connection Time for this connection is 1:15, as far as I can see, and you have another half an hour over that. The bag should go straight through. There is a terminal change from A to E at Boston; others will have to advise whether that means that you need to clear security again. But even if you do, that will have been allowed for in the MCT. However, given that this is so far away, there's every chance that schedules will change between now and the time of the flight.

Maybe. Which airline(s)? Which cabin(s)? Checked bags? On a through ticket, or two separate tickets?

The ss Rotterdam: https://ssrotterdam.com/sleep/

And how are you planning to get from Heathrow to Victoria? If your scheduled arrival (not landing) time is 7.00 am, your flight is on time, you have a US (or other eGate-compatible) passport for clearing immigration, and you're planning to get a car/minicab transfer, I reckon that ballpark figures are 60 minutes to get out of customs (which is after you collect your bags), 30 minutes to find the driver, get to the car and get moving, and 60-90 minutes to get to Victoria - so perhaps 9.30 am to 10.00 am. It's difficult to be any more precise than this. You could cut a little time off this if you go by Tube, given that the Clermont is where you're staying.

Well, you can tick this one off the list, then. If you travel enough, it will happen to you - whatever "it" may happen to be. If you leave aside cost, then whichever way you happen to have booked this itinerary, you will have to put up with Level and with all the disadvantages associated with it if you want to keep those advantages.

I'll happily be corrected if I'm wrong about this, but I think that Level-liveried aircraft are operated on Iberia's Air Operator Certificate. That would mean that it's some standalone second-rate operation, if that's what you're concerned about. If you have a look on Level's website, you will see that almost all of its own fares include food and drink. And the worst that can happen is that you'll have to pay (and then complain to Celebrity Air afterwards). I think that you mean "cheapest", not "best". You're discovering some of the downsides associated with "cheapest", and with not having control over what you're getting.

There are noise restrictions all the time - for example, the oldest noisiest aircraft are basically not allowed to operate at Heathrow at all - but for most practical purposes the main restrictions start in the late evening and continue until 6.00 am. As you would expect, the most stringent restrictions are those that apply in the middle of the night, but they are slightly eased for landings from 4.30 am. And the rules do have provisions to allow for exceptional circumstances (for example, to try to clear backlogs after major disruption) and emergencies (if you have to make an emergency landing, Heathrow will always be open for you).

Staffing will be planned around what's needed for schedules. But actual flying time can be very different from what the schedule implies. Looking at my own non-stop flights, I see the following spreads: Bangkok to Heathrow between 10:53 and 13:33; Hong Kong to Heathrow between 12:25 and 14:43 (plus one outlier of 16:04 - a very unusual flight); JFK to Heathrow between 5:38 and 7:24 (excluding Concorde). So if on any particular day departing on schedule means that you can't land at Heathrow, or you'll get there before the staff do, there's just no point departing on schedule. These are noise-related restrictions at Heathrow. Although it's a little bit more complicated than this, the basic effect of the night flight regime is that flights can't land before 0602, except for a handful of flights that may land from 0432. These times are for actual landing times, not scheduled arrival times. I've never manage to get an authoritative answer for the "2". But I suspect that this is because the lower that an approaching aircraft is, the more noise is experienced underneath it. They are particularly noisy in the last part of the approach because when flaps, slats and landing gear are extended, these produce a lot of additional aerodynamic noise, which on modern aircraft can be rather louder than engine noise. So the first landing may be at 0432 so that the noisiest part of the flight doesn't begin until about 0430 (and similarly for 0600, when the regular one-a-minute landing pattern begins).

Historically, I think this was 12 hours, but may recently have been extended to 16½ hours. See: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/american-airlines-aadvantage/2063901-newbie-lounge-2022-ask-aa-newbie-questions-here-flame-free-thread.html#post35053277

Interestingly, all of these are examples of the importance of on time arrival.

This is also feasible by train. There are direct trains between Brighton and Hastings (about 1¼ or 1½ hours), and then there are direct trains between Hastings and Rye (20 mins). Additional itineraries are also available that involve a change, which could get you to your destination faster than waiting for the next direct train.

This is very common, but it's also to do with making sure that there is sufficient operational capacity at the arrival airport to deal with the flight. There's no point having flights depart "on time" only to have them arrive (for example) an hour before the baggage handlers have arrived at work. Airlines have quite a lot of leeway about actual arrival times for the purposes of working out whether they've properly operated the slot. But operational constraints don't give you that much leeway: if your baggage handlers are rostered to start work at 7 am, they're unlikely to be keen to turn up early at short notice. At Heathrow, I think that the strictest rules about slots concern night flights. There's a very limited number of flights that are permitted to land between 0432 and 0602, and airlines usually allocate these to specific flights. If your flight is not a quota flight, the airline's default position is that it simply can't land before 0602. So there's no point in it departing "on time" only to burn tons of fuel circling around London waiting for the magic hour when it's allowed to land. The same applies even if your flight is a quota flight but you would get to London before 0432. If such a situation develops during the course of the flight, the aircraft is often slowed significantly so as to delay its arrival. The general public often treats "on time" departure as some sort of hallowed principle. But the only metric that really matters is whether arrival is on time.

It's not that obvious - it could just as easily be Brussels, Rotterdam or Amsterdam. But Paris (like Amsterdam) gives you the option of flying, and you could be in Paris before your Eurostar had even set off from St Pancras. If you really want to transfer to London to get a Eurostar, then the most practical route is train to Waterloo then taxi to St Pancras. You can get from Waterloo to St Pancras by Tube if you take the Jubilee Line to Green Park and then the Victoria Line to Kings Cross St Pancras. Train to Victoria then Tube (Victoria Line direct) to Kings Cross St Pancras is an alternative, but that train is about an hour longer than the train to Waterloo. All of these Tube routes should be step-free throughout.

I don't know why you're picking on AF or CDG as a result of one incident. This sort of thing happens at every airline and every airport.

I don't think anyone is saying that it's unbelievably complicated to tap an Oyster that you already have, compared to tapping a credit card. The unnecessary complication comes from insisting on buying an Oyster, and (in addition) to do so using cash, when the passenger does not already have an Oyster but could use a credit card that they already have. A fear of losing a credit card because of using it to pay for public transport is verging on the irrational. (So too is an insistence on refusing to use the contactless payment facility.) In today's largely cashless UK, on an ordinary day I may use my credit card a dozen times or more between leaving home in the morning and getting back in the evening. It really is no big deal - but some of the reasons suggested here for treating one's credit card like the Crown Jewels suggest that some people think otherwise. There are some valid reasons for using an Oyster as opposed to a credit card, but these will mostly apply to Londoners. There are some people who don't hold and can't get either credit or debit cards (so Oyster will probably always be with us in some form). And then there are those of us who prize Oyster for their speed at the readers - but you really have to be a Londoner to have perfected the skills needed to make the most of that speed.

There's no difference in risk to you between using a PIN compared to simply tapping where contactless is available. And you're doing a British Isles cruise, not going to some dangerous foreign location. You know the saying about "when in Rome, do as the Romans do"? Here, that means using contactless for everything. It's safer than cash.

FWIW, the port's website - https://portsmouth-port.co.uk/at-the-port/find-us/ - suggests using Portsmouth and Southsea "which has a taxi rank right outside". Looking at Google Maps, it looks like it may be a shorter walk from the platforms to the taxi rank than at Portsmouth Harbour.

In all seriousness, if he is aged 11-15 then if you get an Oyster you can ask station staff to set the Young Visitor Discount on it, which basically gives him 50% off for 14 days. See here for more details: https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/free-and-discounted-travel/11-15-zip-oyster-photocard?intcmp=55575#on-this-page-5 and https://tfl.gov.uk/travel-information/visiting-london/getting-around-london/best-ways-for-visitors-to-pay#on-this-page-3

If you have a teen who doesn't have their own NFC-enabled device, then I take my hat off to you as a parent.