How long to get through immigration to book car service to st Pancras station

[willownsammy]

Our flight gets in at 9:10 am on British airlines.  We are planning on scheduling just airports for pick up to go to St. Pancras station for Eurostar to Paris.  We all have global entry, tsa precheck.  Not sure if this will help speed up the process at immigrations.  Wondering what time would you suggest car pick up at airport and what time to schedule tickets on the Eurostar.  We get in on Wednesday, July 20th.  Can anyone help with our timeline?  Much appreciated …

[Globaliser]

2 hours ago, willownsammy said:

We all have global entry, tsa precheck.  Not sure if this will help speed up the process at immigrations.  Wondering what time would you suggest car pick up at airport and what time to schedule tickets on the Eurostar.

 

Global Entry and TSA Pre-Check are American things and have absolutely no relevance at Heathrow or any other UK airport.

 

If you are going straight to Paris from Heathrow, the first piece of advice is to fly. Preferably on a through ticket so that you don't have to deal with clearing immigration, collecting your luggage, clearing customs, or transferring to St Pancras - all just to take a form of transport that will take much longer to take you to Paris (measured station-to-station) than flying (measured airport-to-airport). And so that you avoid the misconnection risk. Even if you have to buy a separate ticket for Heathrow to Paris, you take a great deal of the risk away by flying.

 

The next piece of advice is to work out what kind of Eurostar ticket you are going to buy, and what happens if you miss the train that you've booked. Misconnection risk is something you always have to plan for, and a train ticket is no exception.

 

For safety, I would personally allow for 90 minutes from arrival (aircraft parks at gate) to clear at the airport (although it should normally take only about half that). You would want to allow 90 minutes for the journey to St Pancras. I think that Eurostar minimum check-in is something like 30 minutes. Then ask yourself what you'll do if your inbound flight is three hours late (which is far from rare).

 

More advice in a similar context in this thread: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2856108-time-needed-to-clear-customs-and-catch-the-bus-to-southampton/

 

[willownsammy]

Thank you for your prompt response.  I have changed our Eurostar tickets to leave an hour later.  Flight gets in at 9:10, Eurostar ticket for 13:31.  I hoping almost 4 1/2 hours will give me enough time.  

[SteveH2508]

Eurostar currently recommends arriving 90 to 120 minutes pre-departure time.

[Globaliser]

15 hours ago, willownsammy said:

I have changed our Eurostar tickets to leave an hour later.  Flight gets in at 9:10, Eurostar ticket for 13:31.  I hoping almost 4 1/2 hours will give me enough time.  

  

2 hours ago, SteveH2508 said:

Eurostar currently recommends arriving 90 to 120 minutes pre-departure time.

 

It's a matter for you, but even that train time leaves you with very little margin for anything to go wrong. On a planning basis of 90 + 90 + 90 = 270 minutes, that's all of your 4½ hours. If your flight is even a couple of hours late, you're toast.

 

What is your backup plan if you miss your train? Hope is not a strategy.