Heathrow Terminal 3 -- time to allow for post-arrival

"customs, baggage claim, and currency exchange" - these are the lesser problems.

• Taxiing, getting off plane, walking through endless corridors - up to 30 minutes.
• Immigration (passport control) - 30 to 60 minutes.
• Pick up bags - 5 minutes, you have spent so much time in immigration the bags are waiting for you.
• Customs - as long as it takes you to walk 50 metres through "nothing to declare", say 2 minutes.
• "currency exchange" - I hope you mean "find nearest cash machine (ATM) and get some cash". Changing funny foreign banknotes to £ is the more expensive way to do it. - 5 to 10 minutes.
• Find car hire desk, paperwork, wait for shuttle bus to car hire storage - 10-30 minutes.

and of course, if you are flying transatlantic the flight could be up to 60 minutes late (or early) depending on winds.
But, Most car hire companies charge in multiples of 24 hours. So unless you are planning to drop off the car at around 22:45, it should not make much difference.

And, after midnight on a Friday night / Saturday morning, where are you driving to? I hope it is close.

Thanks for the detailed info! So it's not advisable to bring US dollars to exhange for pounds/euros? Also, I'm not referring to renting a car -- I'm reserving a car/driver to take us from Heathrow to where we're staying.

Thanks again!

Kevdave, Ah, that makes a difference. If you tell the driver / company your flight number, (s)he can monitor to see if your flight is delayed. (S)he will know better than me how long it takes and will probably be waiting at arrivals with a sign with your name on it.

"So it's not advisable to bring US dollars to exchange for pounds/euros?" - definitely not. That would involve someone working late hours on a Friday night, and then packaging up your pieces of green paper, and sending them via a secure means back across the Atlantic, counted and signed for all the way. Guess who pays for this? If you get your cash from a cash machine (ATM), using the same card as you use at home, all that crosses the Atlantic is internet messages.
But, be sure to tell your bank in advance you will be making foreign withdrawals, or they might panic, think it is a fraud and block your card (bad news).

Thanks again Chris. What I've been told by one prospective company is

The driver does allow 1 hour free from the flight arrival time for you
to collect your baggage and meet with him. Its is only anything that
is beyond this hour that would incur extra charges. You can of course
request a specific pick up time or request that the driver only
arrives a set amount of time after the flight has landed if you would
prefer?

This is why I asked if one hour from arrival time would be sufficient for all the post-arrival activities. It sound from your initial reply like I may want to allow extra time.

Thanks for the advice about currency exchange. The bank has already been informed :)

I am not the expert here, but I will add my two cents as we flew into T3 two weeks ago from the US.

We carry our own bags, we had sufficient pounds leftover from the prior trip so we did not need to get cash, we already have Oyster cards that we left with sufficient funds to Tube into the city. And in spite of this it was a full 70 minutes from the time we exited the cabin until we tapped the Tube entry. Part of this is because the gate for the Phila-LHR American flight is the furthest out on T3, with a long walk to immigration. But the bulk of this was due to the fact that at 9:30 AM on a weekday there were only two people manning booths for non-EU entrants when we walked in, and then one of the two went on break and was not replaced. You have no control over how efficient or inefficient this step will be.

I would expect that if you give them the specific flight number, they can track delays before they go to the airport, so the hour starts from the real arrival time. But if you want more time because you expect yourself to be slow or have a lot of bags, then you can request a longer cushion.

Don't know what company your are using, but we have used Just Airports 3 x and they have been wonderful each time.

One week from today I'm heading across the pond (solo) for my very first time. I have booked Just Airports to pick me up at Heathrow on Saturday afternoon. Their confirming email tells me to meet the driver at the Arrivals Barrier. What is that? I notice several people on this forum have used Just Airports at Heathrow. Could you please give me a little more detail on the meeting point. As this trip gets closer, I'm getting a bit nervous. Having the courage to plan my first trip to Europe solo is easy. Now that I'm only several days away, I'm feeling a bit nervous! Also, the Just Airport quote says that I will incur parking charges. Can you give me an idea of what that will be? Lastly, the price is much cheaper to pay cash (which is what I plan to do) but how much should I tip? Perhaps wait and see if they get me to my hotel in one piece?
Thanks in advance for your help.

That's great advice MrsEB - thank you! I will send Just Airports an email and ask them about the possible parking charge. I have a much better understanding now that I know where/what the Arrivals Barrier is! I am aware of the tube, the trains, the black cabs, and the buses. I have ZERO desire to go down into the tube as soon as I arrive. I might take it leaving London after I get the hang of it but I'm not going to tackle that as soon as I land. I believe Heathrow Express runs every half hour on the Saturday I arrive. Then I would arrive at Paddington and get a cab. I understand it's not that difficult but it's just not what I want to deal with upon landing. And, I'm not sure it would be any faster. The black cab appears to be REALLY expensive. So, I ended up looking at car services and Just Airports comes up with fairly positive reviews on this and other travel forums that I have been reading. But I will definitely contact them with my questions so I won't have any "surprises." Thanks again for your advice (and encouragement).