Hi all. I've seen a few different forum discussions regarding the best way to travel from Heathrow to Bath. I'm hoping to follow the advice of a few of you and take the Air Rail coach to Reading train station, and then the train (not at all sure which company/line) from Reading to Bath/Spa. Many have mentioned buying a through ticket, which I take to mean one can purchase a single ticket, or at least buy tickets on a single site, rather than buying a coach ticket on the Rail Air site and then switching to the GWR, SWR, WMR or AWC site (all 4 of which are linked at the bottom of the Rail Air site). So which is it? Can I buy a single through ticket, or must I buy a coach ticket and then buy a rail ticket? And if the latter, which of the 4 sites mentioned am I to use to buy the Reading to Bath train ticket?
Posted by
Lake District, England
7326 posts
You can buy a through ticket on any of the railway websites- choose Heathrow Terminal [x] Bus as your origin and Bath Spa as your destination.
But for you, hopefully the GWR website will work for US credit cards.
[x] being the relevant terminal.
The ticket then has to be collected from a railway ticket machine at Heathrow- it can't be issued as an E or M ticket.
The Rail Air bus to Woking is for SWR trains, and to Watford for both WMR and AWC trains.
Posted by
OP
2 posts
Thanks very much, isn31c! This worked via the GWR site, which offered me coach fare via Air Rail as the first leg of the 2 leg trip. It's odd to me this doesn't work in reverse: On the Air Rail site, I cannot enter Bath as a destination and have it book me through to Bath using GWR as the 2nd leg of the 2 leg trip. Lesson learned. Thank you! Is there a single clearing house site (other than using Google Maps) for all British transit that offers the various options all within one site? Seems difficult if one hasn't researched in advance and found Air Rail, National Express, and the other coach and rail options.
Relatedly, is Uber an option for mid-distance travel? There are 4 of us travelling together, so it might make financial sense to Uber rather than coach/train, perhaps even on the trip from Heathrow to Bath. It looks via my Uber mobile as if that's an option.
Thanks again!
Posted by
Lake District, England
7326 posts
For all modal travel planning use the traveline website- https://www.traveline.info/
You can't book anything off that site, but it gives all options. From Heathrow to Bath (when I just looked) they give another option never ever cited on this forum which is National Express to Swindon, then train Swindon to Bath.
The beauty of booking a through rail-air ticket is that IF the GWR was on strike or having major problems your ticket should be valid on another never discussed route (as it takes rather longer)- Rail Air to Woking, train to Salisbury, change trains, train Salisbury to Bath.
On GWR you should be able to book the reverse journey of Bath to Heathrow via Rail Air Bus
I doubt you could get Uber that far as they would be unlikely to get a return fare. What most people would do who didn't want to use public transport would be a private car service such as Blackberry Cars [disclaimer- other such car services exist].
Posted by
Seattle, WA & Bordeaux, France
303 posts
I just did the reverse of this trip a few days ago from Bristol, though, to Heathrow via National Express. It was super easy, affordable, comfortable and convenient. According to their website, there is a non stop bus from Bath bus station to Heathrow. I would imagine there is a non-stop service from Heathrow to Bath bus station as well. https://www.nationalexpress.com/en