What time to book heathrow express if I land at Heathrow airport terminal 3 at 6:30 am

Booking the Heathrow Express well in advance of travel could yield savings. However for travel next week you are unlikely to experience that benefit. At this point I would purchase the ticket upon landing and ideally when you’ve collected your bags.

Others with frequent experience and knowledge may be able to provide better insight including routing.

IMO, there are way too many variables for when you'd actually be able to board the train. Plane timeliness, retrieving luggage (unless you are carryon-only,) getting through exit screening, etc. This is one expense I'd just pay walk-up rate for.

Just buy your ticket to Newbury on arrival at Paddington (or online while you are on the Heathrow Express). If your plane arrives on time, you could be at Paddington within 90 minutes of your flight landing, but the issue is if your flight is delayed or cancelled.

First of all, you book Heathrow Express tickets by the date, not by the specific train. You will purchase your ticket for December 2nd and then take the first train that arrives. You will have little (if any) savings for prebooking this late in the game, but it may be more convenient for you than purchasing on the spot.

There are quite a few flights that arrive in the early morning. I would estimate that your time walking to Passport Control (15 min), going through passport control (less than 15 minutes), and retrieving luggage (up to an hour), walking to Heathrow Express and waiting for train (15-25 minutes) Travel to Paddington (15 minutes).

I think you should consider whether pre-booking the train from Paddington to Newbury gives you any real advantage. Compare same day prices to 2-3 days in advance prices. Is there much of a difference? It might be a great deal less stressful to purchase your ticket via an app while riding the Heathrow Express (free wifi) and know that you will have the timing right.

Hopefully some UK contributor(s) will see this and offer some advice, but it appears you could take the Elizabeth Line to the Hayes & Harrington stop just north of LHR and then take a train from there to Newbury and eliminate the trip into London

I think it’s hard for anyone to give you specific times….we have circled London waiting for a gate and then experienced long lines at immigration, it just depends. One time we all stood there without any line movement for a good 30 minutes while immigration did a shift change.

What I would do is to take the Rail/Air Bus to Reading Station then the next train to Newbury- buying your ticket on the spot.

Note the bus stops actually at Terminal 3, not the Central Bus Station. It runs every 20 minutes. So you just catch the next bus then the next train at Reading.

It will work out just as fast as going into Paddington (or via Hayes and Harlington) and be an awful lot cheaper.

Yes you can go via Hayes and Harlington on the train, but then you change again at Reading- so it is 3 trains in all.

You could use RailAir and avoid going to London for a train. It will save you time. I did your trip in reverse when I visited Highclere Castle.

You will take a coach from Heathrow to Reading station. The coaches are really comfortable and clean. Then take the train to Newbury.

This route was recommended to me by someone on the forum.

Happy Travels!
https://www.railair.com/

Thank you all for you tips. Sounds like there is no issue to just book once we arrive. Taking RailAir seems like a great option that I wasn't aware of. I am actually heading straight from the plan to Highclere Castle. This trip was a last minute work trip for my husband and that was the only day tickets were available to HighClere, so I'm making it happen. I know I will be exhausted but don't want to miss the opportunity!

Tracey744- I used Ave Cabs to get from the train station in Newbury to my hotel which was near Highclere.

They were very reliable.
https://www.ave-cabs.com/

Enjoy Highclere!! I love Downton Abbey and thought it was incredible. I’m sure it will be wonderful to see it decorated for Christmas.

If we assume an on time landing then 1 hour to get through immigration etc, you should make the 0740 bus, arrive Reading Station 0846.
Trains then leave at 0848 Platform 2, arrive 0912
0905 (destination Westbury) Platform 7, arrive 0925
0913 Platform 12, arrive 0940
0940 (front 4 cars of train, the rear 4 cars terminate at Reading and are then empty to depot) Platform 8, arrive 1002.
1012 Platform 2, arrive 1038

(check platforms for any changes on the station monitors)

then typically two or three trains an hour

Reading Station Map- https://assets.nationalrail.co.uk/e8xgegruud3g/3Bk9DJ3OxJq9w0cQbLNw2J/1959ab3e6810ad230003f6d7d1e87149/CCS0723844574-001_Reading_Map_2023v4.pdf