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How Early to Arrive at Heathrow When You've Booked Parking

Work backwards from your check-in deadline, then add the parking leg. It is about fifteen minutes for Meet & Greet and forty-five for Park & Ride - more from Terminals 2, 3 and 5.

5 min read · 25 July 2026

Start from your check-in time, not your take-off

Most people plan backwards from departure. Plan backwards from the airline's check-in deadline instead - that is the moment you actually have to make.

Then add the parking leg, which is the bit people forget, and which is different for each service.

If you booked Meet & Greet

Call the operator about 20 minutes before you reach the terminal car park, so the driver is in position when you pull in rather than the other way round.

Allow for the handover itself: bags out, a walk round the car together, keys across. A few minutes if nothing is complicated.

So: your normal check-in time, plus roughly fifteen minutes at the car park, plus the walk from Level 4 into departures.

If you booked Park & Ride

Call the compound around 30 minutes before you arrive so staff are ready for you.

Then the transfer. And here is where the terminal matters:

  • Terminal 4 - shuttle straight there, around ten minutes.
  • Terminals 2, 3 and 5 - shuttle to T4, then Heathrow's free train onward. Allow meaningfully longer.

Add the shuttle wait as well as the shuttle ride. Buses fill quickly at peak times and the one that arrives is not always the one you get on.

A realistic worked example

Say a 10:00 departure from Terminal 5, long-haul, check-in closing at 08:00.

Meet & Greet: arrive at the T5 short-stay car park around 07:30. Call at 07:10. Leave home accordingly.

Park & Ride: arrive at the compound around 06:45 - that is thirty minutes' notice by phone at 06:15, ten minutes on the shuttle to T4, the train to T5, and the walk. Cutting it finer than that assumes everything runs perfectly, which at 6am on a Friday it may not.

Roughly forty-five minutes' difference between the two services. That gap is what Meet & Greet is actually selling.

When to add more time

  • School holidays and bank holidays. Both the roads and the shuttle.
  • Early mornings. The 5am to 8am window is Heathrow's busiest for departures.
  • Travelling with children. Everything takes longer, and the shuttle with a pushchair takes longer still.
  • First time at that terminal. Finding Level 4 and the right row is easy once you have done it, less so at dawn.
  • The M25 or M4. Check before you leave, not as you join it.

Do not forget the car park charge

Meet & Greet enters Heathrow's own short-stay car park, and the airport charges around GBP 8.00 for up to 30 minutes to enter and exit, each way. You pay it at the machine.

Have a card ready. Hunting for payment while a driver waits is not how you want to spend those minutes.

What about the return?

Call when you land so your car can be prepared, then call again once you have your bags. For Meet & Greet the second call is what dispatches the car.

For Park & Ride, take the free train to Terminal 4 if you need to, then the return shuttle from the stop there.

The rule of thumb

Meet & Greet: your normal check-in time plus about fifteen minutes.

Park & Ride: your normal check-in time plus about forty-five minutes, or more from Terminals 2, 3 and 5.

Both assume you called ahead. Neither survives not calling.

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