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Comment by prvit | Hacker News Reader

Protip: Just book VIP to avoid troubles when arriving/departing at LHR. https://www.heathrowvip.com/

Same goes for Schiphol https://www.schiphol.nl/en/page/schiphol-vip-service/

For relatively little money, the private terminal services offer you a very high quality stress-free experience. No need to navigate crowded airports or tow your luggage around. They’ll drive you from a comfortable lounge straight to the plane (and vice-versa). For passport control, you just sit in a comfy armchair as the border force girl comes to check your documents.

Depending on the airline and airport you depart from, your luggage will often get binned separately in order to guarantee a super fast delivery to the VIP terminal.

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> Prices for the Black service start at GBP £2,750 + VAT for up to 3 persons for an arriving or departing flight, as well as those on flights connecting within 3 hours.

Kind of pricy, source: https://www.heathrowvip.com/s/faqs

yeah and "The service is not available to those flying Economy or Premium Economy class"

>relatively little money

On what planet? It costs £2750 plus VAT, sometimes I think I live in a different universe than HN posters

People making more than $300k/yr TC aren’t exactly a small minority on HN. While the VIP service at Heathrow is unusually expensive compared to other airports, it’s really not a crazy price to avoid some very stressful hours.

In my experience, flying from/to Heathrow is no more stressful than the average day at work. If I made something crazy like $10M/year, I might consider paying those fees. As long as my compensation is at the level of mere mortals, my time is not worth even remotely that much.

My experience with Heathrow which is considerable (although not recently) is that other than a lot of walking--which is fine if you're able-bodied and your carry-on is reasonable is OK--it's mostly OK. Especially as a US citizen who was latterly able to use the electronic entry lanes.

Even if you're on 300k a year, that's still 1/4th of your monthly salary to stay in a fancy lounge for two hours and avoid a shuttle bus

Yeah...I can see spending 275 pounds if I were REALLY desperate.

2750 pound? Maybe if you made $3 million a year.

I flew out of LHR a couple of weeks ago. The security lines were longer than I have ever seen (took ~45m to an hour total, but I forgot some sunblock in my bag and had to wait quite a while for them to search it) but it was hardly stressful. I suppose if you're tight on time and cut things fine this could become a worry but that's avoidable by getting there a bit earlier. The airport staff were pretty good about checking for people on flights that were going to close soon, too. For me spending £2750 + VAT to avoid this is absolutely crazy (it's 5 years' worth of laptops) but perhaps I don't value my time as much as others here.

I flew out last week, took 20 minutes. They are clearly understaffed, but it was smooth. My entire holiday cost £600 so not planning on taking up that offer anytime soon :P

>People making more than $300k/yr TC aren't exactly a small minority on HN. ... it's really not a crazy price...

Heathrow doesn't serve only HN users, nor only the wealthy, though. I'd wager that £2750 plus VAT is hardly "relatively little money" for the average person traveling through Heathrow.

This isn’t the “average person traveling through Heathrow” forum. This is a forum run by a big VC fund for startup billionaires and temporarily embarrassed startup billionaires.

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic with these posts, or if you're just actually out of touch.

I make more than that and still think this isn't worth it. I understand flying business on a long haul but you're not exactly saving on traffic, etc. using this service.

That's still a month's rent for a lot of people, why would you spend that on a lounge for a few hours?

I think most people would balk at the price. If it was 30 quid it would be reasonable.

30 quid was what I was imagining when I read "relatively little money"

As a crude point of comparison, you'd be buying this service at about 917 euros/hour. With a pretty lax 1600 hours/year you'd have to make almost 1.5M per year to match the rate.

Ah! I took first class from NYC to London as a treat to myself once (using a RTW fare). On the flight there Keith Richards was sitting a few seats away. Cool guy, gave me shit about it being "the wrong time to use the loo" while I was waiting near the end of the flight. After we landed, he got off before everyone and got into a black car like this - I had always wondered how one goes and does that.

> They’ll drive you from a comfortable lounge straight to the plane (and vice-versa). For passport control, you just sit in a comfy armchair as the border force girl comes to check your documents.

For some airports you don't have to pay for a separate extra service for this, flying first class with the right airline at the right airport will get you that. I'm trying to remember where I did this - I think it was Taipei. Wherever it was, I didn't have a black car, but a thing resembling a baggage cart that played Fur Elise to let people know I was coming. I don't think I would use the cart service again, but the checkin experience was nice.

I also want to take the Fur Elise taxi when I fly from now on

Don't you just get out of the car and walk up the stairs and tell the pilot you are ready to go?

Protip: have your staff book a car for your luggage, saves having to wait for someone to unload your luggage from the plane, you can just get into the waiting car on the tarmac and go.

Super protip: have your luggage shipped ahead and unpacked in advance of your arrival.

"Luggage" sounds like you bring preowned (by you, but that's barely better) things on your trip. You're already having new bedding delivered to your chateau, just have your stylist have some new tailored clothes and accessories hung in your closet when you get there.

Plus that way if there's something small (like one of the watches) you particularly like, you have a souvenir you can take home as opposed to leaving for housekeeping.

I prefer to have everything shipped back to the home office for secure destruction, nobody really would have much use for a once used bedding, or silver ware except something to sell for heroin or some other perversion.

Better to spare the staff the temptation of such sins.

Very occasionally I like to blend in and perhaps get a second use out of a Patek, the leather strap really show up the wear much more, making it an even bolder statement.

I am shocked, shocked to think that housekeeping might be stealing some of the items as opposed to destroying them. Next you'll tell me they take my half-empty bottles of Moet (the bubbles leave too quickly to get a refill out of an opened bottle) and drink it.

Are you drinking Moet? That stuff is only good for the staff to clean the toilets with.

> the border force girl

Is this phenomenon a psychology trick? Most folks doing bad stuff are guys, so have a hot young woman ask the questions to throw them off and make it harder to lie?

I've wondered whether it's a deliberate tactic employed by some border controls since I stepped off a plane in Canada and saw that every single one of the half-dozen folks doing our "what are you doing in Canada?" Q&A stuff was a very attractive, put-together young woman. Like, that's a hell of a coincidence if it's not intentional.

Oh, I’ve never been asked questions at the VIP terminal. Just a quick look at my passport and they tell me I’m good to go.

Regular LHR border control on the other hand used to quiz me all the time. What are you doing? Where are you staying? Who pays for your travel? What do you do for a living?

Oh, I meant at regular border control, I'm not rich enough to spend money on VIP services and not feel terrible (that is, like I really should have done something else with that money) about doing so.

Yeah, LHR immigration has some intense questioning. I have been to a lot of countries, and they leave the impression as most invasive. (The rest of Europe is very pleasant. Hong Kong was my favorite; I felt like they gave 0 fucks about who comes into their territory. I've also been yelled at in Japan because I filled out some form in blue ink instead of black ink. The immigration agent gave me a long lecture about how "I know you can read Japanese because you had a student visa, what part of black ink didn't you understand?" I said I didn't have a black pen, and they didn't have any around. That seemed to be good enough of an answer. I guess the strategy is to rile people up so they say something dumb, but I guess I had nothing to hide except my taste in pens. And I suppose they want to test that I'm who I say I am; I should be able to answer that question in Japanese if I am who my passport says I am, though gotta admit this was about 10 years after that and I was pretty rusty! The mind games are pretty transparent, though tedious after an 18 hour flight.)

US immigration is also very invasive, but I have Global Entry now and haven't spoken to immigration in years. Love it. (Customs, yeah they'll still ask you questions. Immigration questions upon arrival to the US always annoy me because I feel like I have a right to exist in my country of birth and citizenship. If I have the wrong answer to some question, where are they going to deport me to? The US? But, I don't feel like I have any right to bring in goods from abroad without paying taxes, so if people ask me those kinds of questions, it doesn't bother me.)

Welcome to Canada!

By "relatively little money" you mean triple the cost of the ticket...

So just like the Tom Brady method of avoiding sexual harassment[1]

[1] https://youtu.be/PxuUkYiaUc8

From the heathrowvip.com FAQ:

> Prices for the Black service start at GBP £2,750 + VAT for up to 3 persons for an arriving or departing flight, as well as those on flights connecting within 3 hours.

For perspective, LHR-JFK is around £500 return including taxes for one adult in economy, or £850 for premium economy.

For perspective, if you’re not flying first class, this probably isn’t something you consider value for money.

If you're not flying first class, this isn't even available as an upgrade.

Protip: be rich.

Protip: Just be rich

This is some next-gen level bait. Gotta admire it.

Pro protip: take your private jet

Well yeah, but the prices for those have actually more than doubled in the post-COVID world. Makes more sense for bigger groups, but hard to justify for many individuals who’d have previously flown private.

Why bait? Heathrow has terrible service and 400 pounds may be worth it to get normal service. It is something like bakshis in Egypt... It pays off after couple of hours.

"£2750 plus VAT"

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