If you have ever visited the Expedia.co.uk website, you will know that it covers most of the things you would want to know when you are thinking of booking a holiday.
It’s also good to use with an eye to travelling from a specific airport. And if Heathrow is the closest to where you are, you can take advantage of the following features.
Sign in to Expedia and set Heathrow as your home airport
You can of course use the website just as you find it. But there are other benefits to be had if you take a couple of moments to sign up as a member. You get access to more site features if you do this.
When you take a look at the site, at www.expedia.co.uk, you will see that they invite you to join through a link just under the distinctive blue header on the home page. Once you have completed the necessary steps you can click on the ‘profile’ option to change your home airport to Heathrow.
You can either click on the link to change your home airport as it appears after your name, or if it doesn’t appear there you can select the ‘home airport’ option in your profile overview page.
If you simply type in Heathrow and confirm the change, you’ll have set it for all the future times you use the site.
Are you staying at a hotel before you go away?
Heathrow Airport is a huge place to arrive at. If you have ever tried driving there in the early hours of the morning to catch one of the first flights out, you will know that you really need your wits about you!
Perhaps this is one of the reasons why a lot of people choose to stay in a nearby hotel overnight, to save them that long drive. And you can find the perfect hotel for your needs by using the Expedia website – especially now you have your home airport set as Heathrow.
You’ll need to go to the hotels tab at the top of the page first. That takes you to the hotel search page. Once you are there you will have to click on the airport option, because that is where you want to find your hotel. You can type in Heathrow in the designated space, and that should suffice. The next two sections are optional, but it is a good idea to type in the date you want the room for if you know it. You don’t want to settle on a hotel and then find they don’t have any rooms available!
The next page shows you your results. You’ll see that you can also narrow down the types of hotels and the amenities each one offers. If you take a closer look you will see that there is an airports option too. If you click in the box and hit the search button again, you will be able to look just for these hotels.
Your results are then listed according to their proximity to Heathrow Airport, so the closest will be first. However you should find that none of them are that far away. You can also read the star ratings and what other people thought of them previously, to give you an idea of what to expect.
Clicking on ‘more hotel info’ will give you the chance to see exactly what is offered with that particular hotel, as well as what the rooms are like. If there are any particular features you want you can find them here; alternatively you can make these selections back in the amenities section on the previous page.
Most people simply want a basic but pleasant room to stay in the night before they fly out of Heathrow Airport, but certain travellers may have additional needs. Take high speed internet, for example. Looking at the individual room specifications you can see whether this is included. It would be a particularly advantageous thing to have if you are jetting off on a business trip for example.
It’s easy to make your booking as well. Just select your dates and then make the booking as and when convenient. The only thing Expedia doesn’t offer yet is free parking at the airport when you book a hotel room.
Do you need to hire a car at Heathrow Airport?
If you do you will find the process just as easy as booking a hotel room. The first part of the process is the same as finding a hotel near Heathrow Airport. You need to stipulate that it is an airport you want your hire car for, and then type in the name of the airport, in this case Heathrow.
The car class can be left for now if you just want to see the broad selection of what is available first. You will need to enter your required hire dates however. Clicking on the search button will tell you all you need to know. A single click of your mouse in the date boxes brings up a neat little calendar that you can find the dates on.
As is customary for this kind of site, your results will be listed in order of the cheapest first. Under the location heading you will see a small drawing; you can hover your mouse over this to find out where you will need to go to pick up your car at Heathrow.
Be sure to scroll down this page too, because it is easy to assume that the first selection of cars you see are the only ones available. In truth the cars are grouped according to what type of car they are. Selecting a specific car will give you more information about that car. You can also see where the hire company – such as Avis or Hertz, for example – is located within Heathrow Airport itself.
As you can see, you will have a great selection of cars to choose from. And providing you read up on all the information given before you arrive at Heathrow Airport, you shouldn’t have any problems picking up your chosen car.
In conclusion
The Expedia website is one of the best known websites when it comes to booking holidays. But as you can see, if you are going to Heathrow to catch a flight to another airport somewhere, it can help you with other services too.
It’s definitely worth getting your own free account with them, as it will highlight the fact that Heathrow is your nearest airport from then on. And you can change this as often as you like, if you need other information.
Perhaps the most impressive part of the website is the detail it has regarding all the hotels it offers. Even though you are only staying overnight before your flight from Heathrow, you still need to make sure you get a good night’s sleep before you fly. That means it’s good to know what other people have thought of it, as well as reading about the amenities offered.
In short, if you often travel from Heathrow Airport and you want to book your requirements quickly and easily each time, make sure you use www.expedia.co.uk.