Heathrow (again) and hotels

After the last time I flew out of Heathrow, this time I was picked up at 8am for a midday flight!  The journey took an hour and a half, even on a bank holiday's Sunday morning, and I walked straight through security and over to the lounge at the 'B' gates.  Although the gate wasn't showing on any of the screens, the United app can tell you where your plane is coming from, and it told me it had arrived at gate B48.

I had a light breakfast, and then checked my e-mail, to find an e-mail from the Hampton Inn in New York, sent at 9.40am UK time, where I'm staying saying that they had failed to charge my credit card for my stay and that if I didn't contact them by 5pm US East coast time, they were going to cancel my reservation!  I pointed out in my e-mail reply that I wasn't exactly happy about either them charging me in advance, or threatening to cancel the reservation with such short notice when I couldn't reasonably respond!

After being randomly selected for 'additional screening' at the gate, I boarded.  My seat was a middle seat, with aisles both sides, with the 2-1-2 seating arrangement.  This works incredibly well from a food point of view, as you get served by whichever aisle's crew is first to get to your seat.

The journey was exceptionally quick, as the flight pushed back 7 minutes early, and was mostly smooth.  We touched down 40 minutes ahead of schedule at 2.25pm.  I disembarked at 2.32pm.  I was through immigration and customs and in the main terminal at 2.41pm.  This allowed me to catch the 3.07pm train to New York, even after helping another European couple buy their train tickets.  It took 40 minutes, with the engineering work on the line delaying us 15 minutes, and then one stop along the subway to Times Square and I was in my hotel before 4.30pm.  So that was just 13 and a half hours door-to-door.

The lady on reception apologised for the e-mail, and indicated that they wouldn't have really cancelled the reservation, especially as I'm a Hilton HHonors silver member.   I was pleased for bottles of water that gets me too, as it's quite warm here.

My room is on the 27th floor, looking south over the somewhat boring rooftops, although there is a roof garden on a one a couple of blocks away.