Written September 2026
A friend meets you at arrivals, which is lovely, except they live in Reading and you live in Bristol. Trains straight out of airports are famously dear, and your friend driving you the whole way turns a favour into an afternoon. The answer is the middle one: ride with them towards theirs, hop out at the right station, and catch a sensibly priced train from there.
The rail industry half-admits this itself: Great Western's official advice for Heathrow is to change at Reading and ride the RailAir coach, because Reading is where the fast, cheap trains actually are. If your lift is heading that way regardless, you get the good station for free.
A search we ran on 1 September 2026: collected at Heathrow by someone driving home to Reading, with Bristol as the destination. Booked from the airport itself, the journey came back at £71.00. Hopping out at Reading, four minutes from the driver's route, it was £31.90, bought as two tickets split at Swindon on the same train, arriving 17:24. Partway found that from the back seat: it checks every station on the drive, prices each one for real, and hunts the cheap ticket combinations for you.
Seeing someone off? Whoever is driving them airport-wards can drop them at the station with the fast, flat-fared service in, instead of crawling the last miles to the terminal. Either direction, the app counts the driver's detour, so the favour stays a small one.
Landing soon, with a lift that only goes partway? Put the drive into Partway while you wait at the carousel. Free on the App Store, no sign-up, UK trains.