Globaliser

No. If you arrive at Heathrow by the Elizabeth Line, you will have to pay the Elizabeth Line premium (about £7 per person, IIRC). Sticking to the Tube is significantly cheaper. The most economical way is probably to take the bus. But I really don't recommend this with luggage, or for a central London to Heathrow journey, unless there really is no alternative.

I'd put a little money on it being a recurring problem at the moment: a shortage of aircraft.

There are lots of possible reasons. We don't know who's given the quotes, or for what. Perhaps the more expensive one only operates particularly luxurious vehicles. Or it may be quoting for a larger vehicle than the cheaper company is quoting, even though the larger vehicle is far bigger than you really need; that may perhaps be because the more expensive company doesn't have any right-sized vehicles, or any available on the day that you want. It's unlikely that any of the usual suspects will simply fail to show up, although inevitably mishaps will occasionally happen (which is one of the reasons I don't push any individual company by name). Anyway, if you're at the airport and you are unlucky enough to have a no-show, you always have backup. You just go to the official taxi rank and get in a black cab. It will cost more, but it will get you there safely without you having to take the Tube, a train or a bus. Be careful with the pricing, though. £95 is about what I'd expect to pay. $95 is a bit low and I'd wonder who it was coming from.

£95 is not far off what I'd expect to pay for a car that takes that many people. For context, if you were to pay a walk-up fare on the Heathrow Express, it would be £100 in standard class for the four of you. And that would only get you to Paddington, which isn't really quite central London. And you'd have to move and carry all your luggage yourself. As Ashland asks, what were you expecting to pay?

Yes. IIRC, the ticket for this includes the ferry from Kingswear (the southern end of the railway line) across to Dartmouth and back.

It was a joke. Sorry.

It's the FAM annual works outing.

Indeed: any of the London-based "usual suspects" should do a decent job for this bit. They're basically all much of a muchness. On the rare occasions that I take a car to/from the airport, I use one of them out of habit - except for the one time when they were fully booked by the time I tried, whereupon they referred me to another of the usual suspects, who were just as good.

I've never done this myself, but my guess is that it'll be significantly more than that - perhaps closer to £20 per cab from the CTA (ie from T2 or T3). Apart from anything else, there's the £3.60 Heathrow surcharge to be added to the meter rate. And it can take a good few minutes to get around the CTA road circuit and into the tunnel. I'm not going to re-hash the "why on earth would you stay at the airport for 24 hours" argument in thsi thread, but if we're getting in to the detail of food and drink in the culinary wasteland of the Bath Road, I'd suggest the Sipson Tandoori. It would need a short minicab ride from the Hyatt Place, but it's probably more interesting than anything you could walk to. It's more likely that the driver will pretend to hate you to try to blackmail you into a bigger tip. A run to the Bath Road and back should be within the time limit for going straight back to the terminal and bypassing the feeder park. The drivers who seriously hate this sort of thing just switch off their light and drive empty back in to central London.

Also interesting to see DL231 on 29 April.

The present T2 didn't open until June 2014. I have to say that I personally don't remember UA ever being at T4, but that's where Wikipedia says it was immediately before that. I suspect that this is why getaway101 was given that duff information.

The pattern is repeated or similar on a number of other flights. I've looked at the week centred on the OP's travel date, and also the week before that (ie 28 April to 11 May), and you can also see it on DL182 on 28 April, 3 May and 5 May, with a sparser selection on DL230 on 5 May and DL182 on 7 May. You can also see it in the reverse direction: DL231 on 6 May in particular. It's also interesting that where it occurs, the pattern extends into the seat rows that are otherwise marked as blocked on the source that I use.

What's the route of your ticket? IIRC, the travel must touch the US for the US rule to apply. In addition, ISTR that if you book directly, Qantas sells some/all tickets from the country of the origin of travel, so (for example) if it's a domestic or trans-Tasman itinerary beginning in Australia, then you probably bought it in Australia and not in the US. What you post suggests that it was long-haul travel beginning in the US, which would make these caveats inapplicable. But I'm not sure that it's quite as straightforward as "ALL tickets are refundable".

Terminal allocation is by airline. The airport's website is a better place than Google to look for this information.

Thank you! Can I bring my luggage?

Even for an all-Tube route, I would recommend doing this route to Westminster and then changing on to the Jubilee Line there for the one stop to Waterloo - there are plenty of escalators and lifts inside the station. I think this is preferable to trying to change at Green Park, so I always change twice if going from Heathrow in the direction of Cotswold Eagle's flat. At Waterloo, the exit from the Jubilee Line to street level tips you out onto Waterloo Road, hence it's an easy walk south to this particular hotel.

This is not uncommon at many major airports. This is also not uncommon.

No, I mean exit row seats - although bulkhead seats typically have the same thing. Here's an example: I think that this photo probably shows the same location on that aircraft.

Standard economy seats usually have relatively thin flip-up armrests, and the tray table folds down from the seat in front of you. Exit row seats don't have a seat in front of them, so they very often have a solid armrest that goes all the way down to the seat cushion so that the tray table can be stowed inside the armrest. This makes these seats a bit narrower than a typical standard seat. Premium economy seats are usually significantly wider. In absolute measurement, this may be in the order of an inch or so, but that makes a huge amount of difference. But if you are going to pick PE, make sure that you're picking a real PE. Some airlines have an area of extra legroom seats that they confusingly brand with a name that sounds like PE when actually they're only standard economy seats with a bit of extra legroom.

Yes. Touch in on the reader by the driver as you board the bus. You do not need to touch out when you alight at the end of your journey. Once you have touched in on a bus, the fare you've paid covers any subsequent bus trips started within one hour of that first touch-in. You still need to touch in when you board a subsequent bus, but you will be charged a zero fare. There is also a special daily fare cap for bus travel only, which is much lower than the fare cap applicable if you have used some form of rail transport too. ISTR that it's set at three bus trips.

I'm still here to tell the tale. 😉

The longest commercial flights are around 18 hours. And the same economy to business class ratios. And western Europe to Sydney or Auckland is something like 20 to 22 hours, split between two flights.

I've not been to this end of the building myself for a while, but isn't it here at the north-eastern end of the arrivals building? That would involve simply walking straight on after you exit from Customs, and continuing past the car rental desks.

Most people not only fly in economy, but do so without the benefit of an exit row. And you're only flying trans-Atlantic - it's really only a few hours. We all like being more comfortable than that. But if that's what you want, then you'll simply have to pay for it, one way or another.

Are your cards chip enabled? I don't believe there are many main stream Canadian-issued credit cards remaining that do not have a chip in them; I have heard (never seen!) that there are still US cards that don't have chips. Even with my chipped card, I have had some difficulties outside of Canada with readers (not often) ... A chip (which is visible on the front surface of the card) is a different function from contactless (aka NFC). That's why you can have a card that has a chip, but that can't be read by a contactless reader. Before the widespread introduction of contactless payment here, most of us had already long had cards with chips and paid with chip and PIN.