Globaliser

I think that Fairgarth's (good) idea was to try to avoid you having to get room service for dinner that night! In the morning, you'll have lots of breakfast options in the terminal as well as in the hotel.

Yes, you need to book both flights at the same time, otherwise you'll be buying one-way tickets in each direction and these could be very expensive. You can only do this for sure when the later flight is open for booking, which will typically be somewhere between 330 and 360 days before departure. (I'm sure that someone here will know the exact length of time for United.) For you, this means that you won't be able to book either flight until about October or November 2024. But as the lowest fares aren't first come first served, and as it'll still be six months or so before your outbound flight (Rome to NYC or wherever), this is unlikely to seriously disadvantage you. If there is some reason why you must book the outbound flight before the inbound flight (NYC or wherever to Rome or wherever) is open for booking, there are techniques for doing that, but they are likely to involve an additional cost.

Heathrow says 11 pm. It's worth noting that this Marks and Spencer is on the arrivals level (ground floor or level 0) - so if you want to go there, you must stay on this level even if the signed route to where you're going tries to take you upstairs. At present the shop is closed for refurbishment. Apparently, it's due to re-open in March 2024.

OK, so if everything is T-5, look at the Sofitel. Yes, it's probably more expensive. But it's going to save you a bunch of time on either end as it's directly connected to T5. Otherwise, you'll still end up taking the train to another terminal. I agree. The Sofitel is a nice way to overnight if you have a T5-T5 connection, especially with a late arrival. Also, staying at T4 requires you to take two trains with a change, each way. If you really want something other than the Sofitel, then the HGI T2/3 is perhaps the next best thing because it's only one stop away on one train. If you're tempted to book another hotel with "T5" in its name (including the other Holiday Inn Express), be very cautious about committing yourself before you have worked out what the transport options are. I think that all of these are off-airport; in addition, many/most of them are outside London, which means that a taxi from the rank isn't obliged to take you, and (perhaps more importantly) isn't obliged to use the meter, so you could get really ripped off. This is particularly important for you because you're arriving late in the evening (plus a one-hour time change) so your energy levels and your tolerance for the (dreadful) Hotel Hoppa bus may be low, and a taxi could be a dangerously alluring prospect. There are other airport hotels in London that don't suffer from this particular taxi problem. A small point: you may want to check the time of your flight from Rome to Heathrow. It may have changed slightly since you booked. The change to the arrival time is not very important, but it's more important for you to know whether the departure time is now a few minutes earlier than you had thought.

Not directly. You need to go one stop from T2/3 to Hatton Cross, cross-platform change, and then take a T4 train from Hatton Cross to T4. So T2/3 to T4 is best done by Heathrow Express / Elizabeth Line (which AIUI operate from the same platforms and are both free for this journey). If the OP could confirm the terminals involved, we might be able to give better advice about hotels for this overnight stay.

Because most passengers will make it, most of the time. If you want less risk, pick different flights.

Which one? How long is your layover? Which terminal are you arriving at, and at what time, and which terminal are you departing from, and at what time? Why do you want to stay at an airport hotel at all?

1:30 is exactly on the published Minimum Connection Time between an ATH-LHR flight operated by BA (arriving at T5) and a LHR-LAX flight operated by AA (departing from T3). At the MCT, the airlines expect that most passengers will still make it, most of the time - but there will be a significant misconnection risk. So it will be worth your while knowing exactly what you must do when you get to LHR (basically, do not clear immigration and customs at LHR, but follow the purple Flight Connections signs), what later LHR-LAX flights you might be rebooked onto on the same day (although there's no guarantee that you'd get rebooked onto another non-stop LHR-LAX), and what your backup plans are in the event that you have to take a 24-hour delay.

There can't be any such resource. Until the seats you don't want are no longer flying for this airline, there can't be any definitive statement, as aircraft substitutions can always occur. You may be able to reduce the risks if you can find out which aircraft type(s) operate which route(s), and how the airline allocates aircraft and configurations on the route(s) that you're thinking of booking. But that would be a good first step anyway, given that Air New Zealand A350 business class seats don't exist (because Air New Zealand A350s don't exist) - which suggests that whatever websites you've been looking at so far may have been misleading you.

Delta operates at Terminal 3 at Heathrow. But if you're going to use a taxi or a car service, that's of less concern to you once the driver knows where you need to go. There are plenty of taxis and plenty of car services. Many CCers usually come along to answer these questions by naming the car service that they always name.

It depends on what you mean by "best", and why. One obvious "best" is a short walk to St James's Park Tube station (the nearest entrance is on Palmer Street, although I think that's only open during the day on weekdays). Take a Westbound District Line train (but not a Wimbledon train, and not a Circle Line train) to Barons Court. Cross-platform change to the Piccadilly Line, but make sure you take a Heathrow train. Exactly what you do after that depends on where at Heathrow you're going, eg which terminal. But this may not be "best" for everyone.

Karma's a *****. 😉

I think that the best plan is (almost) always to go to your hotel separately.

A quick look on Google Maps, to look at the details in the pop-up posted by Cotswold Eagle, suggests that Cork Railway Station is itself on Lower Glanmire Road. So it won't take much research.

If you're not "small", you'll want to think carefully about any economy seats on a 787. Most airlines (including AA) now operate these in a 9-abreast configuration. When the type was first introduced on BA, a cabin crew member who I knew commented that he'd never seen so many passengers choosing to stand for the duration of their flights because the seats were so narrow that it was more uncomfortable to stay seated. Although there are some economy seats that are slightly wider, the difference is never going to be more than marginal because there's a limit to what you can do within the confines of a fixed distance between the cabin sidewalls. Main Cabin Extra only gives you a bit of extra pitch between rows. The seats themselves are (AIUI) exactly the same as normal economy seats, including being the same width. Extra legroom does nothing to improve your shoulder comfort.

I had to do some research to find this out. Digging into the OP's posting history, I found some clues that they're flying PHL-VCE, which is what AA714 is on 19 August 2024:

No US based carrier uses the 747 anymore. Must be a codeshare. British Air, perhaps? Who said anything about a 747?

A long interview in tonight's Evening Standard brings good news: Each of the projects offers him something different, he says. There is a sense he is saving Simpson’s, just as with past revivals of J Sheekey and The Ivy. “The Savoy [who own Simpson’s] were prepared to auction the chandeliers, the big old-fashioned banquettes in the Grand Divan, everything. All of that was going to go so somebody could have a fresh start. I said well, actually, I really want all those, so I’ve kept quite a lot of the fundamental stuff and we’ll build back up on that.” Even the trolleys? Especially the trolleys. This has been a long time coming, too. Pitching to the Savoy he pulled out a newspaper from 2000 that had printed the rumour he was to be involved. Previous revivals of Simpson’s have fallen a little flat, but King’s take is more ambitious. “I’ve thought long and hard about exactly how to operate it. There’s no question about the Grand Divan being the centrepiece of the place, and that will be open all day, with the trolleys and the beef and so on. “But I want to really open it up, make it more accessible. There’s a room that wraps around the building, that used to be the ladies’ restaurant — women couldn’t go into the Grand Divan, historically — and it’s full of light. I want it to be a diffusion of the Grand Divan, which can be a bit intimidating. It’ll be cheaper, much more open.” He adds that his usual mantra — to “give people the opportunity to spend, but don’t make it mandatory” — will firmly be in place, and he will bring back the venue’s two bars, one of which has long been shut.

There’s a roof over the platforms at Hammersmith 😀 Well, a bigger and better roof! To answer the unasked question about the morning peak, it's to do with the flow of passengers. A reasonable number of eastbound District Line passengers get off at Hammersmith (more than get off at Barons Court), to be replaced by passengers boarding at Hammersmith. So if the District Line train is busy, it's easier to get on with your luggage at Hammersmith than at Barons Court. But outside the peak, it's rarely difficult to get on a District Line train at Barons Court. Of such detail are Tube route recommendations made. And endlessly argued over.

Normally, I would recommend that you change from the Piccadilly Line to the District Line at Barons Court. This is a cross-platform change that involves a walk of about 10 feet. However, you can also change from the Piccadilly Line to the District Line at Hammersmith (which is one stop before Barons Court). This is also a cross-platform change, but you may have to walk about 20 feet to get to the other side of the platform. In either case, you take the Piccadilly Line from Heathrow to the change point (ie Hammersmith or Barons Court), and you take the District Line from the change point to Westminster.

Directions here from a previous thread (the Park Plaza County Hall is pretty much directly across the street to the north of the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge): Bus, Train, Car to Tube from Heathrow Bus, Train, Car to Tube from Heathrow The Tube from Heathrow to Westminster should be just over 60 minutes, plus maybe 10 minutes to walk over the bridge to the hotel.

While we're on the topic of alternative routings, can I please suggest a couple of things that the OP (or anyone else with luggage) should try to avoid: Do not go by Tube to Waterloo on either the Bakerloo or Northern Lines - there is no step-free exit, so luggage will be a pain. (And the exit is less convenient for the Hampton, anyway, as Cotswold Eagle has said.) Do not change from the Piccadilly Line to the Jubilee Line at Green Park, because the signed route is painful (and the lifts are relatively unreliable, so you may have to carry luggage up/down stairs); and using the alternative "cheat" route really requires some experience of handling luggage on escalators, without which that can be very dangerous.

For the Hampton, I would actually change again at Westminster. Get on the Jubilee Line. It's only one stop to Waterloo, but if you then follow the way out signs from the Jubilee Line you'll get tipped out on to Waterloo Road. It's only a 300-yard walk from there to the Hampton. Changing at Westminster is step-free via lifts (elevators), and there is step-free exit from the Jubilee Line at Waterloo. For paying on the Tube, I think that the last thing that I would do - literally, in that it's the emergency measure of last resort - is to "buy a ticket". Use a contactless payment card (or buy a pre-pay Oyster, if that's in your plans). Touch in at the gate at the start of journey as you enter the station through the gate line, and touch out at the gate when you exit the station at the end of the journey, and you will be charged the correct fare. (You must do this even if the gates are open, otherwise you'll be charged a penalty fare.) If you use the same payment card all the time, you'll also benefit from daily and weekly (Monday to Sunday) capping, if you use London public transport enough to reach a cap. If you can pay with your payment card via your phone (Apple Pay or Google Pay), that works too. (Much to my constant annoyance, but that's another story.) Given where you're staying, a trip to Windsor should be dead easy. As should getting to Southampton by train. It'll probably be rather faster than doing it by road. The closest entrance for you to Waterloo mainline station for these trains is basically exactly where you get out of the Jubilee Line on to Waterloo Road.

For clarity: one station is called Windsor and Eton Riverside. This has trains to/from London Waterloo on a route via Clapham Junction, Richmond and Staines, operated by South Western Railway. the other station is called Windsor and Eton Central. This has trains to/from Slough, operated by Great Western Railway; that is only one station away so it is literally a shuttle service.

And there's actually more designated luggage space on the Piccadilly Line than on the Elizabeth Line, although it's dual-use space in that it can be used for standing when there's no luggage there. But the space is designated - and if you're starting your journey at Heathrow then you will almost certainly find both luggage space and a seat for yourself: