Getting from London Luton Airport to the city

The one thing to get right

There are two stations in the booking systems and they are not the same place. Luton Airport Parkway is on the main line, a shuttle ride short of the terminal. Luton Airport is the terminal itself.

Book a rail ticket to Luton Airport with Thameslink, Luton Airport Express or East Midlands Railway and the Luton DART shuttle between Parkway and the terminal is included in the fare. Book to Parkway instead and you arrive at a station with a separate GBP 4.90 shuttle still to pay for, having usually saved nothing on the ticket.

Getting into London

The DART itself is a four-minute automated shuttle. From Parkway, the line runs into London St Pancras International:

• Luton Airport Express - as little as 32 minutes, the fastest option.
• Thameslink - around four trains an hour, cheaper, and it continues through central London to Farringdon, Blackfriars and London Bridge rather than terminating at St Pancras. If you are heading for the City or south London, that through service saves a change.

Where the airport actually is

Luton is about 55 km north of central London, in Bedfordshire. The rail journey is genuinely quick, but the total door-to-door time - DART, train, then the Underground at the far end - is a solid hour and a quarter for most destinations. Plan the return trip backwards from your flight with that number, not from the 32-minute headline.