How to choose the cheapest Manchester Airport Parking?

Used to just rocking up to official Manchester Airport parking on the day and paying as you enter? Perfectly understandable as you just want to relax and enjoy your holiday; however, by using Airport Parking Shop and a tiny bit of planning, you can save money and perhaps find an option better suited to you.

A comparison: Turning up at any of the terminal multi-storeys costs £61.40 a day (for every day you park). Our lowest price last week was £36.26 for a 7-day stay.

Tempted? Then, whether it is the nearest car park or the cheapest, we give you the answers below in just five bite-sized chunks.

Quickie: This works for all 3 terminals (we will explain).

1 – Understand Your Parking Type Options (and what’s usually cheapest)

Quick Insights

Park & Ride is usually the cheapest (you park further away and take a bus), while Short Stay/Multi-Storey, situated next to the terminal, is the most expensive.

A Deeper Dive

(but don’t worry you will be back to the surface in no time)

The four main types of parking are Short Stay, Long Stay/Park & Ride, Meet & Greet and Valet Parking options:

• Short Stay (or Multi-Storey) — usually very near to the terminal and just a few minutes’ walk to departures.
• Long Stay (or Park & Ride) — these two names exist because Long Stay is more often used for the official on-airport car park, while Park & Ride is used by third-party providers. What they have in common is that they usually require a shuttle bus or a longish walk of 10+ minutes.
• Meet & Greet — you leave your car and keys in an agreed part of the airport, usually very close to the terminal, and it is taken to a secure car park off-site (you stroll to the terminal).
• Valet Parking — like Meet & Greet but with the added bonus that a driver will meet you right by the terminal drop-off point, saving you the trouble of even having to park in a designated bay.

If you’re travelling with the family, you may find the Meet & Greet service is best suited to you; if you’re not carrying huge amounts of luggage then a cheaper Park & Ride may be the best option for you.

Manchester Airport Carpark Specifics

First things first: Manchester has three terminals — T1, T2 and T3.
Only Short Stay/Multi-Storey and each terminal’s Official Meet & Greet are truly terminal-specific (they live right by that terminal). Most Park & Ride options — both official (JetParks, Drop & Go) and third-party (APH, Hunters, CarePark, Maple, I Love, Bubble, Peak, etc.) — serve all terminals via free shuttles. Therefore, no need to disappear off to the terminal pages, finish reading here and then, when you do your search, choose your terminal.

Short Stay / Multi-Storey (walkable)

T1 Multi-Storey, T2 Multi-Storey (East/West) and T3 Multi-Storey — are all a walk of a couple of minutes to their respective terminal (and yes they won’t be a couple of minutes to a different one so make sure you know which terminal you are flying from).

Mid Stay (walkable)

Mid Stay T1/3 — at 3 – 10 minutes’ walk to T1 or T3 you keep your keys and stretch your legs a bit compared to short stay (you also leave yourself at greater risk from the rain gods).

Meet & Greet (next to your terminal)

Official M&G is at all three terminals.

Third-party options include VIP Meet & Greet (operates 24/7), Maple Parking / I Love Meet & Greet (I Love’s Manchester service is operated on-the-ground by Maple), APH Meet & Greet, CarParKing, PPS — all serving all terminals.

Official Park & Ride (shuttle)

JetParks (1 / 2 / 3 / Ringway) — the airport’s value long-stay brand serving all terminals with shuttle buses.

Drop & Go — you leave your keys at a central facility; they park for you; quick shuttle to your terminal.

Third-party Park & Ride (shuttle)

Reputable off-airport providers serving all terminals include APH Park & Ride, Hunters Park & Ride, CarePark/DMD, Maple Park & Ride, I Love Park & Ride, Bubble Park & Ride, Peak Park & Ride, Go Airport Parking and more. They compete hard on price and shuttle convenience.

Which parking type is cheapest?

Expect to pay more for convenience. Short Stay is usually the most expensive option as your car stays in the closest car park to the airport and your keys stay in your pocket, allowing you a quick walk back to your car. Even though you will drop your car very close to the airport, Meet & Greet can still be cheaper than Long Stay (Park & Ride) at times — Meet & Greet providers store your car in cheaper locations, so they can be very competitive. You also have to arrange drop-off and pick-up times and leave your keys.

Using Airport Parking Shop

Tip: By default, Airport Parking Shop lists prices from low to high irrespective of the parking type, which you can see in the blue box. If you are sure what kind of parking type you want, simply hit the Filter Results option above the results and then select just what you want under Parking Options on the left.

2 – Plan to Book in Advance

Quick Insight

Start looking at least two weeks in advance.

(The Quick Dive-Down Part)

The most expensive way to park is to turn up on the day and pay as you enter. Not only will it cost more but they might not have spaces, leaving you with a lot more stress than having to remember to book! Turning up at any of the terminal multi-storey costs £61.40 a day (for every day you park), that is a whopping £429.80.

You can save more money by booking in advance, with the amount you save depending on how far in advance you book: aim for at least two weeks ahead.

The average daily price of Short Stay booked two weeks in advance was £19.75, that is a saving of approx 67% (£41) per day, compared to turning up at the multi-storey.

Tip: Prices go up due to availability (or lack of) so at busier times of the year, like school and national holidays, you may want to start looking at prices even earlier.

3 – Don’t Rely Just on Manchester Official Car Parks

Quick Insight

At Manchester, third-party park & ride car parks are usually cheaper than official park & ride options. Most of these serve all terminals, so you’re not locked to T1/T2/T3 just because of your airline.

A Deeper Dive

(It is only snorkelling)

Manchester, like most airports, has its own car parks. And, like most airports, it has third-party operators providing parking options too. You may have read about rogue operators and understandably that can be off-putting, but the reality is that lots of trusted, established providers run car parks all across the UK.

In the search results you can easily spot the official Manchester Airport car parks from their branding. The rest are third-party providers.

Is official or third-party the cheapest?

Comparing like-for-like (e.g., meet & greet vs meet & greet; park & ride vs park & ride), official is more often than not pricier. If you prefer an official option generally any of the JetParks ones will be the cheapest. Don’t forget — pricing is dynamic, so do a search and confirm.

(Sorry, a quick rant — as pricing is dynamic, so we try not to litter our pages with teaser “cheapest ever” prices cherry-picked from quiet dates. We do give you some lowest prices based on actual bookings in the last week, but otherwise we encourage you to do a search. We don’t collect your email or anything else so there is no inconvenience for you. Okay… rant over!)

Tip: It might be considered that the official car park has better facilities or convenience, but not necessarily; remember to check things like distance to terminal and shuttle schedules.

Using Airport Parking Shop

Airport Parking Shop allows you to see official and third-party car parks together based around key functionality. For example, car parks that need a bus will be under Park & Ride; we don’t leave official Long Stay under “on-airport” where it’s harder to compare like-for-like.

4 – Compare Parking Features to Find the Best Value

There is very likely to be more than one provider of your chosen parking option. Therefore, once you have decided on a parking type, you can then compare what they offer to see which one offers the right balance of price and convenience for you:

• Transfer time & frequency: walk time or shuttle time and how often the shuttle runs.
• Distance from terminal: if Meet & Greet, how far is the hand-over point from departures?
• Keys: leave keys is often cheaper; keep keys is a convenience premium.
• Booking flexibility: fully flexible vs pay-now/non-refundable.
• Opening hours: 24/7 collection for late/early flights.
• Accessibility: step-free routes, Blue Badge bays.
• Security & reviews: independent accreditation, recent ratings.
• Total price, not headline: watch out-of-hours, late-return, or oversized-vehicle fees.

Using Airport Parking Shop

Tip: After doing a search the features above will be displayed in the tabs, or by hitting the More Info button.

5 – Compare Sites to Find the Cheapest and Save More

Quick insight

Not every airport parking site works with every car park and sometimes they can sell the same space at different prices. It helps to check more than one site and use a meta provider like Airport Parking Shop.

The Detail

(I ran out of deep dive riffs)

So, you are ready to save money — you’ve even planned out how many more drinks you can get at the pool bar. But then you google for Manchester Airport parking, you see so many sites to choose from, and your head starts to hurt. Which one is best?

The world of airport parking is made up of lots of businesses:

• The official airport car parks usually run by the airport.
• National third-party car park chains — for example APH or Maple Parking — who have branded, large-capacity car parks where you can park yourself and keep your keys (or hand them over for Meet & Greet).
• Small independent ones who may be regional.
• Meet & Greet providers who take your car to a secure compound that you won’t visit.

Use a comparison site to cut through the noise

This definitely helps but not every car park works with every comparison site and sometimes, different sites charge different prices for the same space. Ever been searching for car insurance and found a provider available on one comparison site and not another, or at a different price? Airport parking is no different with the added complication that some comparison sites are selling their own spaces too.

Search more than one

The key therefore in finding the cheapest price is to check as many different sites as possible. As with anything else, there is a cost-benefit ratio so you might set yourself a target of the top 3 or 4. Or you might just give up!

All the comparison sites have a lowest price guarantee — isn’t that great?

Checking multiple sites for lowest prices is a time-consuming exercise so why not just rely on the cheapest price guarantee of the first one? Cheapest price guarantees are fantastic, but it is down to you to go find a lower price elsewhere, often within 24 hours, and then contact the original provider, send them the link, and wait for their refund. Something most of us don’t have time for.

How Airport Parking Shop Can Help

That is why Airport Parking Shop is here. We compare the car parks for you, and we even compare the comparison sites. We are independent, we don’t have any car parks of our own. Check the logos for our partners above and then look down the search results for airport parking and you can see we work with almost everyone (find one we don’t, let us know and we’ll get on it).

How we save time and money:

• See more options: both independent car parks and comparison sites.
• Compare providers: see prices for the same space, all next to each other in one search.
• See like-for-like: compare Park & Ride with Park & Ride, Meet & Greet with Meet & Greet.
• Quickly narrow down: filter by parking type, customer reviews, providers and even distance to the terminal.
• Switch dates in a click: easily change arrival and return times to compare prices and see the cheapest.
• Understand feature differences: see summary cards of key features in the results or click to find more information.

What terminology is helpful to understand pricing?

Meet & Greet vs Valet Parking

Meet & Greet and Valet Parking are similar beasts, but Valet Parking offers a more premium service. With Meet & Greet it is usually your job to park in a designated space and take your keys to a desk and hand them over, while with Valet Parking someone meets you outside the terminal, speeding up the process.

Park & Ride vs Long Stay

These terms are often used interchangeably with Park & Ride preferred by third-party operators and Long Stay by the official airport. In general, both involve a shuttle bus rather than a walk.

On-airport vs off-airport

Many comparison sites have an on-airport filter and a separate one for Park & Ride. The on-airport category might seem self-explanatory, but the search results usually include Long Stay, which is often a bus ride away — similar to Park & Ride. The reason is that Long Stay is usually owned by the airport, so think of “On-Airport” as anything owned by the airport. We don’t split them that way: we put all bus-served options together so you can compare them like-for-like.

Short Stay

Short Stay doesn’t mean you have to stay for a short period of time. The price and closeness to the airport means it is usually used by friends or relatives sending someone off, but you can park for a week or two if you want. Just remember it will cost you a lot more.

More Details

Manchester Airport JetParks

Parking services at JetParks are available only if pre-booked. It is an ideal option for those travellers who are leaving their car parked for 1-2 weeks. Situated just 5 to 10 minutes away from the terminals, they are a great option if you do not wish to use off-site parking providers.

Manchester JetParks postcodes

JetParks 1 postcode: M90 5AZ

JetParks 2 postcode: M90 5EG

JetParks 3 postcode: M22 5YA

Electric Vehicle parking at Manchester Airport

To our knowledge there are no dedicated electric vehicle charging spaces at Manchester Airport however some close-by hotels do offer electric vehicle charging. One such hotel is the Manchester Airport Marriott Hotel. You can read more about electric vehicle parking options in our article.

About Manchester City

Manchester is one of Britain's largest metropolitan areas, second only to London. It is set in the old county of Lancashire, on the west of the Pennines, which form the backbone of the country. It gave birth to industry, through the early development of its trading skills, and the great industrial drive for which the region is well known. Manchester still produces over half of the UK's manufactured goods.

For all the 11 million inhabitants living within 50 miles of the city, Manchester is the centre of working life. Furthermore, they come to shop at the city's mega-mall, The Trafford Centre, or to visit the many attractions and entertainments worthy only of a large, cosmopolitan city.