Why Prices Need a Check Date: How Current Are Car Park Tariffs?

When you look at a car park price, the number in front of you is a snapshot. It was true when someone checked it, and it stays true only until the operator changes it. On a specialist reference site, that distinction matters: a price without a check date is not a fact you can rely on, it is a figure of unknown age.

This article explains what a check date means, how current official tariff figures really are, why they move, and the point at which you should go back to the source and look again. It uses London Gatwick Airport's published car parking information as the worked example, because that is the evidence available here. The same reasoning applies to any operator that publishes prices on its own website.

What a check date actually tells you

A check date is the date on which a page was read and its wording captured. It is not the date the price was set, and it is not a promise that the price will still be there tomorrow. It records one thing only: on that day, the source page said what we quote it as saying.

In the evidence bundle behind this article, the London Gatwick car parking pages were checked on 6 October 2026. That date belongs to the check, not to the tariff. A reader arriving later is looking at a figure that was accurate as of the check date and may have been superseded since.

This is why every price statement on a reference page should carry its check date next to it. Without that date, you cannot tell whether you are reading something captured last week or several years ago. With it, you know exactly how much trust to place in the number and when to verify it again.

How current are the prices?

As current as the check date, and no more current than that. The official London Gatwick roll-up car park prices page was checked on 6 October 2026, and the figures quoted from it reflect what that page said on that date.

Two limits follow from this.

• Currency is bounded by the check. A price cannot be more current than the moment it was read. Anything after that moment is unknown until someone looks again.
• Currency is bounded by the source's own update cycle. Even a page checked today reflects whatever the operator had published at that point. If the operator changes the tariff afterwards, the checked figure becomes historical.

The practical consequence is simple: a checked price is a reliable record of what was published, not a live quote. For a live quote you must go to the operator.

Why prices change

The evidence bundle does not set out a full list of reasons why an operator revises its tariffs, and this article will not invent one. What the bundle does show is that the official pages are maintained and that the operator distinguishes between different ways of paying and different ways of arriving.

The roll-up prices page describes prices for turning up at a car park without a booking, and it separates those from the advice to book ahead. The same page notes that the roll-up prices it lists are the same across both the North and South Terminal, and it points readers to further detail on drop-off and pick-up charges and on Short Stay parking for picking up passengers. That structure — different products, different pages, different figures — is itself a reason to be careful: a number quoted for one product is not automatically the number for another.

The terms and conditions page carries a different kind of date again. It shows a "Last updated" date of 10 August 2023, which is earlier than the 6 October 2026 check date on the car parking pages. Two pages on the same site, checked on the same day, carry different internal dates. That is a useful reminder that a site is not a single document with a single vintage; each page has its own history.

Beyond that, the bundle does not state why any particular tariff was set or changed. If you need the reasoning behind a specific figure, the operator's own pages are the place to look, and the bundle does not cover it.

When should you re-check?

Re-check before you commit money, and re-check again if time has passed since you last looked. The evidence supports a few concrete moments.

Before you book

The roll-up prices page states that the operator always advises booking car parking more than 24 hours away from your arrival time to secure the best possible rates and guarantee a space, particularly during peak seasons. Whatever figure you saw earlier, the price that applies to your booking is the one in force when you book. Check it at that point.

If you are arriving without a booking

The same page acknowledges that sometimes the unexpected happens and you might need to arrive at one of the car parks without a booking. In that situation you are exposed to whatever the roll-up price is on the day. A figure checked earlier is not a held price. Re-check as close to arrival as you can.

If you are using drop-off, pick-up or Short Stay

These are separate charges with their own pages. The roll-up prices page notes that a minimum charge applies to the drop-off zones and directs readers elsewhere for more information and for paying the charge after use, and it recommends the Short Stay car parks for picking up. Because these are distinct products, a price you checked for one does not carry over to another. Re-check the specific product you intend to use.

If your check date is old

Any time the gap between the check date and your travel date is significant, treat the figure as indicative and verify. The bundle does not state how often the operator updates its prices, so no safe interval can be given here. The only reliable move is to look at the official page again.

How to re-check properly

Go to the operator's own page, not to a summary of it. For the car parking figures discussed here, the relevant pages are the official roll-up car park prices page and the terms and conditions page. Both are linked below.

• Read the price on the page that covers the exact product you want — roll-up, drop-off, pick-up, or Short Stay are not interchangeable.
• Check whether the page states its own "last updated" date, and compare it with when you are reading.
• If you are booking, confirm the price at the point of booking rather than relying on an earlier reading.

For anything about how this site handles prices and check dates, see /about/. For the pricing material itself, see /pricing/.

What this article does not tell you

It does not give you a live price, and it cannot. It does not state how frequently any operator revises its tariffs, because the bundle does not say. It does not list every charge that might apply to a journey, because the bundle covers only the pages quoted here. It does not guarantee that a price you saw will still be available, and it does not state any refund, cancellation or contractual right, because the bundle does not set those out.

Where the bundle is silent, the answer is to check the official source. The two official pages used here are:

• Roll-Up Car Park Prices, London Gatwick Airport, checked 6 October 2026.
• Terms and Conditions, London Gatwick Airport, checked 6 October 2026.

Summary

A price is only as current as the date it was checked. The official London Gatwick car parking pages were checked on 6 October 2026, and the terms and conditions page shows a last-updated date of 10 August 2023 — two different vintages on one site. Prices can change, the bundle does not say how often, and the only safe assumption is that any figure you hold may be out of date. Re-check before you book, re-check if you are arriving without a booking, and re-check the specific product you actually intend to use. When in doubt, go to the operator's own page and read it there.

Checked 2026-10-06. This source check uses Roll-Up Car Park Prices and Terms and Conditions. It is not a live availability check, booking or personal test.