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I'm surprised someone at VZW Global Services told you a CDMA phone would work in the UK. In general, Verizon's phones don't work on GSM networks. I don't know anything specifically about the Bionic, though. Perhaps it could get EVDO service in the UK?

I recently traveled to the UK, and found it very easy to use Verizon's global services, which will basically give you a loaner to use while you're out of the country. It looks like you've found them already. What they will do is send you a replacement phone to use on your trip. You can activate it before you leave (which will deactivate the Bionic) and sync your contacts and calendar, either with Backup Assistant or via Google. When you get back, you just reactivate the Bionic and send back the loaner (FedEx prepaid by VZW).

They'll charge you about $20 to ship the global-usable phone back and forth. To my surprise, after I'd been back for a week or two I got an e-mail saying they were then refunding the $20! You'll need to look into signing up for a global voice plan and a global data plan, whose monthly fees are prorated for the actual time you have them on your account. The global voice plan will bring the cost of calls down from $1.29 to $.99/minute, still not cheap, but texts are fairly inexpensive.

On the whole I found this to be a pretty simple process, and the Global Services people I spoke with were knowledgeable. The only downside was that at the relatively late date I called to reserve my phone, they had no Androids available and I had to take a Blackberry. You should definitely contact them again, and if they still say the Bionic will work in the UK, nail down the exact details of what kind of network it will connect to and how speedy the data service will be. It won't be 4G, I guarantee. The Blackberry got 3G most of the time, but I will say that it was surprisingly spotty for being in the middle of London.