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Uber has replaced taxis for me. I always use the app for airport pickups and safely getting around on weekeend nights.
Uber is the world’s best taxi service because it has clean, courteous drivers and the easiest ride-ordering app imaginable. Tap, tap, tap, and a car whose progress you can track towards you is on its way.
For many months, Uber has offered a massive $30 off your first ride to new users who sign up through a referral link. (Sign up with mine and I’ll also get one free ride up to $30. Leave your referral link in the comments if you’d like.)
That offer ends November 23, 2014.
- What will the new offer be?
- When do you need to sign up and ride by to get the current offer?
The new offer will be $20 off your first ride. That’s still enough for a completely free ride for most of my Uber trips on uberX, the lowest-cost service, but obviously $30 is better.
Based on my past experience with Uber changing the referral link, I believe you will need to sign up and ride by the end of this weekend to get $30 off your ride.
If you sign up now but wait until December to take your first ride, you will get the then-current first ride bonus of only $20 off your first ride.
More About Uber
Uber is an app on your smart phone on which you request a taxi or private car to pick you up.
The in-app map shows you nearby cars and tells you how long you’ll have to wait. You can input your destination and get an estimated price.
Once you get dropped off, you rate your driver. Bad drivers are fired, so you are extremely likely to get a good driver. And if you don’t, customer service is extremely responsive.
Let’s list the ways Uber is better than your local cab company:
- Easier and faster to order a cab. No calling in and waiting on hold.
- More accurate timetable given for pick up. I hate when the taxi operator tells me she’s sending the “next available” cab. How long will that be?
- You can get an estimate of the price in advance.
- Uber drivers are more likely to drive a clean, not smelly car in my experience.
- Your credit card is saved on file. There is no added tip for most Uber services, and you can set your tip percentage for uberTAXI on uber.com. No need to carry any cash.
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What is your experience getting uber at the airport. I always use them on my return trip but can they actually pick you up there? What is that process like?
Depends heavily on the airport because airport pickups are often heavily regulated. Used uberX for airport pickup Monday night in Houston and it was just like any other Uber pickup. Generally the driver calls or texts immediately to verify your location at airports.
Here is my invite code!! daniels979
$30 off your ride!!
I hear a lot of bad things about Uber as a company, and I can say that the two times I wanted to use them (in SF), they were either unavailable (leaving airport.. had nothing near), or super-expensive (going back to airport.. even though there were multiple cars within a few blocks)
Super-expensive like surge pricing? It’s a necessary evil that I try to avoid.
It fluctuated between surge and super-surge for an hour or two, and then I had the hotel concierge hail a cab and paid much less than that (with no wait or anything).
If there are multiple uber cars available on the map (like 5 that could get to me in under 3 minutes), I don’t see how they can justify calling it a surge.. (yes, I know the point of surge pricing is to get more cars onto the streets, but..)
Because there are even more people looking for cars.
I love uber. I mostly use them to go to and from bars in the OC.
Just cause he said I could… use my code!
74zno
Dont let these bloggers fool you. Uber is NEVER the cheaper option. It’s only cheaper or break even if you have free referral bonuses hence, their reasons to push it more to get themselves bonuses. I travel a lot and it’s never the cheapest option. I only use it when i can take advantage of my free cash.
I have to 100% disagree with this statement. I have never once seen Uberx be more expensive than a taxi. Maybe Uber Black, but then you are getting into a sedan black car territory which isn’t cheap either. Places I have for sure seen it cheaper: Seattle, LA, San Diego, Sao Paulo. I have heard it might not be in places like NYC and San Fran because of the dynamic pricing but those places are definitely the outlier.
Not to mentions the vehicles are nicer and so are the drivers. You don’t end up with some guy speaking Arabic into his Bluetooth headset the whole ride. In Sao Paulo all of the drivers had a cooler of water, they would give you a free bottle. Its the wave of the future.
UberX is cheaper than a taxi everywhere I’ve ever been. I just googled the rates in Los Angeles:
uberX: $0.80 base fare, $0.21 per minute, $1.10 per mile
Yellow Cab: $2.55 base fare, $0.50 per minute, $2.70 per mile
UberX is more expensive during surge pricing. If you don’t like that, catch a cab during surge pricing if you can find one.