What's your Uber experience?

[gaz0303]

First Uber trip in Jakarta the other week. A fantastic service with a clean car, safe driving and best of all, charged to my corporate credit card with a receipt provided. Will be using more often simply for the ease of being able to account for work expenses in foreign currency easily. Paid 1.5x surge charge, with an hour trip costing $12.

 

[Danger]

My Uber experience: I applied for (office) jobs with them and they turned me down.

 

[moa999]

First Uber trip in Jakarta the other week. A fantastic service with a clean car, safe driving and best of all, charged to my corporate credit card with a receipt provided. Will be using more often simply for the ease of being able to account for work expenses in foreign currency easily. Paid 1.5x surge charge, with an hour trip costing $12.

As good a car as SilverBird though?? Was my go to car when doing some work on Jakarta

 

[gaz0303]

As good a car as SilverBird though?? Was my go to car when doing some work on Jakarta

SilverBird have always been my goto in the past. Uber car was a Toyota Avenza? (the small station wagon). its air con worked, unlike our SilverBird in the afternoon, and was in better condition.

 

[Duffa]

Just used UberPool to get from central Paris (Opera) to CDG -- journey time estimate 43 mins
Car arrived within 5 minutes with a girl already in the back. Brand new Peugeot 508 - [Commodore size]
We detoured a bit through Paris to drop her off then headed out to airport alone
Arrived 1 minute after ETA
Fare €32.50
Bus €23 plus €5 taxi to get to bus stop
Standard UberX would have been €45 and might have been a small car??
Very happy

 

[Pleb Status]

Uber is substantially cheaper than taxis in BNE. $22 vs $36 for the same trip from BNE airport (including the $3 fee to the airport owners that uber now charge). In PER it is a lot closer.

One thing I have noticed is the ETA prior to booking is very inaccurate. They will quote 4 minutes but upon booking that will immediately blow out to 10-12 minutes. I cannot remember a booking where the wait time quoted has not at least doubled.

 

[Simsy85]

I use Uber a lot when I am on private trips - the cars are clean and the drivers work for the recommendation/rating. I also use GoCatch extensively for work ($200-$300 a fortnight) which is great for my QFF points, but I have seen *so* much dodgy ****.

My work is ethically opposed to Uber (which I fail to see reason with) but I will continue to use Uber privately. CBR has embraced it and regulated it. Good show Cbr.

 

[bismarck]

Cleaned up in MEL yesterday with a brand new Jaguar XF as UberX.

 

[yohy?!]

Cleaned up in MEL yesterday with a brand new Jaguar XF as UberX.

used to see lot of luxe cars in sydney before it became maintstream - previously had lexus, mercedes, hummers - many uber black drivers used to moonlight on uber x when it was quieter and before the car financing deals

 

[Danger]

I requested an Uber from the Park Hyatt in Melbourne two weeks ago. On the app I watched the driver drive past the hotel twice before cancelling the fare - and then billing me $10 for it! I disputed it with Uber and they said it would be credited back but I've since taken a subsequent ride and the credit wasn't applied.

 

[Duffa]

Uber is substantially cheaper than taxis in BNE. $22 vs $36 for the same trip from BNE airport (including the $3 fee to the airport owners that uber now charge). In PER it is a lot closer.

One thing I have noticed is the ETA prior to booking is very inaccurate. They will quote 4 minutes but upon booking that will immediately blow out to 10-12 minutes. I cannot remember a booking where the wait time quoted has not at least doubled.

Yep, my wait time in Paris went out from 2 minutes to 10 minutes - I guess because the map is showing available cars and not available share cars and the algorithm has to match us. That said he got there in 5 minutes
We left Paris at 1pm for a 4.40 pm departure (max lounge time)

 

[bismarck]

It also seems to show time from nearest car, which is not necessarily the one that ultimately is allocated to you by the algorithm.

 

[dodgeyhack]

It also seems to show time from nearest car, which is not necessarily the one that ultimately is allocated to you by the algorithm.

That's probably true, but be aware the cars shown on the map before you book a job are only representative of the cars in the area, not the actual positions of the cars. You may already know this, but thought it was worth mentioning

 

[NoName]

Uber is substantially cheaper than taxis in BNE. $22 vs $36 for the same trip from BNE airport (including the $3 fee to the airport owners that uber now charge). In PER it is a lot closer.

One thing I have noticed is the ETA prior to booking is very inaccurate. They will quote 4 minutes but upon booking that will immediately blow out to 10-12 minutes. I cannot remember a booking where the wait time quoted has not at least doubled.

Probably difficult to give an accurate estimate a lot of the time as the system will allocate the job to the closest driver first. If that driver decides not to accept the job for whatever reason then the next closest driver will be allocated and so on. It's obvious that there will be a longer wait if the closest driver doesn't accept. Seems odd that the estimate would ALWAYS be more than doubled though. That said my experience is as a driver not a passenger though.

 

[ComeFlyWithMe]

As a social experiment, I signed up to drive Uber. I've only clocked on about 3 or 4 times.

I had the misfortune of picking up a passenger from SYD domestic. The pax was fine but the system is pretty awful. After waiting 30 minutes in a holding pen, I finally got a job and proceeded to go to the terminal. It took 15 minutes to get to the terminal. The app told the passenger I was 3 minutes away.
The holding pen is near the KFC/car wash and the lights in the wonderful new airport design let 3 cars out at a time. By the time I collected the pax, they weren't very happy.
So as a passenger, beware of extended wait times at SYD and that it's not the driver's fault.

 

[dajop]

I requested an Uber from the Park Hyatt in Melbourne two weeks ago. On the app I watched the driver drive past the hotel twice before cancelling the fare - and then billing me $10 for it! I disputed it with Uber and they said it would be credited back but I've since taken a subsequent ride and the credit wasn't applied.

I've had credit from cancellation in SIN before (SIN CC) due to same reason - driver going past and driving further away adding to rather than reducing ETA, and credit was applied automatically to my next ride. But once before I had to manually select.

I also have (had?) a small credit from Uber in China which I will kiss goodbye to now that it has been sold to Didi, as it seems credit can only be applied to rides in the same currency as the credit.

 

[Jeffrey O'Neill]

Been using uber for a bit over a year now. So far I've got no complaints.

Love it on holidays as the email with map after the ride tends to force a bit of honest on drivers where as a taxi driver that knows you're from out of town will sometimes take you on the less direct route.

Is good in malaysia where the taxi drivers try to rip everyone off by not using the meter.

Usually fidn the drivers a lot more friendlier than taxi drivers too, and much nicer cars in general.

 

[Skyring]

Been using uber for a bit over a year now. So far I've got no complaints.

Love it on holidays as the email with map after the ride tends to force a bit of honest on drivers where as a taxi driver that knows you're from out of town will sometimes take you on the less direct route.

As an Uber driver, I like the transparency. I generally ask if the passengers have a preferred route, but the GPS usually takes me a good way anyway.

And, if I sense my passengers aren't happy with the route I've chosen, I let them know that they'll get an email with the map, and Uber is very good about adjusting their fare if they think I've gone the long way. I'm not perfect, and sometimes I feel I could have gone a better way, especially if I'm in a strange part of town, or the GPS goes berko or something.

 

[JessicaTam]

I used Uber this evening to travel from Southern Cross to HSW.

The driver forgot to press 'start' and my account shows as 'cancelled'. Should I be worried?

 

[Melburnian1]

Hasn't that happened time and time again throughout history? There are many thousands, tens of thousands of displaced workers and affected livelihoods in many industries. Why should the taxi industry be so special? Perhaps if the embraced some of the concepts uber brings to the table they would outcompete uber and it would be dead in the water. But no you still get people who want to charge $80 to travel in a smelly, awful rundown taxi from SYD to CBD and still get abuse and lack of willingness to take 10km fares because they only want a 3km fare to somewhere they hope to pick up a much longer fare. Always expect a few bad eggs, but unfortunately, in my experience with taxis is that the bad eggs outnumber the good eggs. But boy, when you get a good egg, they are a gem!

dajop, yours are sensible points.

However the one big difference with the taxi industry is that state governments in Australia have typically had (and have) a big stake through having issued licences.

So it's a bit like the dairying industry in the sense that the owners of licences deserve some compensaation - although not to what taxi licences appreciated, which for many years until Professor Fels and Uber tended to be above CPI.

In Victoria, the state government has promised, but has yet to, introduce legislation re compensation and Uber (ridesharing) regulation.

Someone else earlier also mentioned Cabcharge being '10 per cent.' In Victoria and NSW, I believe it has now reduced to five per cent essentially thanks to Professor Fels' Victorian taxi industry report commissioned by the previous State government.