Hey friends, I know many of you enjoyed lot of free and cost effective rides with OLA and UBER. In lieu of that you have these apps installed on your phone. Gradually you are probably in habit of traveling in these cabs feel great about prompt booking and cost effective travel. Have you forgotten the numbers of your local taxi provider, Quick Cabs or Easy cabs? The story was very happy and encouraging so far.
But things have changed now when there are significant folks in your city who have OLA or UBER apps installed. Most of these folks now depend upon prompt and reasonable services.
But now there is a twist and here I intend to warn all of you to do better planning. I live in Delhi. Me and my wife had almost forgot our regular taxi provider for last 8 months.
Today morning (4:30am), Vibha was going for Jaipur Literature Festival, she had to catch the bus from Bikaner house. She had booked a cab with OLA, a night back and in morning OLA said a sorry message. Then she opened UBER app and tried to book a cab, which showed 4x price in morning. We were out of option, but I thought I would try my taxi provider and as expected he didn't have any cab available in next 15 minutes. So finally we had to book UBER which costed 2.5 times more than what my taxi provider would have charged. So essentially we completely relied on these apps and ended up paying more.
So learning of the day is that I should have planned it in advance by booking a cab with local taxi provider instead of depending upon OLA or UBER.
So here are few notes which can be very helpful -
1. Whenever you have to catch train/bus/flight, have some buffer time.
2. Ensure that your taxi for drop is booked in advance, especially when you have to catch a bus during early morning or late night.
3. If you are coming out from a flight and need to book a cab for home, try OLA/UBER or other provider from your flight. If you get reasonable deal, it's fine. Otherwise go to pre-paid counter outside (Taxi state may not be that great, but I don't mind when I get 40-50% less rate)
I wonder why an Auto-Rickshaw can't overcharge in Delhi but an UBER taxi can?
Drop a comment with you experiences and suggestions to deal with such practices.
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