Uber ride-scheduling up to 30 days in advance, now active

We wrote a few weeks back about Uber introducing the ability to schedule rides in advance, starting with a limited number of cities. The market in India for scheduled rides is significant, more so with the high growth rate of local travel in general and air travel in particular. So it is no wonder that India is one of the first markets where this is being introduced. Read on to know more and how you can schedule your next Uber ride.




Scheduling rides

You can schedule a ride between 15 minutes to 30 days in advance. Scheduling an Uber ride basically means booking a cab in advance – possibly for that early morning airport drop, or any important meeting, or any other local travel need, when it might otherwise be difficult to get a ride at the time you want it.

So here’s how you do it:
  • Select your preferred vehicle (currently only uberGO and uberX) and tap "Schedule a Ride".
  • Set your pickup date, time, location, and destination.
  • Confirm the details of your trip. 

That’s pretty much it! Uber will send you reminders 24 hours and 30 minutes in advance of your scheduled pickup time, and you’ll be notified after your ride is on the way, and if dynamic pricing applies. 

You can cancel your scheduled ride at any time, and for no charge if cancelled before the driver is dispatched. Payment modes continues to be the same as for normal Uber rides.

Conclusion

The private taxi market in India has been doing this for years. Initially it was the taxi operators (or tour operators) who you had to go to, but over time, even radio cabs and other ride-hailing services like Ola have introduced this service. So Uber is actually late. But as my go-to service provider for local rides, better now that Uber gets into the game, than not at all.

Last week, I used the ride-scheduling functionality, and there's really no difference between this and regular ride-hailing, for all operational purposes. I also had to cancel a scheduled ride about an hour before pick up time. There was no hassle in either situation. I think the overall functionality of being able to schedule rides in advance takes out the element of uncertainty over availability - particularly useful for early-morning rides to the airport!

Readers: Don't you think this is a great addition to Uber? Feel free to leave your comments below.

Comments

  1. AnonymousOctober 13, 2016 at 1:44 AM

    I cant get this feature to work in Hyderabad. There's no option to schedule a ride. I have updated mp app. Any ideas?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Le Meridien Etoile, Paris

Image
I checked out of the Hyatt Regency Paris Etoile yesterday morning, and checked into the Le Meridien Etoile, just around the corner from the Hyatt, in the evening after a day's sightseeing. Hyatt was kind enough to hold my bags for the duration of the day (which is a surprise in today's world of terror threats), and I'm grateful to them for that. The Le Meridien has standard and chic rooms as two of their base category rooms. As I mentioned in the introduction post, I booked a chic room on an award. Here's a review of the hotel and room, but not breakfast (that didn't come with the room, and we planned to head to the airport a little early in any case). Index of posts Bonjour Paris: Introduction and summary of posts Review: Chennai to Colombo on Sri Lankan A320 regional business class Review: Serendib Lounge, CMB airport Review: Colombo to Paris on Sri Lankan A330-200 international business class Review: Hyatt Regency Paris Etoile Review: Le Meridien Etoile, Paris Re...
Read more

Defunct airlines of India - Part 1

Image
ASan and I met for lunch over the weekend. If you knew us personally, you'd know that we're both forever thirsty, if you get my meaning. You'd also know that there are always discussions around ideas for posts. Most of them are flights of fancy (pun intended!), and almost always unviable. But two men with some alcohol in them can dream, can't they? Anyway, this time the discussion finally got down to something that interests both of us, though in very different ways. ASan is a bit of a history freak, getting dreamy and bleary-eyed when you talk of anything 20 years or older (he thinks he’d have fit better into society a hundred years ago, than now). And I'm an AvGeek to the core and a huge  fan of REG Davies. So when the talk finally came around to Indian airline companies that used to be, we hit paydirt! After some decent and serious research, we think we've come up with our own Indian Aviation History 101. Given the volume there is to share, we’ll be splitting...
Read more

Review: Colombo to Paris on Sri Lankan A330-200 international business class

Image
I flew Sri Lankan Airlines' Airbus A330-200 service from Colombo to Paris, in business class. I'm not a big fan of lie-flat beds (that's fodder for another post), yet for a change, I slept decently well on the flight. Here's a review of the flight. Index of posts Introduction: Bonjour Paris Review: Chennai to Colombo on Sri Lankan A320 regional business class Review: Serendib Lounge, Colombo International Airport Review: Colombo to Paris on Sri Lankan A330-200 international business class Review: Hyatt Regency Paris Etoile Review: Le Meridien Etoile, Paris Review: Sri Lankan's lounge at Paris CDG Review: Paris to Colombo on Sri Lankan A330-200 international business class Flight review CMB-CDG UL563 | 11h 00m | 5273 miles | A330-200 | Business Class  We were called in to board at around 1.00 am, scheduled departure being 1.30 am local time in Colombo. We completed the security checks at the gate, and proceeded to the gate hold area to await departure. Unlike any oth...
Read more