The Best Way to Plan Your Trip at the Airport
Booking a taxi from the airport always involves a delicate dance. You don’t want to spend a lot of time waiting outside, but you also want your driver to not be idle while you get to your designated pickup truck, especially if you have to travel a long distance or even take a shuttle to get to your desired location. get there. If you don’t time it correctly, you may receive a “wait time” penalty or a no-show or cancellation penalty if your driver has to wait longer than the allotted window.
This can be especially tricky when you land in an unfamiliar city and don’t know how long it will take to disembark, walk through the terminal, collect your bags and find the shared area. But both Uber and Lyft have features to help you choose pickup times and avoid fees. Here’s how to use them.
Book your ride in advance with Uber Reserve
Uber allows users to book rides up to 90 days in advance with Uber Reserve . This service includes up to an hour of free waiting after your estimated arrival, which provides a buffer to get off the plane and travel to the airport or extended waiting time in the baggage claim area. Uber also says it will automatically adjust your booking time if your flight is delayed or delayed.
You can cancel your booking without penalty up to 60 minutes before your booked pick-up time. Cancellations less than an hour in advance will be charged the full price. Uber Reserve is available at over 50 airports worldwide .
Alternatively, depending on the airport you’re flying into, you may have access to the “Ready When You Have” feature, which allows you to book your trip 10 minutes in advance, 20 minutes in advance, or as soon as possible, depending on how long are you staying. you need to get to the pickup point. Uber also has a “pedestrian estimated time of arrival” and turn-by-turn pickup location built into the app for some airports .
Book a Lyft as soon as you land
Lyft has a built-in time delay feature for all bookings in many areas, allowing you to choose a “wait and save” ride or a slower standard ride instead of the fastest possible ride (you get a cheaper rate if you’re willing to wait longer). The app shows you how long you can expect, as well as comparative rates. However, your driver may show up sooner than expected once they make your request, so don’t rely on the exact arrival time listed if you need some time to get from your flight to your assigned pickup area.
Otherwise, if you’re arriving in Los Angeles or one of Chicago’s O’Hare and Midway airports, you can use Lyft’s new pre-order feature to book your ride as soon as you land. It’s similar to booking a regular ride, but Lyft will match you with a driver when you get close to your pickup location to minimize waiting times for everyone. You can also specify if you need to collect your checked baggage and the app will take this extra time into account. Pre-ordering locks in your rate so you don’t have to worry about rate increases.
Lyft says travelers can expect to see this feature at Austin-Bergstrom (AUS) in Texas, John F. Kennedy (JFK) in New York, and Seattle-Tacoma (SEA) in Washington in the near future.
Plan your arrival in advance
Regardless of which sharing service you use or which airport you fly into, it can be helpful to look at the airport terminal map (which you can view on Google Maps) and find the designated sharing area, as well as any shuttles you need. While the bottleneck is often getting off the plane and getting your luggage, you can at least get an idea of how long it will take to get from point A to point B, as well as plan for any restroom or food stops along the way. way.