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Sharing thoughts and ideas on business, security and photographyFinally tried Uber (X), great service!
Posted on August 23, 2014I finally got around to trying out Uber last night. I must say I was pleasantly surprised by the experience. Everything was just slick, pleasant and worked. I ordered the ride off my phone (using the App I had installed the week before), it gave me the estimated time of arrival of the driver, his name and the car registration and details of the vehicle. He arrived right on time and Mthokozisi was very pleasant. He had been working for Uber for 6 months and seemed quite happy with them as an employer.
I was delivered home 12 minutes later, right to the address I had entered when I ordered the car. In-between ordering my ride and arriving home my phone battery had gone flat, so I was concerned it may have been an issue but not to be. My credit card details were preloaded into the app so no issue with payment, and its all cashless. The trip cost is calculated based on a combination of time and distance. R7/km and 70 cents (or so) per minute. So my 12 minute 7.5km trip came to R65.59.
My trip was however free as there is an UberX launch campaign going on in Durban this weekend (See details below).
After the trip the driver “rated” me as a passenger and provided feedback on his Uber App. He asked me to do the same on mine (which I did a few minutes later). A short while after I also received a follow-up email from Uber summarising the journey, the costs, time, and showing the exact route. All super slick.
If you are interested, then download the app and sign up. It’s free. If you use promo code Uberjjza you can get R90 credited to your account (and I get R90 too). Furthermore, if you enter the second promo code UBERXDBN you can get six uberX rides in Durban, up to R250 in value each, until Sun 24 Aug 2014 at 11pm.
It is no wonder that Uber is changing the face of personalised public transport across the Globe. I don’t see myself using conventional Taxi services again. Install the App and give them a try, you will be pleasantly surprised. Whats really cool is you can use the App to get quotes of how much it would be for various trips, so you can already price the trip to and from the rugby / motor cycle event etc.
Share you experiences, good (or bad) once you have given it a go.
Below is a screenshot of the summary mail that arrived post trip (with address and credit card digits removed)
Summary mail
Recovering from the 1time blues
Posted on November 03, 2012Yesterday was an unfortunate day for many South Africans with the demise of 1time. There was chaos at the airports around the country as passengers were left stranded, some literally at the boarding gates after their luggage had been loaded, others hearing the news while on their way to the airport, and arriving to find closed check-in points and service desks. Twitter was abuzz with the news, reports of tearful employees asking sorrowfully about their jobs.
I was at OR Tambo, for a change very thankful to be flying SAA, observing all this going on around. One of the passengers boarding with me had paid R2800 to get a one-way ticket from Jhb to Durbs on the fateful Friday night. At the boarding gate there were a handful of standby passengers hoping that one of the regular fliers wouldn’t arrive so they would be able to get home. Only a few made it on, the rest were left hoping to catch another flight. A passenger relayed the story of how he flew up Friday morning, the plane only had around 40 passengers on-board, the emptiest flight he had ever been on. The pilot then made a strange comment after they landed. Instead of the usual “hope to see you aboard an xxx flight soon” he remarked that he couldn’t say he hoped to see them on a flight soon, then seemingly realising what he had said cut off the comment halfway through. Seems to indicated that even if the staff had no inkling, the pilots had some forewarning of sorts.
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