{luxuries} gettin uber…

one of the things that i loved about living in harlem, was that it didn’t matter if it was 4am, i could always find a taxi or town car.

the thing i hated about both was that you never know what surprises you might encounter, i.e, smells, drivers on their phones, etc.

but what i loved about the town cars, was that they were spacious and relatively comfortable.

i am big on comfort.

so, needless to say, i was geeked to give uber a go.

uber is an on demand private driver service, that you can summon via text or phone app.

tonight i ran some errands and since i had a credit from joining, i decided that since i had a promo expiring in the morning, instead of waiting for a bus and sluggin my bags down the street in the cold, that it was the perfect time to try it.

it was pretty easy. i had already downloaded the app and set up my credit card info, so i was good to go.

i opened the app on my iphone, it used gps to locate where i was, i confirmed the pickup address and was informed that a driver was about 12 minutes away.

it was that simple.

no talking on the phone (although once your driver is assigned, a button appears for you to call him/her if you need to.

my wait time wound down and i got a text and an app update informing me that my uber was arriving and i went outside and a nice small suv pulled up (i forgot to ask what kind of make/model it was).

greg the driver, was very friendly and professional and the ride was smooth and event free.

no smelly, noisy, tight business like you find with some taxis.

once i had reached my destination, my total charge popped up on the app and i received an email detailing the distance, amount of time, etc.

no fumbling in my purse for money or dealing with a credit card machine, just the driver coming around to open the door for me and out i hopped.

love that.

while the fare (which has the tip included in it) was higher than i would normally pay from the location that i was, for the convenience of being able to summon it when i wanted and the comfort of the ride, it was worth it.

i could definitely see myself using uber when traveling to the airport and i could totally see it coming in handy late night and when the weather is bad, because taxis can become pretty scarce.

i remember one snowy night my cousin was visiting and we called every taxi service we could find to get her home and although one said that they had dispatched a driver, it never showed.

so uber’s ease and constant status updates are a breath of fresh air.

i could also see the service being great for areas that are not served well (and we have quite a few of those in chicago).

currently uber is available in 8 major cities.

sign up using my referral link and you will get a $10 uber credit.