TMM1982

Has anyone used this? Brand new I believe.

Need to get picked up early in a few weeks in the burbs of Chicago so I scheduled a ride. Always nervous as it's hit or miss whether I see an Uber driver at 4am out here in the boondocks.

wahooflyer

Uber's "scheduled rides" feature isn't a huge help for off hours pickups in the burbs, as it still pings the closest driver at the time you need to be picked up.

Try the UZURV app on iOS or Android. They are headquartered 3 blocks from my house here in RIC but active in Chicago and many other US markets. For a small fee ($1-2 plus tip, if desired) UZURV lets you send out an advance request to area drivers and make a reservation directly with the driver. Then, when the driver arrives, you open up Uber or Lyft and request a pickup. It'll ping the driver closest to you, who should be the same driver you reserved with UZURV. Not a totally seamless system, but very helpful for early morning airport pickups. I've used UZURV a couple of times for the exact same scenario here in Richmond.

TMM1982

That sounds great, thanks.

fbruno

It helped me to get a ride without surge at a moment with much demand (by scheduling a ride 5 min later)

TMM1982

Of course there is always the risk that the driver I pre-arranged with is sick or otherwise occupied on the day of.

Putnik

I use this feature whenever going to MDW from the SW suburbs. They don't really pre-arrange with driver, it just pings the driver closest to your pickup point. They give you a 15 minute pickup window. Once the driver came on the tail end of the window, all other times they were at my door at the start of the 15 minute window.

tacostuff

Also, one additional point to consider. From what I understand, when the driver is pinged at the time of the "scheduled" ride, the driver does not know it was previously scheduled and that the time window applies. So, for example, once a driver showed up before the time slot the app gave me and he got upset when I wasn't ready yet. He thought I requested a ride and wasn't ready, when in reality, he showed up before the window began.

themicah

If you schedule a ride ahead of time and surge pricing goes into effect when the actual ping is sent, do you pay the surge or not?

nd2010

Yes, the surge price at the time the request gets sent is in effect. And you might get into the car not even knowing that there's a surge but the driver will have a smile on his face knowing that you're paying $200 to get to the airport.

themicah

By "request" you mean the ping from Uber to the driver, not the advanced scheduling request from the passenger to Uber, right?

jeebus

I've never bothered to schedule a ride because I want to know if surge pricing is in effect or not before I ride. It can be a pretty severe difference where I live.

gobluetwo

Does this apply to scheduled Lyft rides also? I've been using Lyft more than Uber these days. Posted in the Midwest forum (no more separate Chicago forum) about my upcoming 6am flight and needing a ride from the Lake County, Chicago burbs to ORD at around 4:15am.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/midwe...ounty-4am.html

Want to make sure that 1) drivers are actually available around that time where I live and 2) it's pretty reliable.

Guessing I'd have better luck with Uber than Lyft at that hour, or I could fall back on the tried and true (but generally lower quality and slightly higher cost) American Taxi.