DEL prepaid taxi question
 

My 2 friends will be arriving in Delhi on Wednesday.
They are 2 seniors and will be travelling to their destination by prepaid taxi (avail. at the airport).
Is this a safe mode of travel for them?
Has anyone here used this service?
Any additional input would really help!

thanks

Wali

It is very safe, and recommended. Prepaid, computer generated bills and you are told upfront about toll charges etc.

There is one desk that offers aircon cabs (a newer looking counter) and the other offers non aircon (and mostly older) cabs.

There are also hertz / avis desks where you can rent a car + driver.

i have used this service in delhi,bombay.mangalore....it is safe and dependable.
change currency into rupees on arrival prior on going to the pre paid taxi desk.

Like others said, use an ATM - there are at least two or three in most arrival concourses, after security and just before the prepaid desks.

And most if not all the prepaid taxi desks take credit cards (at least visa / mc should work just fine, amex acceptance is more of a lottery than anything else here in India)

Note - the foreign exchange desks at airports offer a very poor rate for currency exchange, if you do need to change paper money or travelers checks, change maybe twenty five bucks first and change the rest in the city later.

I've moved this into the India forum, as it is a destination question, rather than specific to an airline. All the best to the OP in making travel arrangements.

SanDiego1K
Senior Moderator

The service is "safe" in the sense that you're unlikely to get robbed, but you're still playing Russian roulette with the drivers. The last time (and I do mean last time) I took a prepaid cab in Delhi, the cabbie decided to take a handy shortcut by driving onto the expressway up the offramp, into the wrong side and along the shoulder against oncoming traffic :eek::eek:. Not by accident, mind you, but purposely, in order to shave off 2 km and 10 min off the trip (it wasn't even peak hour). Thankfully we emerged in one piece, but then it transpired that he didn't have the foggiest idea where to go and I had to navigate for him in the middle of the night.

Renting a car and driver costs more than a taxi, but if you go with eg. Hertz, odds are considerably higher that you'll get a sane driver who speaks a modicum of English.

I've always used the aircon prepaid cabs (there are two - one aircon and one non aircon). The aircon cabs are generally newer, the drivers do tend to speak some english .. and yes they're sane. There's a hotline (you can find it on the prepaid cab bill) you can call to report nutcases like the one you ended up with.