Thanks for your replies, very useful indeed... ^

I guess it only makes sense if your company is paying for it. Since I only travel for leisure, that's totally off limits...

Heading to HND from the Grand Hyatt Tokyo on Sunday evening.

Any recommendations for a car transfer other than just hopping in a normal taxi? For a better experience (at the same or similar price) or simply something cheaper (also a car though)?

Last time I tried Uber (year back?) they sent a normal taxi. Cost seemed the same.

Uber Black. Usually a Crown, sometimes a van, occasionally a Lexus or Bimmer. Always in very good condition. Nicely dressed driver. Same price as a taxi.

I took Uber Black from Shibuya to Haneda mid Feb and the gentleman driver was driving a Toyota minivan that's actually nice, not Dodge minivan or anything like that. It's a little bit pricey, but having a luggage plus a futon (don't ask! :P) it actually worked out well.

The driver was a retired human resource manager for an American company and he speaks good English, but I ended up speaking Japanese with him most of the time since well, I want to practice my Japanese haha. He told me that most of his customers are foreigners and speak English.

Interestingly the Japanese taxi companies released their own app a while back in response to the whole uber thing. It's called 全国タクシー("nationwide taxi") and lets you hail a cab from really anywhere in the country. It tells you how long it'll take for the cab to come, lets you see the car's progress as it's approaching (just like uber). The fare is the same as if you called up a taxi company - standard fare plus something like 400 yen for a reservation charge. I don't think uber is ever going to really catch up in Japan, but this app is getting a lot more popular: http://www.japantaxi.jp/

There's no English mode so it's useless for most tourists though. I wonder if they will release an English version in the future...

The last couple of times I tried to use the Japan Taxi app (on weekday mornings when it was raining), it didn't work because Nihon Kotsu's booking network was overloaded...

Launched the Uber app Sunday night at 10pm or so in Roppongi. Advertisement for a 30% discount to HND from various zones. Prices still looked identical to a taxi (~7K from Roppongi Hills to HND).

Anyways, no cars available was listed, thus I hopped in a taxi. Told the driver I was in a rush, have never gotten to HND faster. Total fare was about 6300, not horrible, and less than Uber's discounted rate. Of course it was a typical tiny cab, certainly nothing special.

Hello, are there any pick up or drop off restrictions at Shinagawa Station?

Apparently nobody tested the new version of the app in Japan. Terrible. I'll be using taxis for the time being.

Typical big company BS, evidently at a "unicorn" too. Apparently their thousands of engineers can't even get their simple app right.

As you might well agree, often times a small and well oiled team can run circles around poorly organized larger and better funded groups.

Personally I went back to taxis and hotel cars across Asia.

I downloaded the Taxi App. Cars aren't as nice Uber Black, but it's cheaper, cars arrive sooner, no BS surge pricing, and the drivers know the roads a lot better.

I can't believe how completely unusable the app has become. It's incredible.

I stopped using JapanTaxi recently when I found out that if you use the app in English (or any language other than Japanese), it tells the driver that your name is "gaikokujin-sama" (Mr./Mrs. Foreigner) instead of giving them your actual name.

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