Normally, these promo codes just deduct $X from whatever your final total is - so yes, it should cover your tolls as well. :)

The drivers get a background check, and the car's every move is tracked, so not only do you not get taken for a ride, but there's a record of WHO is driving you and WHERE they drove you. You don't get that in taxi.

Yes, they are.

What taxi company do you drive for?

LYFT
 

So many smart people on here, yet nobody suggested for the OP to use Lyft!

Lyft provides the same service as Uber, yet on the way to Logan airport, it DOES NOT charge tolls or any other arbitrary surcharge! It only charges tolls when they are incurred. I took Lyft from the financial district and it cost me $10 :cool:. A taxi would have been $30 :td::td::td:.

Great tip, I didn't realize they didn't charge any fees/tolls.

That is rough on the drivers though. They make about $8 before gas/car/insurance, and then have to pay a $3.50 toll or drive an extra 15 minutes back to busier parts (they can't pick up at Logan, and East Boston has low demand). I sure wouldn't want to make $3 for taking someone on a 30 minute round-trip ride to Logan.

Thanks about Lyft. With both of them, if I need to get to BOS at 4:45am from Copley Sq, for example, when do I request a car from my iphone?

I've always taken the T to BOS so I actually don't know how long it will it take at that hour to get to Terminal A by car.

Seriously doubt it, from my experience. From Somerville, a whoooooole lot further from the airport than the Financial District, (recently) by taxi it costs $35 including tolls and airport surcharges.

I'd estimate 10 minutes max. (through empty streets at that hour and right into the tunnel ; A is the first terminal)

Taxi from South Station to BOS is almost 20$, usually like $18 or something that I round up to $20.

Definitely less than $30, but Lyft does seem like a bargain (although if I'm bargain hunting I'll just take the T).

Ok....I'm going to download Lyft. For whatever reason, both the Uber app and website don't recognize my password. I noticed it yesterday and when I clicked for them to email me a link to reset the password, nothing ever was emailed to me. Not even in the spam/junk folder. So I tried again this morning. Nothing. I went to the uber facebook page and heard back from them about an hour later with instructions to email their support area. So I did. That was 3 hours ago. So I give up.

I will try Lyft. Will they pick me up a brand new customer at a Copley Sq hotel at 4:30am? I can't risk not getting to the airport.

I took Lyft to BOS Friday morning and it worked perfectly. The driver arrived at 4:15am which was 4 minutes after I went on the app. He was friendly, interested in chatting about my trip, and hoped I'd return to Boston soon. Interesting, he said there were two routes to BOS — the express route or the local roads which he said were fine before 6am. I said that I wanted to take the express route which was 90 East. If the local route took longer, would the driver have made more money? Just curious. I stayed at the Westin Copley Place — he picked me up at 10 Huntington Ave.

With the $20 promo code, the trip cost me absolutely nothing. Does it get better than that? I did tip the driver.

Thanks everybody for your assistance! No more taxis for me.

As an aside, I read that Uber charges an $8.75 "Logan Massport Surcharge & Toll" to BOS and that there is a class action lawsuit involving that.

There's two tunnels to the airport. The "local" I'm guessing in this instance was probably the Sumner/Callahan tunnels (Route 1A), with the express being the Ted Williams Tunnel (I-90), the newer tunnel built in the 1990s. Certainly agree that at that hour they're likely a wash time wise, but at certain times of day they can vary a lot. The distances are short enough that you're not talking about much of an issue either way in the pre-dawn hours.*

*The only caveat I can think of is that sometimes the airport exits themselves are very backed up at key flight times (like when people are arriving for the early morning flight push). I have seen instances where there's a backup in the Ted Williams for the airport exit, and at the exit off 1A. One advantage to 1A is that there is another exit just past the main airport exit where you can double back to the airport pretty easily.

I am glad this worked out for you! When Lyft first started in Boston early morning hours might have been tough but there are a lot more drivers now.

Regarding the route: from the Westin, there are really three ways he could have gone. It sounds like he took you through Back Bay and the South End and onto the HOV entrance to the Ted Williams Tunnel (Route 90 East) - which at that hour is the quickest and most direct. Alternately, he could have taken Storrow Drive, through Leverett Circle, into 93 South, to the Callahan Tunnel, a slightly shorter route mileage-wise but only by a hair and not as quick. Lastly, if traffic was horrendous, a third option would be to take the Mass Pike on-ramp under the Westin, headed West, and slingshot back East at the Allston-Brighton toll plaza. At 11 miles it would cost more, but some days is actually quicker than being stuck on the former options.

Do drivers in either Uber or Lyft have incentive to take longer routes? Is the fare also based on transportation time?

The fare is both distance + time, but drivers get paid more for distance than they do for time, so in general it is in their interest to drive you a longer route that is quicker, e.g. going on the highway or taking a toll road. Although they rarely deviate from what GPS "tells them" to do, as the passenger it is in your best interest to know the most efficient route and communicate it ahead of time, especially if it goes against GPS guidance.

So to provide some of my recent data points...I often head to the airport from the Fort Point area (5 min walk from South Station).

- Lyft to airport $12 (inclusive of $3 toll)
- Uber from airport $22 (inclusive of $5.25 East Boston toll + $8.75 "airport surcharge")

For the times/places where I travel, Uber still seems to have the most drivers, but surge pricing can spike very quickly and last for a while. Lyft has pretty good coverage throughout downtown Boston and surrounding cities/towns, but wait times are usually a few minutes longer than Uber. Prime pricing kicks in during about the same peaks as Uber, but tend to not last as long or be as high as Uber (in my experience).