Reserve Taxi Transportation Online

1-800-Cab-Ride.com is a new website that offers you the ability to reserve cab rides in advance, online. What a spectacular idea! This service is the first to offer passengers to order taxis via the web, with the price including all fees (such as airport pick-ups), tolls and even includes the tip. Does that mean that it may turn out to cost a little more than a metered ride? Possibly. But if your goal is convenience rather than savings, this could be really handy. 1-800-Cab-Ride.com claims to be available in over 2,300 cities across the United States.

You can reserve a cab either online or by calling 1-800-CAB-RIDE and pay via credit card. The website may be used for ride requests more than 24 hours in advance. If you need your cab in fewer than 24 hours, you need to call the 800 number. A receipt and confirmation is emailed to you, which is handy for expense reports. The company does plan to offer online reservations in real time in the near future.

So now you don’t have to have the number for Yellow Cab in various cities programmed in your cell phone (like I do). Also, I don’t know how many times I’ve had to stop at an ATM and incurred foreign ATM charges because I had to get cash for a cab. This service ensures you can pay with a credit card, even for independent taxi companies.

Again, what a great idea. Until I put it to the test. First, I tried to get information on fares between my old office in downtown Little Rock and a friends house (who lives a few short miles away). It didn’t work. Okay, a lot of things don’t work for my home town, so I thought I should try something else. I then tried my current address in Newark, NJ to the airport. It didn’t work either. I like the concept, but it doesn’t do you much good if you keep getting messages such as “We are sorry, we currently have no Service from [my address], newark, NJ, USA, 07105 to EWR.” Neither of these are HUGE cities, but they’re of decent size and I would have thought would have been served by 1-800-Cab-Ride. Guess not.