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While in New York for the New York Times Travel Show we thought we would try some Uber alternatives. We had some Uber referral credits (I’m not pumping their service but if you want to sign up via my link I won’t be mad) and used the service from the airport to our first hotel. for short trips within Manhattan I saw an ad for Gett and I thought we should give it a try. Here re are our results.

“Black Cars”

The service lists “Black Cars” anywhere in Manhattan south of Houston and east of 59th street for a flat $10. That seemed to be where we spent most of the weekend anyway so this service was our go-to. The fact that most of the private luxury car services in New York (and elsewhere) happen to use black colored cars, has then associate “Black Cars” as a group though the color is of course unimportant as is the particular model. When someone advertises a “Black Car” service I couldn’t care less about what kind of car or SUV arrives but I do expect something full size (Town Car, Cadillac even a Camry) and I expect a certain level of luxury because such service tends to cost more. Every single time I used the service it mentioned that it was getting us a black car.

Our first “Black Car” was a gray Corolla

When I saw that a Corolla was tracking towards us (like all of the other ride service apps you can see your car winding its way toward you on a map), I thought, either that’s a typo or this is going to be a literal black automobile, in this case a Corolla painted black.  But that wasn’t the case.  It was gray, it had cloth seats, and while it was very clean and the driver very nice this was nothing more than Lyft or UberX.

There’s nothing wrong with Lyft or UberX, we use those too.  But there is a slider at the bottom of the Uber app that allows you to choose how fancy you want your experience.  There is a distinction not only in price but also in characteristics when you select ‘Black Car’ in Uber, as there is in my hotel lobby when they list prices for “Airport Shuttle”, “Airport Taxi” and “Airport Black Car”.

At this point I am trying to figure out whether or not it’s just me that believes that a black car should be a luxury transportation service and if I am crying over spilt milk.  So I did what any argumentative, stubborn person my age would do: I looked it up.

What is a black car service?

Black car service is another name for hired or chauffeured car service. It particularly is reflective of “Towncar” service or executive sedan service which is used in most major markets as an alternative to taxi or shared ride service. Typically, a client makes advanced reservations with a service, the car is professionally dispatched, shows before the designated time, a trained chauffeur is driving, and the worries of getting from point A to point B are handled.

That was from answers.com which is not necessarily the best source.  So I sought out some alternatives. The following came from the Uber wikipedia page:

Upon its inception, Uber offered only full-size luxury cars for hire, and the “UberBlack” title was adopted for the company’s main service (named after the “black cars” private transportation services in New York City).^[3] In 2012, the company launched its “UberX” program, which expanded the service to any qualified driver with an acceptable vehicle. Partly due to a lack of regulation, Uber can charge lower fees than some traditional taxi services.^[8]

That is more along the lines of what I was expecting.

Misrepresentation

For the avoidance of doubt, however, I thought I should go straight the source and see what Gett said about the matter.  Maybe they clarify somewhere that some of the cars are luxury black cars and some of them are just people with a new-ish car and a license.

That image certainly suggests a Lincoln TownCar to me.  They do go on to define it though.

This is where I start to have a little bit of a problem with the service.  They make a few claims that they satisfy, yes I booked with a tap of my smartphone, and use I paid with a credit card, but at least the first car was neither luxury nor driven by a professional driver.  Further, it was not comfortable.  The header on this is “Better Cars” but how is a Corolla or even a Highlander better than anything on UberX even, let alone UberBlack?  It’s not.  That doesn’t make it a bad car, but it’s certainly not a better car.

After we loaded the stroller in the trunk, fastened in the car seat and two adults in the back of a Corolla it was a squeeze.  Granted, I could lose some weight (it’s a 2015 resolution) but I am also only 5’7″ tall.  Three people in the back of a Corolla is something you do in college, not when you have a baby.

I think what bothered me about this so much is that I could have easily used Lyft or UberX and played the same car size roulette, but for our short distances I may have paid less.  Our journeys were never longer than 1.5 miles, and while in Manhattan that could have been 30 minutes at times, for us it was not.  We weren’t in rush hour and we were there on a weekend, the traffic was not bad.

They do have some luxury vehicles

We used the service consistently because a sample size of one is not fair to the service and the price is simple enough.  It’s a flat $10 as long as you are within central Manhattan and you can tip (this is an important feature that I will cover shortly).

During our stay we also rode in a BMW X3, and a Toyota Highlander that was well equipped.  The Toyota Highlander was a nice car and may have been bigger than the X3, but was not as spacious for us with the baby in the back.  While the BMW was for sure a luxury vehicle, and the Highlander was very nice, these were not professional drivers, these were their personal vehicles.  They told us as much.

Additional Fees

In addition to your fare you are able to set a pre-determined tip or change it for each ride.  For our purposes (though we seem to tip anyone and everyone these days) I like the ability to leave 10, 15 or 20% tips as an automatic, though in retrospect I might have changed it once or twice as we used the service about five times during our weekend and most experiences were pretty good, but they were not all stellar.  Uber has a strict no tipping policy and the drivers usually enforce it as much as the patrons in my experience.  However, at least one driver that switched from Uber to Gett stated that the tipping thing bothered him and he preferred Gett where it was at least an option.

Sometimes we need more time

Our stroller is two pieces, one of which is the car seat, and one is the wheels, handles and tray underneath where we seem to cram anything and everything we find.  The Sherpstress usually starts loading up the car seat and strapping it in while I grab our bags, and fold up the carriage portion in the trunk.  In most cases, by the time I make it to the backseat, she has the Sherpita ready to go.  This does not always happen though, as there are a variety of lengths for seatbelts and they need to be wrapped every which way around the car seat. It sometimes takes a little longer for this to happen and while most drivers are patient, we had one that decided to charge us for the “waiting time” as we ensured our daughter’s safety.  I would have liked to remove the tip for this one drive as the $2 charge (20% of the fare anyway) was pretty unnecessary since we were just trying to secure the child seat.

I can understand this fee if you arrange for the car to be outside your building at a certain time (as you can do in the app) and if you are not on time and keep the driver waiting the driver should be compensated for their time.  But on more than one occasion, due to either the app geo-position feature of the app or the driver themselves, the driver was waiting a block away.  On one particular case, there was no excuse as we were waiting underneath the numbers for the address as they sat on the building over our head and yet he drove to the end of the block.  Even after I called him as I saw him drive by, and though he knew it was January and we had a baby with us, we still walked a block down the street to him as he sat parked, one of only two vehicles on the road.  He was very nice once we got to him, but I guess when you get a fee for installing the child seat and it literally takes you one more minute, there should be a feature to charge back the five minutes you walked down the street because the driver elected not to simply run around the block again after he made an error.

Would I use the service again?

Probably, but maybe not.  I think I would use it again, but use it differently.  I would probably use the app to call up a car and if it’s going to be someone’s high school graduation present, I will cancel the ride, if it looks like it really is a Black Car, then it seems reasonable to pay $10 to go a short distance in a nice car.  Uber might only charge $8 for the same experience, and a cab could be close to the same cost, but we had two terrible cab experiences this weekend and I really don’t think I will ride in one in Manhattan again.  In the $8-12 range, if we take the subway we spend half $5 combined but have to find a subway and then walk from where ever we get out of the subway to our destination, with the baby, and all of the baby’s stuff.  It’s worth it to me to pay a little more and not have to hassle with that, though if it is just the two of us on foot, we would probably prefer the subway for cost and efficiency.

Comment from Gett

I have reached out to Gett for a comment regarding the “Black Car” situation and I will update this post when I have word back.

-Sherpa