[ac 427]

Only Uber.

I used to be an OLA fanboy. Used to favour OLA because i thought I should be supporting my Indian bretherin rather than supporting an international corporate.

But all of that changed, when i saw that 9 out of 10 times OLA used to charge me almost 20% more than what Uber used to charge me.

I also find more Ubers than Olas (I live in Mumbai). And that Uber drivers are slightly (arguable - and am sure someone will) better drivers than OLA.

cheers,
ac

[harishhm74]

Have switched from Uber to using OLA since few months and have taken their SELECT offering of 699 per month which assures priority booking and flat rates within 10km range - seems to work good for me especially during peak hours and get decent well kept cars (80% of the times).
I do compare rates on Uber but it is at least ₹50 - 100 (during peak hrs) extra to Ola Select fares.


Dispute mechanisms are automated as mere reporting on app triggers refund and also have priority support. In fact got a full refund after i complained on the quality.

Before this I was pampered on Uber with uberpass flat fares of 109 on premium rides anywhere within Bangalore for close to 6 months before running out of luck with further passes (which is when I switched to Ola)
Quality of cars are good in both but Ola pampers with free wifi and sometimes on-board entertainment tabs.
So sticking to OLA for most rides for now in Bangalore.

[pganapathy]

I personally am not very fussy. I will generally look at both fares and pick the cheaper one. My wife on the other hand sticks almost exclusively to Ola. She is a preferred Ola customer and gets preferential treatment there. Micro rates for Ola prime etc.

Also, I am not very fussy about taking the car out. In fact, I prefer it. Only airport runs for me would justify a cab, but wifey on the other hand will take the cab whenever there is even the slightest risk we are going to have a drink. Plus, she is considering using the cab to and from work. Not keen on the 9am and 6pm gridlock drives

[GTO]

Originally Posted by GTO

Of late though, I've started moving to Ola. Reasons:

One more reason why I'm picking Ola. I use "Uber Hire" & "Ola Rentals" a lot whereby you can rent a cab for say, 3 hours and multiple stops. With Uber Hire, the drivers always whine & complain. I don't think they know before accepting the ride whether its a single-stop trip or a multi-stop one.

Ola, on the other hand, takes this more seriously. They have hourly packages (Uber doesn't) and the driver is shown how many hours you need the car for before accepting the trip:

[Oxy]

Ola banned for 6 months in Karnataka.

https://www.indiatoday.in/business/s...105-2019-03-22

[TKMCE]

Originally Posted by GTO

One more reason why I'm picking Ola. I use "Uber Hire" & "Ola Rentals" a lot whereby you can rent a cab for say, 3 hours and multiple stops. With Uber Hire, the drivers always whine & complain. I don't think they know before accepting the ride whether its a single-stop trip or a multi-stop one.

Ola, on the other hand, takes this more seriously. They have hourly packages (Uber doesn't) and the driver is shown how many hours you need the car for before accepting the trip:
Attachment 1853544

I use Ola Rentals and Outstation regularly and I agree with the above. The product is far better than Uber and the billing is transparent and spot on. Only slight issue for Rentals is choosing the right package as your billing is based on that (with additional distance/time being charged).

However I did not have an exactly wonderful experience with my latest Ola Outstation ride. I had booked a ride from Alwaye to beyond Alleppey and return back to Alwaye with an estimated duration of 12 hours . It was a short 200 Km round trip but we had multiple stops.

For a ride starting at 0730 AM in the morning, I ended up with a driver who was on the road from around 11 PM the previous night. Luckily we did not have a very demanding schedule and hence I insisted on multiple breaks in each direction. But even then the driver was clearly exhausted towards the end and I had to keep continuously talking to him to ensure that he doesn't fall asleep...at 5 PM in the evening!

Now my question is this.Ola knows I am booking a 12 hour trip since at the time of making the Outstation booking I have to give the estimated return time. In that case why allot a driver who in his own words had started duty around 11 PM the previous day when he can finish his trip (as per my booking) after 7 PM.... a 20 hour duty day.

This is my only issue for concern.

[boniver]

I'm an "only Uber" guy. Reasons:

• Every time I want to try Ola out, I notice that the estimated fare is much higher than that of Uber.

• Never had a bad experience with Uber till date.

• I live in the suburbs, and there's no Ola service here. No Uber either, but a certain glitch in their app has allowed me to book cabs to my place without any issue.

[noopster]

Primarily Uber.

I have used Ola a fair bit but in general find their drivers to be less respectful, liable to cancel rides for no reason, or insist on payment methods like cash which I rarely carry.

Uber also works seamlessly across countries which helps when am on overseas assignments.

[antz.bin]

Uber has had me engaged pretty much exclusively for the past 1 year, that's the time I started using these app based cabs with any kind of regularity.

It started off with Uber offering better prices than Ola for any destinations from my place.

Then a couple of months later, they started offering me Pune RideSmart Passes (for UberGo and UberPremier), which means my UberGo fares are almost always cheaper than even UberPool. RideSmart also meant that there was no longer any need for me to even check if Ola was offering a better price. It invariably wasn't.

Using RideSmart, I also learnt how to work around Surge pricing and get the best fares always.

All this while, the engagment was based on lower fares, so all I got into was UberGo. Then, using some campaign, I was encouraged to try Premier instead. Fares here we only higher than UberGo by ₹5-15 for a ride totalling ~₹200 (so not a major difference, still comparable to Ola Micro) but the experience from the drivers has been substantially better. Drivers never ask the destination on the phone, they are not supposed to. They are always courteous, help with luggage (if required) and drive safely always. And I get a SurveyMonkey link after each UberPremier ride to get detailed feedback on my rides. I am much more liberal with Premier rides now that I have tasted the better experience (and no more WagonRs ).

In the first 6 months, I always kept an eye on the Ola app just to be sure that Uber has not lured me into a trap. But now after a year, I have not found any utility in keeping the Ola app installed and I hardly ever check fares before booking an Uber.

In the past 1 year that I have been using Uber, I have had 1 ride cancellation (UberGo, who asked for the destination on the phone, which was substantially out of the city).

I always strike a conversation with my Uber drivers to keep informed on what new changes Uber is doing in the driver experience (out of curiosity). The recent update this week is that a driver can only remain online on the Uber app for a period of 8 hours a day. They are logged out after that period. Also, Uber has removed the 'take me home' mode which the drivers could use twice a day to get rides towards home when their shift ended, so that's a bummer.

The fundamental difference I have found as compared to Ola is that Uber doesn't tell the drivers the destination prior to pick-up but Ola does. This was a boon with the 'take me home' mode. The Uber drivers didn't need to know any destinations apart from their last ones. Don't know how this will work out now though.

This is also probably the reason why my next door neighbour, who is an Ola patron, always struggles with rides getting accepted post midnight (and plans his trips accordingly) whereas I always have my rides accepted within seconds and an Uber waiting for me within 10 minutes even if it is 3:30 in the night.

Overall, Uber has not given me any reason to switch to Ola any time in the past year. It has had me contemplating whether I should uninstall Ola altogether. Additionally, what it has done is make me a more regular user of Paytm for all kinds of payments. So, in a way, the Uber-Paytm partnership has been beneficial for both parties (Ola has really screwed up by sticking to Ola money in my totally professional opinion).

If I could point to one reason why I decisively moved to Uber in the first place. It would be the policy of Ola charging more for Micro than Mini rides during surge pricing. This is still the case last time I checked. I found this really really stupid on Ola's part and something that their Product team should have fixed on day 1. Uber will send me a Premier car on an UberGo ride if that is turning out to be cheaper but never charge more for the lesser experience.

I guess then, I stayed this long with Uber just for the consistency in experience and will continue as long as the consistency remains.

[SSD2122]

Due to a recent shoulder surgery, I was restricted by my doctor to use any vehicle be it 2 wheeler or 4 wheeler. So Uber was the first option. I started with Uber, however after every trip the payment option was cash only and not paytm which I preferred. Since my wife was already using uber and paying via paytm, I was surprised why I did not have that option even after few trips.

When I formally mailed uber customer care, they replied that this is a temporary restriction for security measure and I will not be able to use paytm but can always request trips using cash as payment method. There were no details on how long this temporary thing would go on.

Frankly I got quite irritated by this response without any details on when I can start using other payment options. It should not matter to them how I pay unless I fail to pay to them. I finally replied to them saying that you have lost a well meaning customer and I will explore other options.

Started using OLA Auto and am quite happy with them. Apart from being a good option, using OLA revealed me to a whole new world of meeting so many rickshaw drivers with diverse background and some hardworking, honest and enterprising folks. I used to initiate a small chat with the rickshaw drivers and then get to understand their varied experiences. Just sharing a few such instances,

1. Met a rickshaw driver who also had a his own firm on household cleaning.
2. Another one had formed a group of rickshaw drivers and they were going to launch another rickshaw app for themselves.
3. Apart from driving rickshaw, this guy sells gas-filled balloons over weekends in Hadapsar area to supplement his income.

I was happy to see that using OLA Auto introduced me to bond with many such folks. Going by the forever breaking news, the unending loud debates etc. that we see on TV, these rides were a refreshing break with a personal touch with strangers and just listen to their experiences.

So given that using OLA was a necessity and of much convenience given the peak traffic conditions, one more reason for me was to take an OLA Auto sometime to just connect with this world.

[Fillmore]

In Bangalore I feel Ola is better than Uber.
- More cars
- Do not cancel.

Uber was #1 about 2 yrs back, but I dont find it to be the case now.

[Sunil2307]

Originally Posted by Fillmore

In Bangalore I feel Ola is better than Uber.
- More cars
- Do not cancel.

Uber was #1 about 2 yrs back, but I dont find it to be the case now.

My experience is different. I have found Uber to be better than Ola. Have never had a cancellation on an Uber, but struggle to get a ride first time on Ola. Maybe area specific.

I have seen cars to be cleaner on Uber as well.

[porsche_guy]

Voted for Uber primarily because of the sheer number of cities it covers and relatively (in my experience) better drivers compared to Ola. Otherwise, in Vadodara itself, I prefer Jugnoo since their availability is better than Ola or Uber and they are much cheaper with more offers running at a time.

Their drivers are nice, their customer care is prompt and the app UI is also very intuitive which makes the whole experience that tad bit better.

Cheers!

[centaur]

Another reason why I would never again book in OLA

I booked a cab for my mother this morning from my home to a destination around 19kms away. The fare shown was around 28x-29x while booking but on completion of the ride I was asked to pay 595 bucks for the 18.7 km trip. I called up customer care for this fare increase and they said that when you book a ride, you are shown a message saying fares may go higher and if you still go ahead and book it, you are signing up for a higher fare if it increases. I reasoned out saying I can understand a 10-15% increase but around 100% increase is just too much but they kept saying that the cabs available were less and that they still provided me with a cab in that scenario.

When I checked my invoice, they have included a fare increase of Rs 315 which is just atrocious. This seems nothing short of a day light robbery to me. Just horrible. Not sure how to bring these crooks to book.

[GeneralJazz]

Had a very bad experience on Uber a few months ago, in Cochin. I reached Ernakulam Town station around 12AM and booked an Uber. The ride was accepted immediately. However after around 5 minutes, I see that the driver has not moved from his initial location. So I call him up. He asks me for the drop location. When I tell him, he says its too far and asks me to cancel the ride. I refuse, saying I will be charged for the cancellation and ask him to cancel from his side. Well, lets just say we reached a stalemate very soon!

Soon he started to get angry and calls me and start to yell at me. I keep cutting the call. I can see the 'Location not found' or similar message on the app, meaning that he's restarting his phone, trying to get rid of the booking. Meanwhile, I take a local prepaid auto from the station and proceed to my location. I can see that the ride is still in progress, waiting for the driver to reach my location. By the time I reach home, a good 40 minutes after the initial booking, I see that he has finally cancelled the booking and a new cab is being assigned to me. I cancel that, without any cancellation charges. Meanwhile the original cabbie tries calling me 3-4 times and I block the number. I report the issue to Uber. As expected, not even an apology.