Ola Cab Review and Rs.200 Free Credit Referral Code

The first App-based cab service I used was Meru. I was a loyal Meru customer (Read this) but a few bad experiences made me switch to Ola. The fares on Ola are low, booking is easy and guess what? You can earn Rs.200 worth of Free Ride for every person who signs up through your Ola Cab Referral code which can be used for your rides.

And if you are living in Bangalore, you can even book an Auto Rickshaw.

Ola Cab Review

Cab Availability

Ola claims to have over 37,000 cars in 20 cities across India. If you are not too far from the city premises, there will hardly be anytime you will not get cabs.

But you should watch out for the peak times – holidays, weekends, mornings and evenings it will be sometimes hard to get cabs during these times and Ola even charge an extra Rs.50 or sometimes upto 3 times for what they call “Peak time charge”.

I would give 4 ★★★★ for Cab Availibility.

Reliability

Ever heard stories of people who missed their trains because the cab never turned up? It happens. Ola claims to have an almost 100% cab turn up rate. Ola’s average delay time is less than 7 minutes and is mostly the last mile delay of identifying the commuter’s gate.

Ola recently started a new campaign “Your cab arrives on time, or we pay for your flight!” Yes, they guarantee Airport drops on time or they will pay for your Flight ticket. Now that’s really something!!

Read more here.

I would give 4 ★★★★✰

Drivers

Unlike local taxi operators, the drivers of Ola and also others like Meru, TaxiForSure and Uber are courteous and will hardly cause trouble. And if they do, there is a rating feature in the app that lets you rate or complain about the trip or the driver once you have completed the trip.

My experience with Ola cab drivers have been good so far, all courteous and well mannered. Take them through bad roads before your locality and they won’t utter a word.

All the drivers have a dedicated Smartphone which has Ola App installed to track your trip and to find you on the map in real time. So either you find them or they’ll find you. 🙂

I would give 4 ★★★★

Cab condition

The condition of cabs differ across their different fleets. Although the cab conditions of Sedane and Prime (Business class) cabs are good but some of the Mini Cabs are old.

Never the less, all of them will at least have A/C working to save you from the heat and pollution of the city.

I would give 3.5 ★★★✰

Fleets

Among all the recent App based Cab startups, Ola has the best range of fleets from Ola Auto to Ola Pink. Below is the list arranged from lowest to highest based on Fare.

Ola Auto: Ola auto can be booked using the Ola App however the payment mode is Cash only as of now.

Ola Mini: Ola Mini is the most affordable low cost personal transportation option. This fleet includes small cars.

Ola Sedane: As the name suggest, you get a sedane cab.

Ola Prime: Ola Prime’s business class experience fleet includes cars like Toyota Innova, Altis, Skoda Rapid and Honda Civic.

Ola Pink(No Longer in Service): Ola Pink Service is exclusively for women passengers. The drivers of Ola Pink are women and only allows female passengers. A female passenger can accompany a male passenger with her.

I would give 4.5 ★★★★✰

Value for Money

Note: The fare may change with time. For up to date fare chart click here => https://www.olacabs.com/fares

In Bangalore the minimum fare for the Mini fleet (the cheapest) is Rs.80 for the first 4Km and 10 Minute wait time. After the initial 4km it’s just Rs.10 per km which is really cheap.

If you are travelling short distances (below 4km), then opt for TaxiforSure. The minimum fare for TaxiForSure is Rs49 for 4km and Rs14 per km there after.

Your Ola trip meter starts once you get into the cab and the driver usually informs you that the he is going to start the trip.

You should know that when the cab stops at signals or when you get stuck in traffic, that time is counted as wait time and if it goes beyond 10min, you will be charged for wait time which is Rs2 per min.

What is really annoying is the “peak time surcharge”. Whenever I book my cab in the mornings or evenings, Ola Cabs charge 1.2 times to sometimes 1.8 times the total fare.

Below is the Ola Cab rate chart for Bangalore:

Note: The fare may change with time

For Auto (Only in Bangalore at the moment), you have to pay by meter + Rs.10 convenience charge. Trust me, its worth that extra Rs.10/-

You can check the rates for other cities here.

Note: Rates for Airport drop and pickup are different. In Bangalore, Ola had an offer for Airport pickups from Bangalore International Airport, by using the coupon code A399 one could avail the flat fare of Rs.399/-. This is no longer available.

I would give 4 ★★★★  for “Value for Money”.

Conclusion

Like any service business, there will always be complains from customers but among all the recent App based Cab startups, Ola is the way to go.

Ola also has Mobile wallet that enables you to travel cashless by simply recharging your Mobile wallet through their app. Now after all the bad auto and cab experiences it’s time to say Goodbye to the rude and the cruel auto drivers and say hi to Ola. 🙂

Ola Cab Referral Code

Download the Ola Cab App now and enjoy a Free Ride worth Rs.200. Use the Ola Cab Referral Code: 4NRYT0 (that’s zero) when you sign up on the Mobile App.