A reader of The Gate With Brian Cohen reported about initially being charged a lot of money for traveling only six miles from the international airport which serves the greater metropolitan area of Las Vegas to a hotel and casino property, and wondered if using rideshare was the worst deal in Las Vegas.
Rideshare: The Worst Deal in Las Vegas?
The reader was initially quoted $33.97 to use Uber — and wound up being billed $80.34 for the trip, which did include a gratuity of $8.24. That comes out to a whopping $13.39 per mile.
A copy of the initial bill is shown below, with $35.40 for “surge” pricing as the culprit.
The route that was taken by the driver was the infamous one on Paradise Road through the tunnel under the south part of the airport to Interstate 215. This road is also known as the airport connector or Nevada State Highway 171. This route is twice the length of the alternate route of using East Tropicana Avenue; so drivers of taxi cabs and ride-sharing services would gouge their passengers with high fares…
…but the East Tropicana Avenue route can take just as long to drive due to congestion and traffic signals. This can be tested by clicking on the word Directions in the interactive map shown above and entering the destination of choice.
Worse is that the ride took exactly 30 minutes to travel 10.77 miles instead of nine minutes to go six miles because the driver kept looping around and turning in the wrong places.
After the ride and choosing a percentage for the gratuity, the reader received an e-mail message approximately 90 minutes later that the ride would cost $80.34 with gratuity instead of $33.97 without gratuity — along with the following:
If you believe you paid more for a trip than you should have:
-
- Select the trip in your app.
- Tap “I would like a refund › “I had a different issue with my charge.”
Only minutes after taking this opportunity to choose one of the reasons as to why the total cost of the ride was in dispute, $39.12 was refunded back to the credit card account of the reader, who wishes to remain anonymous.
The final total was $41.22.
Final Boarding Call
Although the final amount of $41.22 was certainly less expensive than $80.34, the reader had two other options that were available that would have been a better deal:
- Pay a flat rate for a ride in a taxi cab directly to a hotel and casino property — which includes the fuel surcharge of one dollar but does not include gratuities and a fee of three dollars if a credit card is used for payment — as follows:
- Zone 1 — Sunset Road north to Tropicana Avenue: $20.00
- Zone 2 — Tropicana Avenue north to Flamingo Road: $24.00
- Zone 3 — Flamingo Road north to Stratosphere: $28.00
- Walk from the airport to the hotel and casino property
Be very careful when using a rideshare service in Las Vegas, if you would rather do that than take advantage of the alternatives…
Photograph ©2022 by Brian Cohen.
