FlightCabs

Archive for April, 2010

From Monday 3rd May 2010 FlightCabs will be offering our airport transfer service to and from Bristol International Airport.

This service will be limited to our standard cars which are the spacious and comfortable 6 seater Kia Sedonna. We do not foresee the demand for our executive car service to be sufficient to provide a service using the Jaguar XF.

We will be providing a nationwide taxi service to and from the airport of the same high quality and reliability that we are known for in providing our services to the London airports and ports. We are updating our fares database to include this new service and all the fares should be uploaded by the end of the week.

We are sure that our regular customers will be happy to see this addition to our services and we also look forward to new customers joining our regular clients.

We are currently actively looking for a franchise operator at Birmingham Airport and we hope to provide transfer services to and from Birmingham Airport later this year.

If you are looking at going to one of the WBC International Boxing Festival events in Cardiff then Flightcabs have a great return offer of £350.00 from central London.

This means if there’s 6 of you going from London it works out at just £58.33 each for door to door service (all drop off/pick up must be within 2 mile radius of first passenger). You don’t need to worry about last trains home or driving back after the Gala dinner.

Our 6 seater Kia Sedonnas are comfortable and spacious so ensuring a relaxing journey to and from the Cardiff International Arena. For those who want to impress their clients we have the Jaguar XF available which provide luxurious travel for 3 people on long distance travel.

To celebrate this prestigious event coming to the UK we are offering a discount code to the value of £131.00. this is a big saving on our regular return taxi fare between central London and Cardiff.

Pick up from Cardiff must be within 1 hour of the official close time of the event so you have time for a drink and socialising before making a connection with your driver. If you want to stay longer at the event then you need to negotiate waiting time fees directly with your driver.

The voucher code you need to use at checkout is box01

Flightcabs currently have a 10% discount offer on airport taxi transfers between Heathrow or Gatwick and Wales.

To take advantage of this reduction you need to use the voucher code of 10yfenni in the voucher box of the check out when you make you booking and payment.

This offer is only available for bookings made and undertaken before May 30th 2010. The offer is available for both our standard airport taxi and our executive airport car service. The offer is currently only available at Heathrow Airport and Gatwick Airport.

Following on from the trial of increasing commissions to our affiliates to 10% we have now decided to make this increased level of commission permanent.

If you have a travel based web site or are a travel organiser or travel agent then we can provide you with a commission of 10% on all bookings made with FlightCabs.

With our new range of Kia Sedonna we can now provide your customers with the most spacious and comfortable car based taxi transfers from all the main UK airports.  In addition we can also now offer commissions on taxi transfers to and from Toronto Pearson airport.

We will shortly be adding Hong Kong International airport to our list of airports that we offer transfer services from.

With the holiday booking season now underway this is a good time to remember the risks of using the internet for booking taxis and airport transfers. This is particularly important for overseas clients who are going to a country they do not know well. Because the taxi trade is heavily regulated in the UK booking a taxi directly with a licensed company is the safest way of ordering your airport car in advance.

There are now airport taxi and transfer comparison sites springing up on the internet claiming to be able to offer the cheapest taxi available. But sites need to be treated with caution. Sites such as taxiquoter.co.uk and betterfares.co.uk could cost you more in the long run than you initially think you will save.

Taxi drivers:
It may seem a great way to make extra money and get extra business to sign up to one of these types of schemes but beware. Make sure you undertake checks and don’t just pay out the fees over the phone. Join one of the taxi forums and ask questions about the company to see what the experience of other taxi drivers are. You can follow one of the discussions about taxiquoter and betterfares at the www.taxiforums.co.uk site.

If you are a taxi driver or company that has been scammed by taxiquoter/betterfares then please contact the following as he is putting a case together against them.

Mr Jim Fairfield, Licensing Enforcement Officer.
Environment Directorate.
631 Eccles New Road,
Salford.
M50 1SW
tel: 0161 920 8416
or e-mail jim.fairfield@salford.gov.uk

You can also check out companies on sites such as Canyoutrustthem.com before parting with money

It’s very important for taxi drivers to do some basic checks about any company that they want to deal with. Ask questions to other taxi drivers on forums etc.  Companies House is also a useful web resource to use. You can get full disclosure on a company for as little as £1.00. Well worth the money but there’s even limited information available for free. You can use Nominet to find out who owns the domain name to help track down who you are dealing with. For instance taxiquoter is owned by Cybernet Media (the name Chris Mortimer pops up regularly with both Taxiquoter and Cybernet Media).  Even running a free check at Companies House for Cybernet Media shows they are excempt from submitting accounts because their turnover is so small. Does not quite match up with their claims of saving customers millions of pounds a year and being the largest taxi comparison web site in the UK.  But I could be wrong in my assumptions.

Potential passengers:
If you are looking for an airport taxi transfer then the best way is to connect up with taxi companies directly rather than using a third party. This way you have a direct contact if there’s any problems. The other benefit of connecting up directly is that you know the company has been vetted by the relevant local authority and means you have a place to go to complain if you have problems.

Using customer based review sites can also be useful to decide on who to book with before you part with any cash. You do not want to be stranded at the airport after paying £100 or more for your taxi fare. Taxiquoter is mentioned on some sites such as sitejabber, infotaxi and TalkReviews.

So what is the best way to book an airport taxi and reduce the risk of being part of a scam. There is no better way than to get a range of quotes from a number of local taxi companies. For people who do not live in the UK I would recommend that they use www.yell.com. Yell is one of the national telephone listings in the UK. It is probably the major one. In order for a company to advertise in the taxi or airport transfer sections the company has to provide documentary proof to Yell that they are a licensed company legally able to act as a taxi business. This offers a good level of protection. To get the best prices you need to get  couple of quotes from taxi companies based both at the airport and the destination. This is particularly important if your airport transfer is outside London. Companies based outside London tend to be cheaper than companies based at the airport.

Don’t ruin your holiday this year by being a victim of a taxi scam. Get a number of quotes and check the company you book with is licensed. You can do this easily by asking which local authority they are licensed with and then getting the taxi licensing telephone number for the local authority and double checking the companies license is valid.