Yesterday I was in a bit of a hurry to catch my flight and hadn’t booked a super shuttle like I normally do to the airport . Supershuttle is bit cheaper than taking a cab but they end up getting you to the airport 2 hours earlier than you really need to most of the time. Since I had only been home for a day those two hours were worth the extra $10 I’d pay to take a cab.

So, I googled “yellow cab los angeles” and which took me to their site. I noticed they had a book online button which I have avoided in the past when booking my supershuttles because having that verbal confirmation that your ride will arrive at a given time is worth it. Not feeling like talking to a person, I gave the book online a go.

It directed me to a site called ride charge to book the cab and it was extremely simple: enter where you are and where you want to go. I was then presented with the option to use their pay by phone service. The tagline was “spend 2 minutes now to save 10 minutes later” — Yep, good idea. If you take cabs frequently and ever have to pay by credit card, you know how annoying that is (and how annoyed the drivers get when you whip out the credit card). So, since I hardly ever carry cash, I opted to test out this service.

About a little over a half hour before my cab arrived I received a confirmation email confirming my reservation. Then, I received a text message about 10 minutes out letting me know that the cab was dispatched, the name of the driver and their cab number. This is pretty valuable information if you were to leave something in the cab. Normally, I’d have no idea!

Nearing the end of my ride, I got another text message as a reminder that I can pay by phone for my ride. It included the phone number so all I needed to do was click it, and when prompted, enter how much I wanted to pay as the fare including tip. Once that was entered, the confirmation of payment shows up on the cab drivers computer and off you go.

Before I had called the number, I told the driver that I was going to be using “ridecharge” and I was “..going to call the number now to pay” — he looked at me like I was speaking another language and I just went ahead without his okay and proceeded to try this service. Within seconds of entering the fare amount, we both watched his computer screen pop up with the confirmation of my payment. “Is this you?!” he asked extremely shocked that I had just paid and tipped him over the phone as if it were magic. He kept squealing that he’d never seen such a thing and kept asking me questions.

In addition, you’ll also get a PDF receipt emailed to you which is great for keeping track of business expenses!

Oh, that’s not all.. they also have an iPhone application that determines your location and will give you a list of cab numbers in that area. Granted if you don’t use cabs that often, this might not be useful, but if you do.. then you’ll also share my excitement about finding this service!