A short guide to travel by ridesharing with Blablacar in Europe
I've done a bunch of trips using ridesharing in France/Italy/Spain/Belgium/Slovenia using the website/app "Blablacar" so I thought I'd put together a post for those who are looking to travel in Europe but aren't familiar with the service. Unfortunately it's not longer free, there are reservation fees paid by the passengers but it's still a good service that is widely used. Prices are capped so that drivers can only share expenses, not really make any money in order to discourage people from simply running unlicensed taxi services.
When is it most useful?
Blablacar is most useful between cities that aren't transport hubs. For example, the train from Grenoble, France to Genoa, Italy takes 6-8 hours and requires 1-2 changes while the drive is just a little over four hours. In other cases it can be cheaper or more convient than the trains or buses. As a driver it's great to offset the high cost of fuel + tolls. For example, when we took an 850 km road-trip to Lake Como that cost 126 EUR in tolls + 62 EUR in diesel we were able to pretty much offset the price of the tolls by taking two other people in our car.
Using Blablacar as a passenger
- Make an account, fill out your profile (as a driver I don't accept blank profiles, although I do accept new profiles that are actually filled out)
- Look up the trip that you'd like. Pay attention to the pick-up and drop-off locations. You can publicly ask questions if you're unsure about any details such as what baggage is acceptable (two people with big suitcases aren't fiting into a little French 106
- Read the feedback/reviews that other passengers have posted about the driver.
- Complete the reservation with your credit card
- Confirm pick-up/drop-off locations with the driver.
Using Blablacar as a driver
- Note: you can even do this with a rental car, Hertz even advertises a promotion
- Make a profile, fill it out
- Post the trip on the service with departure times/places, you select the price that you'll receive (the passenger pays the reservation fee on their end)
- Decide if you'd like to offer intermediate stops, this gives more chances for people to get a ride with you but breaking up the trip like that might be a pain logistically.
- You can choose to automatically accept passengers, or to leave yourself some time to screen them
- Confirm pick-up/drop-off points and times
- After the trip you can chose to be paid via a bank transfer (I think this only works with European banks) or PayPal
Submitted September 25, 2017 at 08:23PM by CheeseWheels38 http://ift.tt/2hsU5WB
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