Blacklane is a fancy airport transfer that gives you a seamless door to door service anywhere in the world. For those unfamiliar with the company, think an even more upscale UberBlack dripping in class. No more scrolling thru your phone to hail a car — imagine a professional licensed driver waiting for you instead. It is usually exorbitantly expensive, but there are ways to get this service subsidized or better yet… for free.
Airline Partnership
If you fly certain airlines and routes, you can get this service for free. A classic example is if you’re a revenue passenger flying Emirates Business and/or Emirates First Class, you can request a car to pick you up anywhere as long as it is 50 miles (80km) from the airport.
The consistency in quality and service is impressive. For Los Angeles (left), there were two mini bottles of water in the center armrest. For Dubai (right), lo and behold there were also two mini bottles in the cup holder after you land halfway around the world. It felt like magic.
Credit Card Partnership
Another method to save money is using a travel credit card that subsidizes this perk. For USA, it is specifically the Citi Strata Elite℠ Card where it gives you $200 annually in Blacklane credits. How it works is that the credit is split biannually (like a dental checkup) so you have to use it twice per year to maximize the benefit. For example, my brother used Blacklane in Tokyo. The estimate cost was $187.41 USD.
Applying the $100 USD credit, the total cost would come out to be $87.41 USD, which is more or less the same cost if you hail a taxi at Haneda airport. With this credit card perk, it is a no brainer to use Blacklane for a much fancier experience.
Overall, Blacklane enhances your travel to/from the airport anywhere in the world. It is a professional service people rarely talk about, so I figure I shine a little spotlight on this company since we like using it every now and then when we want to skip the hassle of scrolling thru our phones to hail Uber.
Chai Bear World 