Last weekend, I was faced with a very early 6am flight and needed transportation to the airport. Normally, I’d just book an appointment with Red Top Cab, but they are on my temporary probation list for standing me up for my last early pick up. I checked on SuperShuttle, which was very affordable, but I had no real interest in their proposed 3:30am pickup time for my 6am flight from the airport that is 17 minutes from my front steps. I decided to give SuperShuttle’s “other option” a try…. ExecuCar.

I booked the car through the SuperShuttle website, used the iPhone app promo code I’ve been using for discounts for a while now, and even collected some US Airways miles for another “hit” in their Grand Slam promotion! The price, including gratuity, came to approximately $50 bucks. The only wrinkle is that like SuperShuttle, you pre-pay for ExecuCar. But since I was definitely going on the flight, I didn’t really care. I booked the pickup for 4:40am, which gave me a little cushion for driver tardiness.

On the morning of the flight, I got a little extra sleep, and got ready for my car’s arrival. At 4:40am, there was still no car, so I looked up it’s location using SuperShuttle’s iPhone app. I could see that the car was fairly close, so I didn’t bother calling, and within a couple minutes, I received a phone call alerting me that the car was 1 minute away. Go figure, in just about a minute, the car appeared and I was on my way to DCA. When I book for 4:40am, I mean 4:40am, but I’ll let 5 minutes slide, especially since I could easily track the position of the car. Other than that, no complaints.

I wouldn’t use this kind of service for every trip, but for special occasions, I’ve always used some kind of car service for transportation to the airport. Carey, whom I’ve used many times in the past for vacation departures charges in the neighborhood of $100 dollars for the same service. With ExecuCar, I found that the car was newish, clean, bottled water was provided, and the day’s Washington Post was waiting on the seat. The driver was well dressed, very courteous, thanked me for my business and even told me to please come back again. I’ll do that. If ExecuCar is available in your city, give them a try. And if you’ve had experiences with them you feel like sharing, please do so in the comments section.