This month I had yet another layover in Istanbul and conveniently one of my flights landed in the evening and the next one was scheduled for the next morning.

I like to sleep at night, so instead of spending the time eating in the airport lounge (that’s for daytime layovers), I booked a Hampton 12 minutes drive away from the airport. By the way, I just read the news that there will be a new Hilton built next to the Istanbul airport in the coming years.

I thought that getting to the hotel after a long flight would be a breeze - go through passport control, book an Uber, 30 minutes later be in bed.

WIFI

Istanbul airport conveniently has free wifi throughout its premises. You need to get a wifi code for one hour in one of the kiosks by scanning your passport. There is also an option to get a login code by SMS, but from my experience this almost never works - the SMS rarely arrives to a foreign number. Wifi kiosks are available after the passport control as well as in the arrivals area.

Uber/Taxi issues

So far so good. Past the passport control and logged into free wifi, able to use the Uber app. However, the Uber/taxi situation in Istanbul (and possibly Türkye in general) turned out to be a massive mess.

There are plenty of cars available, the Uber app shows a preliminary fare (in my case it was in the 150-200 TRY range). The pickup points are all in the departures area - from arrivals you have to go to the upper floor.

Once you order a cab, however, very likely that the driver won’t be in the spot (despite the app showing so). Very often, the driver will message you via the app and try to bargain for a different fare. In my case, my first attempt resulted in a 500 TRY offer - more than 2 times the actual max fare. Of course, I cancelled the ride and tried again. It took several attempts to get something (also had to fend away hordes of taxi drivers directly approaching me) and even then I had to wait a while and message/ask the driver where they are until they finally showed up.

So far so good? Not yet. Ignoring the fact that the driver was driving like a maniac and using the phone all the time, they took me where I needed to be. However, after I checked in at the hotel and reconnected to the Internet, I saw that I was charged nearly 400 TRY.

I filed a complaint via the Uber app and the fare was promptly adjusted to 150-something. I got the money back in the next couple of days.

The next morning, on my trip to the airport, a very similar thing happened. The difference was that the driver arrived promptly and did not attempt to bargain and was driving like a normal person. They even had a meter in their taxi! At the end of my trip, the meter showed 226 TRY. However, at the airport I again was overcharged and a total of 326 TRY was taken from my card. Basically, a 100 TRY extra for no reason. Filed a complaint via the Uber app again and within minutes, my fare was adjusted to 190 TRY.

Moral/tip for the future

Uber/Taxi situation in Istanbul is a mess and most drivers are cheaters looking to rip you off.

If you can - use public transport - if you need to get to Istanbul city, there is now a metro line from Istanbul airport.

If you can not - use the Uber app. Reject any bargaining requests, go by the meter. If in the end you are overcharged, file a complaint via the app and the Uber team will reevaluate the fare based on the actual rate and the distance travelled.

It’s not that this is a big amount of money problem for me. But I damn hate when I’m being openly ripped off.