My wife and I are traveling to France and Belgium in a few weeks. We will be renting a car in France to tour the Normandy area, and will be dropping it off at the Lille Airport. We plan to take an Uber from there to our hotel in Ypres Belgium. The Uber app shows that we can get an Uber for this trip. We are interested to know whether anyone has had any issues getting an Uber from the Lille Airport for a cross border trip into Belgium, and whether an advance reservation for the ride is recommended. Thank you!
Posted by
France Southwest - Occitanie
4339 posts
The French VTC (Uber) license is only valid for pickups within France, which prohibits unauthorized international cabotage. This means a French Uber driver can take you to Belgium if the trip starts in France, but they are not allowed to pick up passengers in Belgium once they have dropped you off. As a result, you might struggle to find an Uber driver willing to drive the 50 km back to France empty without being able to pick up fares outside of French territory.
That is the theory, in practice, I don't know how it is actually handled (legally or not).
Posted by
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
6164 posts
I haven't, but my experience with reserving Uber in advance for a city to city trip is spotty. I had booked a Washington to Baltimore trip and then a few days later a Baltimore to Dulles airport. Both times I had a confirmed driver and reservation quickly, but both times within 30 minutes of pick-up the drivers cancelled and we had to wait for a new confirmation. We were on pins and needles while waiting for the trip to Dulles and had to wait about half an hour beyond our pickup time to get a ride.
Posted by
OP
3 posts
Thanks to everyone for your replies!
Posted by
Long Beach, Ca, usa
3772 posts
Stella, May I ask if your cross-border trip was in Europe was with Uber or Bolt or with a rental car?
Posted by
18 posts
They do have trains. Much easier.
Posted by
Sydney, Australia
503 posts
Most people would take a taxi or Uber from the airport to the train station (Lille Flandres) and from there take trains to Ypres / Ieper. It is not difficult, does not take long (between 1.5 - 2.5 hours including transfer time) and is not expensive. The faster journeys change in Kortrijk.
More info here: www.b-europe.com
and here: https://www.seat61.com
Lavandula
Posted by
Wengen
4254 posts
The problem is that the train takes a big detour, and is not very fast as a result.
What you could do is look for an airport transfer company based in the area. Lille is a popular departure airport for West Flanders, so there are airport shuttles.
The only problem I would see is that they all appear to have websites in Dutch only. My parents use this one a lot: https://www.speedyairportservice.be
So you would probably have to call to book.
Posted by
The Netherlands
2349 posts
The OP posted this in early September and stated they would be traveling in a few weeks. It would be nice if the OP would give us an update about how it went.
Posted by
OP
3 posts
Thanks again to everyone for their replies to my original post.
Our Uber trip from the Lille airport to our hotel in Ypres Belgium a few weeks ago went very smoothly. We did not reserve the ride in advance, but our driver showed up within a few minutes of our requesting a ride on the app. The drive to our hotel took about an hour, and the charge was 65 Euros (before the tip). All in all, we found it to be an easy and efficient way to complete this leg of our trip!
Posted by
Long Beach, Ca, usa
3772 posts
Glad it went so well for you!