A former customer
In 2016 I was a loyal customer and advocate of Bycyklen.dk. However, shortly before the end of the year the company sent me a survey asking my opinion on various different pricing options. At the time, I paid a standing subscription of 70 DKK per month and for this I received one free hour per day. Afterwards, I would pay a small hourly fee of 6 DKK. Excellent value and I really enjoyed using the service. That changed when Bycyklen wrote to me one day (the 23rd of December 2016) and said they were changing their fees. For 70 DKK per month, I would now have only 140 minutes of usage time per month whereas previously I would have access to an average of 1800 minutes (ie, up to 1 hour per day). If I were to use more than 140 minutes, then each additional hour would cost 21 DKK. So basically, if I were to use the service for one hour per pay, the new pricing structure would mean it would cost me 581 DKK. That is an increase of 731%! There were other pricing options available - for example 500 DKK for 20 hours per month. If I were to use the service only on weekdays then I might potentially save 81 DKK. However let's be honest, it is an outrageous increase in price. I emailed them and and asked them their reasons. They said that '...regrettably we have been obliged to abolish the initial free period due to recent systematic improper use in the form of code sharing.' After thinking a bit about that, I found the excuse to be meaningless and nothing more than weak justification for this price increase. Why? Because, if you think about it, a bike can only be used by one person and there is only a limited number of bikes. So if I am using it, or someone else is using it and they are still receiving their 70 DKK per month, where is the disadvantage to Bycyklen?.
However, it is not all bad. The bikes are nice and good fun to ride and you only need them very occasionally, it might be OK. But beware if it's only for a quick 10 minute trip, they will charge you 30 DKK per commenced hour in Pay As You Go mode. Ripoff.
July 1, 2017
Unprompted review