# Non Surge Request in Surge Area



## cratter (Sep 16, 2017)

I've been driving for Uber for about a month now (and reading this forum) in a town of 60,000 people in North Dakota. It's a college town where the entire town usually surges about 5-9x at bar close. 

That odd thing is at 1:30 am, I'll sometimes get a request that show zero surge at the hottest bar in town when the town is surging massively. It doesn't happen that often, maybe seen it three times now in a month. I was wondering if there was a trick some passengers were using as a way to get around surge?

Not a big deal as long as I'm paying attention and ignore the request. But was just wondering if there's something I don't know about.


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## CvilleUber (Aug 29, 2016)

My guess is that it was a non-surge request, right before the surge started and the request has bounced around a few drivers, who keep declining, meanwhile, the surge keeps growing (never, ever, accept a non-surge at 1:30am, no matter where you are!).


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## cratter (Sep 16, 2017)

No, it's in the middle of a surge. The whole town at about a 6x and lasts for half or so.... I ignore the non surge and get a surge request a second later from the same downtown pickup spots. Definitely not a fake surge.

I wonder if there's a guy in town who opens the app and requests a price before the surge and leaves his app and phone open (or a specialized app does it) and then requests later when its surging and the bar is closing...ive heard the price is only good for like five minutes supposedly. Might not be true in all areas though...


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## Bpr2 (Feb 21, 2017)

cratter said:


> No, it's in the middle of a surge. The whole town at about a 6x and lasts for half or so.... I ignore the non surge and get a surge request a second later from the same downtown pickup spots. Definitely not a fake surge.
> 
> I wonder if there's a guy in town who opens the app and requests a price before the surge and leaves his app and phone open (or a specialized app does it) and then requests later when its surging and the bar is closing...ive heard the price is only good for like five minutes supposedly. Might not be true in all areas though...


It's probably a scheduled ride. People do it to avoid surge pricing. They order at a time with no surge and bam, that's the price they pay.
Was hit with this in a 3.0-3.5 area and no surge multiplier was on the request but thought it was a bug. Soooo picked up royal highness and it turned out to be a 30-40 minute trip and I was all happy. Got done and checked the amount. No surge multiplier. Emailed uber&#8230; "due to it being a scheduled ride, pax doesn't have to pay the surge in that area at the time of pick up&#8230;"


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## jaystonepk (Oct 30, 2017)

Do scheduled rides apply to airport pickups? I had the exact scenario play out in Buffalo when 3 planes landed simultaneously, causing the whole airport to surge to 2.5. I got 4 non-surge requests in a row and ignored them all as I was smack in the middle of the surge zone.


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## Bpr2 (Feb 21, 2017)

jaystonepk said:


> Do scheduled rides apply to airport pickups? I had the exact scenario play out in Buffalo when 3 planes landed simultaneously, causing the whole airport to surge to 2.5. I got 4 non-surge requests in a row and ignored them all as I was smack in the middle of the surge zone.


Any and all locations. If it's a scheduled ride, it's a scheduled ride.


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## cratter (Sep 16, 2017)

Bpr2 said:


> It's probably a scheduled ride. People do it to avoid surge pricing. They order at a time with no surge and bam, that's the price they pay.
> Was hit with this in a 3.0-3.5 area and no surge multiplier was on the request but thought it was a bug. Soooo picked up royal highness and it turned out to be a 30-40 minute trip and I was all happy. Got done and checked the amount. No surge multiplier. Emailed uber&#8230; "due to it being a scheduled ride, pax doesn't have to pay the surge in that area at the time of pick up&#8230;"


Yup. I think you're right. I was reading about scheduled rides via the official uber press release and that's the first thing that popped into my mind.

Now I know if I plan to go downtown drinking and schedule a ride for bar close. Save $50!


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## Bpr2 (Feb 21, 2017)

cratter said:


> Yup. I think you're right. I was reading about scheduled rides via the official uber press release and that's the first thing that popped into my mind.
> 
> Now I know if I plan to go downtown drinking and schedule a ride for bar close. Save $50!


You also might be waiting longer for a driver to accept if they k ow they surge is high


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## cratter (Sep 16, 2017)

Bpr2 said:


> You also might be waiting longer for a driver to accept if they k ow they surge is high


Probably be someone like me who use to make the mistake of accepting stacked rides at that time because youre not able to see if the area is surging or not and just accept.

I also learned to not accept a ride at 1:30 am because at 1:45 am the surge will be a lot higher and I likely would miss the higher surge price.

Another tip I've learned at that time to see how long the surge will last and how high it will go is use the pax app at that time to see how many/how busy the other drivers are. After a few weekends one can basically guess how high the surge will be that night at that time and use that as the best time to go back online.


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## SpongemanGreg (Aug 19, 2017)

looks like scheduling doesn’t save the rider money after all.


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## cratter (Sep 16, 2017)

Who knows how it works. Uber is always changing things. Uber probably charges higher price and doesn't pay driver the difference claiming scheduled rides.

Scheduled rides make very little sense anyways.


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## Mista T (Aug 16, 2017)

cratter said:


> Who knows how it works. Uber is always changing things. Uber probably charges higher price and doesn't pay driver the difference claiming scheduled rides.
> 
> Scheduled rides make very little sense anyways.


Bingo!

Friday night we had a basketball tourney here. Game gets out, Lyft has the whole place in PZ mode at +75%, but their surges were higher than that (surprise!). Uber showed NO surge in the area the whole time. I ignored 5 base Uber pings in the stadium area, I was 10 minutes away, which means they really needed drivers there. I'm sure the drivers in there were sitting there waiting for Lyft pings, unwilling to turn on Uber until the surge was shared with drivers.


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## Failed Login (Nov 13, 2017)

I went out Thursday night to get away from the family and eating. I was getting requests 20-25 minutes away from Ballantyne. I had to keep declining and got one 8 minutes away. Then would get stacked requests 18-25 minutes constantly, all night. Yet not one surge the entire night. How can there be no drivers on the road and yet no surge? And Saturday night late, I saw only a $2-$3 surge uptown near bar closing time. Anyone else noticing the decline in surges?


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## cratter (Sep 16, 2017)

I don't know if this is true anymore as these companies might have wised up but this article,

https://lifehacker.com/i-tried-lyft-s-scheduled-rides-and-it-made-early-mornin-1793351679

in the comments section, says Lyft guarantees the scheduled pickup quote even if "higher primetime" is in effect.

"Lyft says on their site they would've included it in the price estimate and locked you into that price even if actual Prime Time is higher when you take the ride."

In other words throw a base "time and distance" ping to a driver til one accepts.


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