# Lyft Plus Only - Any Updates?



## Ballard_Driver (Jan 10, 2016)

Howdy! So I do Uber XL and Lyft Plus. Uber has always allowed XL only, and Lyft has always forced you to take regular Lyft rides as well. With the announcement of Premiere they're now allowing THOSE people to take only Premiere rides, OR if you have a Plus qualified and Premier qualified they make you take Plus and Premiere. Sounds pretty good for them!

I was wondering if anybody with a Plus vehicle has re-checked with them on their policy of not allowing Plus only setups since they announced Premiere? 

I once upon a time (a couple months ago) stumbled across a post either on here or elsewhere on the web where someone said they got their Lyft account setup for Plus only. It's the ONLY person I've ever seen say that, but I was wondering if they were doing a "pilot" test in a certain city of what would happen if they allowed drivers that freedom. I never followed up and now can't find the post, but with this Premiere announcement it makes me wonder. 

I'm in Seattle here and we don't have Premiere yet, but they are planning to roll it out and Seattle will surely be one of the first cities even if full national roll out is slow... The "loophole" of having a Premiere vehicle to be given the chance to only be Premiere and Plus sounds interesting since I have to buy a new driving rig before the end of the year to stay in legal bounds for Seattle's 10 year age limit. If I could set myself up to do Uber XL and Select (which I presently don't qualify for Select with my minivan) and Plus and Premiere only I could see the income going up from my already pretty awesome XL only/Lyft in general mix... But if Lyft is going to open up to Plus only maybe it's not worth it...

Anyway it just got the gears turning in my head since I've been thinking about what new vehicle to get next. You can't beat a several year old minivan for doing XL/Plus, but with Lyft adding a fancy option too with the 4 services between U/L maybe it could be worth it to buy something fancier... I would certainly prefer a Tahoe to my minivan as a working rig!

Anyway lemme know if anybody has reached out to them recently. If nobody has I'm thinking of doing it, maybe in person at the Seattle Lyft office. If they say no I can make a strong argument in person to the people that it's a bad idea to not allow Plus only... For the drivers, for the passengers, and for them because people don't like 20 minute pickups, and I can't count the number of times they try to throw me a regular Lyft ride when I get a Plus ride 30 seconds later. If enough people gripe something may change, especially something dumb like not allowing Plus only in a region where they have a shortage of Plus drivers during peak times!


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## Adieu (Feb 21, 2016)

It took me 65 emails (not a typo) to get switchable Premier and Premier+Original accounts

Just use voice to text and keep emailing.


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## Ballard_Driver (Jan 10, 2016)

Ugh. I can believe it... But it may well be worth it! I don't like the idea of driving "fancy" people around too much, but if the money is right... Why not? Select is not Black or SUV, so it doesn't have the extra requirements, and since it's mid tier I don't think expectations would be THAT much higher than regular rides. So I might be able to live with that level of snootiness. 

I go MAD some weekends. I only work weekends as I'm a proper part timer... But I do it seriously when I do it. I make solid money as it is, BUT I see how dumb their system is sometimes. I know what happened to my income when I started doing Lyft on top of Uber, which was a HUGE bump in average hourly... So I can imagine IF I could turn off regular Lyft on weekends it could be amazing. Lately I've started ignoring more regular requests because I know I'm going to get Plus calls if I hang out for 2 minutes, but sometimes they ping me 3 or 4 times in a couple minutes and I eventually just accept a regular Lyft because I don't want to tank my acceptance rating too bad. They've been sending me the dumb emails about my acceptance rating lately, and unlike Uber they haven't lost a lawsuit on that yet so I don't know what their position is on that. Most of the time my average by the end of the weekend ends up in the 80 something percentage range, but some weeks it has been in the 70s or even 60s, and I just don't want to test them because being deactivated would SUCK even if it were temporary. Anyway 90% of the time when I'm forced to accept a regular ride it is probably losing me money, and that sucks. Nights when I have almost all XL/Plus calls can be serious coin, and if every night was like that I'd definitely be stoked. 

Throw in lower downtime with Select and Premiere and it would basically be ALL nearly $3.00 a mile for me in Seattle! On an average night with moderate downtime that could be $300+ a night if you could stay as busy as I do now in terms of mileage, and good nights maybe pushing more. I like the sound of that. The extra money seems like it would cover a nicer rig on the surface. 

Anyway, still wondering if anybody else has any input on this. Hopefully there's some other daring Plus driver out there who has tried to force them to do it! If not I may have to be that guy


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## ExpendableAsset (Aug 12, 2015)

I drive Lyft + in Dallas, but I also take all regular Lyft requests. That PDB is just too important to my pay, so I keep my acceptance rate over 90 percent.


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## Adieu (Feb 21, 2016)

Select outpings Premier so much that PDB kinda loses its point

Monday-Tuesday, Select just mornings and when actively seeking a ride, Premier-only on whenever in county that has it (my hometown does NOT):

$266 select / 6:30 online / straight 5's
$22 premier / 11:35 online / 4* from paxhole for no reason
$10 Lyft referral


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## Adieu (Feb 21, 2016)

Select $40 / hr
Premier $2 / hour 


....Lyft referral $40 / hour (explained some stuff to random dude at gas station who asked about Uber....then was like, hey want some freebies on Lyft? Took about 15 mins)


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## ExpendableAsset (Aug 12, 2015)

There is no Select or Premier in Dallas. Just Lyft and Lyft+.


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## macchiato (Sep 29, 2015)

They won't separate requests. I've asked again this past week.


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## Transportador (Sep 15, 2015)

Adieu said:


> It took me 65 emails (not a typo) to get switchable Premier and Premier+Original accounts
> 
> Just use voice to text and keep emailing.


It only took me 1 email today. They responded right away with a form you fill out online and submit. They will add a second profile for Premier only in my account within 1 to 2 days. I told them that I already have this choice with Uber, and would not drive Lyft Premier unless they set this up for me.


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## Ballard_Driver (Jan 10, 2016)

Adieu said:


> Select outpings Premier so much that PDB kinda loses its point
> 
> Monday-Tuesday, Select just mornings and when actively seeking a ride, Premier-only on whenever in county that has it (my hometown does NOT):
> 
> ...


Hmmm. Obviously Premiere is new and not used much, but it may pickup. That said I've never seen a point in caring about the PDB myself with my Plus rig. Let's see making double per mile, or 20% bonus... Hmmmmmm, seems pretty obvious which one I want!

Given that Seattle has higher rates than OC (I think) that's pretty awesome for Select... That's even better than I do here in Seattle with XL/Plus! I was just looking at Uber Select for Seattle here and unfortunately they require a 2013 or newer ride in these parts. Ugh. Premiere was saying an 08+ Tahoe (and many other 08+ rigs) would be fine for Premiere. One of the reasons I bought an older minivan is because I know about silly little thing called depreciation, the oft ignored part of the equation. 8 year old minivans are already as low as it goes, and don't lose much value at all if you keep up on them. I really don't want to get into dropping $20-30 K for something that can do Select in Seattle, which kind of hurts the "plan" overall, especially with Premiere being new (non existent here for now) and likely slow for awhile. I just don't like the idea of eating $15-20 grand in depreciation over a few years on a 2013+ rig, especially when I'm probably only going to keep driving for maybe a year and change or 2 of that. I'm too much of a tight wad!

An 08+ though, I'll have to mull over I guess. MAYBE only doing Plus and Premiere for Lyft and no Select on Uber could be worth it once it gets going...


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## Adieu (Feb 21, 2016)

Transportador said:


> It only took me 1 email today. They responded right away with a form you fill out online and submit. They will add a second profile for Premier only in my account within 1 to 2 days. I told them that I already have this choice with Uber, and would not drive Lyft Premier unless they set this up for me.


Say that once you have working, clearly labelled,correctly switchable profiles ...that don't demand reinspection etc.


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## Adieu (Feb 21, 2016)

I see absolutely NO reason to spend more than $12k for a Select/Premier vehicle....

Or more than $5k for an XL/Plus only

A good 7-seater that qualifies all of the above might be worth overpaying a few grand for, though.


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## Ballard_Driver (Jan 10, 2016)

Exactly. The minivan I bought was $3999 at a small dealer, but for what it was in terms of mileage (106K) and options (leather, lots of other stuff) that was pretty good. 5-6K opens it up a lot, anything above that and you get into pretty solidly lowish mileage vans if you're being smart about buying. 

I've never looked into Select as a stand alone thing because I like having a bigger vehicle. I have a car too, but something that can lug stuff around is a must for me. Although I ended up financing it for 24 months in the end, I was going to buy this first van cash and sell another SUV I have to recoup. Chose to keep the other SUV and finance the van, but I think I'm going to finally sell my Jeep and then I'll NEED something van/SUV sized. 

So for me it's gotta be XL/Plus. I think there are technically a few odd ball vehicles that qualify for both, like the bigger Volvo SUV or something... But looking between the Premiere and Select lists Tahoe/Suburban were really the most affordable 7 passenger rigs I saw. Getting an 08 is no issue as you can get them in the mid teens (or lower sometimes private party), but Select is 2013 here in Seattle... A 2013 Tahoe is going to be bucks. I'm sure anything else similar (like the Volvo or whatever) will be too. 

What is select in OC? I believe it allows older cars in a lot of places, just sucks Seattle isn't one of them. Like I said though even Premiere only since it only requires an 08+ COULD maybe make sense, but it's just a bummer Select basically requires a 10K+ jump in pricing as best as I can guess.


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## Adieu (Feb 21, 2016)

Ballard_Driver said:


> Exactly. The minivan I bought was $3999 at a small dealer, but for what it was in terms of mileage (106K) and options (leather, lots of other stuff) that was pretty good. 5-6K opens it up a lot, anything above that and you get into pretty solidly lowish mileage vans if you're being smart about buying.
> 
> I've never looked into Select as a stand alone thing because I like having a bigger vehicle. I have a car too, but something that can lug stuff around is a must for me. Although I ended up financing it for 24 months in the end, I was going to buy this first van cash and sell another SUV I have to recoup. Chose to keep the other SUV and finance the van, but I think I'm going to finally sell my Jeep and then I'll NEED something van/SUV sized.
> 
> ...





Ballard_Driver said:


> Exactly. The minivan I bought was $3999 at a small dealer, but for what it was in terms of mileage (106K) and options (leather, lots of other stuff) that was pretty good. 5-6K opens it up a lot, anything above that and you get into pretty solidly lowish mileage vans if you're being smart about buying.
> 
> I've never looked into Select as a stand alone thing because I like having a bigger vehicle. I have a car too, but something that can lug stuff around is a must for me. Although I ended up financing it for 24 months in the end, I was going to buy this first van cash and sell another SUV I have to recoup. Chose to keep the other SUV and finance the van, but I think I'm going to finally sell my Jeep and then I'll NEED something van/SUV sized.
> 
> ...


Select and Premier are 08 I think

Tahoe/Suburban are gonna be BRUTAL at the pumps...the UberSuV drivers won't even idle them for A/C

And them mostly being black does NOT help loitering in the sun


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## Ballard_Driver (Jan 10, 2016)

Man. I wish it was 08 for Select here because I'd be all over a Tahoe! But we have pretty awesome rates in general in Seattle so I'm not gonna complain.

As far as being brutal at the pumps... Meh. There are those tiny crossover rigs that technically seat 7 and get _decent _gas mileage for what they are... But for the most part full size SUVs and the bigger minivans, AKA any vehicle that can _comfortably _seat 7, get mediocre mileage. It's just the physics of moving a bigger vehicle. Honestly I would rather get slightly worse mileage and have a proper big and comfortable vehicle for my own uses, and passengers. I just don't sweat it that much. I can understand wanting to rock one of the smaller crossover rigs to get maximum MPG, but I'd just rather have the space.

The car companies seem to have squeezed a bit better MPG out of minivans and SUVs in the last few years, but IMO gas costs are almost a non issue if you're getting a healthy number of XL/Plus requests... Twice the pay, twice the gas cost, but not twice the overall costs at the end of the day, and still only the same amount of your time leaves you ahead. The difference between a 20 MPG highway Tahoe and a 23-25 MPG highway Grand Caravan will add up, but that's where Select/Premiere would come into play... Without those I'd go minivan all the way, but a couple MPG isn't going to kill you either way if you have other reasons for wanting one over the other.

You forget my friend I live in Seattle! Idling for AC is a non issue for me here  I can see where that would be more of a thing somewhere hot though, even where I grew up in the north bay in Cali.

As far as Tahoes/Suburbans in particular, they get 1 MPG worse than my minivan because I have the biggest engine they offered in my van  And that's for the earlier ones of that generation, the later ones get the same rated MPG as my van as they improved it 1 MPG.

I actually sold Chevys at the time when the new 07+ generation Tahoes had just come out, and they were actually the most fuel efficient full size SUV on the market. Beat the hell out of the Ford Expedition, and the import equivalents too. So they're not bad for what they are. PLUS there was actually a Hybrid version that got 21 city and 22 highway! They weren't super popular, but they were nice rigs. I noticed when cruising Craigslist a bit ago that they Hybrids don't really carry much/any of a premium, so they would be pretty rockin'.

As more Hybrids get so be sufficiently old to be reasonably priced the equation may change, but for now I think a beater minivan or whatever is still the best for straight XL/Plus, and probably a Tahoe (hybrid if ya can) for Select and Premiere.


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## JimS (Aug 18, 2015)

Plus pays almost double (more than double here) than regular Lyft. PDB only give you back up to 20%. No brainer is a LyftPlus that doesn't meet PDB requirements. Unless, you can find a 2011 7 seater for less than $6k...


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## Matty760 (Nov 9, 2015)

I drive a 2016 Dodge Durango and do Plus... I get very good mileage and have decent room for my pax... its the best of both worlds.... here in Palm Springs though, regular lyft is $1.18 a mile and uber is $1.15 which is cool, but lyft plus only goes to $1.65 a mile while uberXL goes to $1.90 a mile, HOWEVER, uber takes 28% commission from XL rides where Lyft still takes just their 20% so overall it actually pays more to do a Lyft Plus ride even the per mile rate is lower due to the commission and not to mention lifts min fare is what the driver gets minus commission since they ad on there Safety fee in addition to the min fare, where Uber adds the "booking fee" as part of the fare. SO id make more money doing a lyft plus ride of 10 miles for 20 mins than with Uber XL, wish Lyft would change their app to not allow requests more than 14 mins out... i get some that are 25 mins out sometimes.


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## SuperuberSFL (Oct 16, 2016)

Ballard_Driver said:


> Howdy! So I do Uber XL and Lyft Plus. Uber has always allowed XL only, and Lyft has always forced you to take regular Lyft rides as well. With the announcement of Premiere they're now allowing THOSE people to take only Premiere rides, OR if you have a Plus qualified and Premier qualified they make you take Plus and Premiere. Sounds pretty good for them!
> 
> I was wondering if anybody with a Plus vehicle has re-checked with them on their policy of not allowing Plus only setups since they announced Premiere?
> 
> ...


 I have reached out To Lyft many many times. And it is very disappointing and ridiculous that they do not allow plus only setting. Which they can very easily do since they already have it separate for the premier and plus ride in the first place . It is totally unfair that they try to force us with large SUVs and minivans to run the cheapest possible ride line and the regular Lyft. 
It may at some point even become out of line of "independent contractor" classification. Without being an employee with guaranteed wages,how are you going to force a contractor to accept a loosing ride ?
I simply won't do it I told them that they're screwing themselves because they're keeping many capable drivers and vehicles off the road and out of their pool of vehicles. I believe that more drivers gripe and complain about it eventually that may produce results. If everyone is asking the customer service to do it maybe someday they will.
I think that the cheap rides are our waste of time and money, whether or not there is a tip involved and will not do it. If everyone else does the same thing eventually it will change.


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## macchiato (Sep 29, 2015)

I think this is mainly because they were short regular Lyft cars when they first started out. So what the programmers did was to make Plus cars get priority Plus requests when Plus requests were coming in. 

Now that there are plenty of regular Lyfts, they should change the way we get our pings.


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## Matty760 (Nov 9, 2015)

gonna email them tonight about it and say hey, come on now with Coachella this next 3 weeks that I should be changed over


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## DexNex (Apr 18, 2015)

I drive a Suburban in Seattle. Ballard_Driver I do have a Premier only filter, but that also removes me from Plus runs. As a result I run about 5-10% weekly acceptance rate on Lyft. I ignore all regular and Line requests.

Uber, in our market, allows me to have multiple accounts so that I can filter between XL, Select, or both. I even have an all-account that allows X also.

I have asked Lyft multiple times for a Plus filter. They don't seem to care.


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## Ballard_Driver (Jan 10, 2016)

SuperuberSFL said:


> I have reached out To Lyft many many times. And it is very disappointing and ridiculous that they do not allow plus only setting. Which they can very easily do since they already have it separate for the premier and plus ride in the first place . It is totally unfair that they try to force us with large SUVs and minivans to run the cheapest possible ride line and the regular Lyft.
> It may at some point even become out of line of "independent contractor" classification. Without being an employee with guaranteed wages,how are you going to force a contractor to accept a loosing ride ?
> I simply won't do it I told them that they're screwing themselves because they're keeping many capable drivers and vehicles off the road and out of their pool of vehicles. I believe that more drivers gripe and complain about it eventually that may produce results. If everyone is asking the customer service to do it maybe someday they will.
> I think that the cheap rides are our waste of time and money, whether or not there is a tip involved and will not do it. If everyone else does the same thing eventually it will change.


Yeah, it's stupid.



macchiato said:


> I think this is mainly because they were short regular Lyft cars when they first started out. So what the programmers did was to make Plus cars get priority Plus requests when Plus requests were coming in.
> 
> Now that there are plenty of regular Lyfts, they should change the way we get our pings.


That has always been my theory. They needed to force the Plus rigs into accepting the regular calls because the fleet was so thin. I agree that that is no longer the case, hence they need to change it. I can KINDA understand their logic even now in certain markets, like say a new city they just went into... But there's no excuse for it as an across the board thing nationally. Seattle (where I am), Frisco, NYC etc there is simply no sense to it. Especially since they caved on Premiere right out of the gate, it undermines their own supposed logic for it.



DexNex said:


> I drive a Suburban in Seattle. Ballard_Driver I do have a Premier only filter, but that also removes me from Plus runs. As a result I run about 5-10% weekly acceptance rate on Lyft. I ignore all regular and Line requests.
> 
> Uber, in our market, allows me to have multiple accounts so that I can filter between XL, Select, or both. I even have an all-account that allows X also.
> 
> I have asked Lyft multiple times for a Plus filter. They don't seem to care.


That's so stupid. Their system doesn't allow you to run Plus and Premier at the same time??? Ugh. I swear I am SOOO tempted to just go down to the local office here in Seattle and talk to the city manager guy sometime. It's like they're trying, sometimes anyway, to do the right/smart thing but just completely fail to "get it" so often. There is ZERO reason you shouldn't be able to do Premier/Plus only on one login.

I've always had an XL only option on Uber and it's awesome. A Plus only on Lyft would be amazing. I DO wish I could do Select or whatever on Uber, and premier on Lyft, as I bet you'd have to take essentially zero X/Regular Lyft calls ever (I imagine that's how you make the big bucks like you do Dex!), but I don't like the idea of ferrying snooty tools around much. Regular customers are bad enough sometimes, I don't want to deal with someone who ordered a fancy car just to gratify themselves... I'm all for being pleasing and great customer service, but I'm not a bow and scrape kind of person. With my customers I just act like the cool dude I am, I wouldn't want to have to act too professional about it all. LOL


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## DexNex (Apr 18, 2015)

Ballard_Driver said:


> but I don't like the idea of ferrying snooty tools around much. Regular customers are bad enough sometimes, I don't want to deal with someone who ordered a fancy car just to gratify themselves... I'm all for being pleasing and great customer service, but I'm not a bow and scrape kind of person.


I like those type of people, because they tip.


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## Ballard_Driver (Jan 10, 2016)

DexNex said:


> I like those type of people, because they tip.


Well who knew? Haha. Honestly though I always assumed, especially Black drivers, probably did get a bit better tips. I didn't know if it would be almost every ride tipped or anything though since Uber pushed the whole "don't tip your driver" thing for so long. Glad at least some Uber customers aren't cheap skates though 

Really it's all on me. I just don't want to have to keep my car clean enough, or have to dress nice enough myself to be properly doing the nicer rides. I like just being able to throw on my Dickies jacket and hat and roll out the door after making sure my van is reasonably clean, but not spotless. I feel like I would have to hold myself to too high a standard if I were doing the fancier rides. I don't want to make the effort to meet the expectations such riders would probably have.

It's not like I'm above going the extra mile so to speak... I have to be very nice and indulge people and kiss ass a bit when I'm dealing with people in my main line of work, because when you're doing deals with people that's how you have to do it... I just don't want to have to be that on point for when I'm driving. As I said above I don't want to have to be too professional. I like keeping is casual.

But good on you for doing it the way that makes you the most cash!


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