# Suddenly Higher Lyft Guarantees



## MiddleClassedOut (Jun 11, 2015)

After a period of lowering the guarantees to only Friday and Saturday nights, Lyft is back with $20 rush hour guarantees here in Philly and very nice weekend guarantees (highest is $30 at 2am Saturday nights, $24 net) - is this the case throughout the country?

I don't like these. It's easy money, but a pain gaming the system to making the maximum profit. Ie., take a long time getting to your PAX, staying offline 10 minutes every hour (you guys know to do this at :50 right, because the top of the hour is always busier), hoping you don't get a $20 tip which will blow your guarantee. If I'm in a busy area, I reposition out of busy areas slightly as well after I've done my ride for the hour to avoid working and keep other cars between me and the busy zone. 

Frankly, I think I might make more money with more rides and staying offline as much as possible to grab Prime Times. There are a lot of stupid drivers at 1am, 2am, who constantly stay online. I stay over $20/hr staying offline and being patient. Now I have to do all this annoying stuff to get requests for the hour when they oversaturate the market with drivers, and I like the game of going after Prime Times much more, it's a lot more fun and makes me think I'm smarter than the average bear, which I probably am. Some PAX last night was amazed I make over $900 (pre-expenses) with 35-40 hours online every week, lol. It's not hard if you know how to play the game...


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## Contuber (Jan 31, 2016)

I think the main goal of Lyft guarantees is to keep drivers away from turning on the Ewber app. Ironically, in my area, there are 8-10 Lyft cars during guarantee hours, and just 1 or 2 Ewber's. It is surge most of the time.


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## USArmy31B30 (Oct 30, 2015)

Lyft here in Vegas have been guaranteeing $20/hr. But it's not really $20 it is $13.55 after Lyft cut and Tax Man's Cut but before vehicle expenses...


But if Uber is at 3x plus surge, I would still go with the one who will pay me more. Plus I would get a chance to ONE STAR somebody if they don't tip LMAO like it would matter, yet satisfying


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## UberLou (May 5, 2015)

When do they post the amounts if you reached the hourlyguarantee? Do they do it on Monday evenings?


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## uberpa (Nov 12, 2015)

UberLou said:


> When do they post the amounts if you reached the hourlyguarantee? Do they do it on Monday evenings?


Weekly pay summary on Tuesday.


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## CCW (Dec 25, 2015)

Maybe Lyft is losing its drivers during the busy hours, so Lyft Philly regional manager decided to use guarantees to counter or fix it.

I think Lyft in Philly should increase its Prime Time limit to about the same as Uber's.

If a driver is on both Lyft and Uber, this driver will turn Lyft off at 2AM to just do Uber's surge.

Lyft PAX would not be able to find a ride.

If they want me to stay up late, I want $60 per hour for that 2AM~3AM. I know they wouldn't do this.

But since they increased the hourly pay, I think it's more reasonable to hide somewhere you can get one ride request per hour.

And I happen to think 7 miles East or South East of Philly, in NJ, is the great spot. Now NJ ppl who are in Cherry Hill, Moorestown and other near by towns can have Lyft cars online. When the hourly pay is so low, there is no point to stay online that late. It takes ~6 miles or 10 min of driving to pick up a PAX in these parts of NJ. If it's a $5 ride, then driver would lose money. It doesn't make sense to pick pax up most of the time. Most of pax would just cancel the ride real fast. But now the hourly pay is $30, then it's actually good to drive in these area. $30 an hour pay would cover the cost of picking pax up.


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## ADX (Nov 22, 2015)

The guarantees in SF are 35/hr, but since I don't qualify for PDB, I just make the guarantees and then try to hide from rides/ask pax to cancel, app off at 51 minutes per hour. If they gave me PDB, I would hustle for them, but nope, now I "cheat" the system.


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## MiddleClassedOut (Jun 11, 2015)

Damn, those are nice out there. The highest we had this week was a $30...

I killed it...Worst thing that happened was I had a ride to NJ and had to hoof it back to Philly for the bar close, where I collected one cancel and a $12.50 across town before going home, so they had to bonus me the difference.

So $152 PDB, $151 guarantees this week. Boring work, but profitable.

Also people - cancels!!!! Don't forget cancels don't count toward your guarantees so don't cut them any slack. I'm sure some of these were disputed (I have literally driven off when I see them running toward me after the 5 mins is up) but Lyft has never reneged on one. 

Once I got a cancel that turned into a Prime Time fare because she re-requested and helped create a surge in that part of town...That was hilarious, I was trying not to chuckle the entire ride.


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## uberpa (Nov 12, 2015)

MiddleClassedOut said:


> Damn, those are nice out there. The highest we had this week was a $30...
> 
> I killed it...Worst thing that happened was I had a ride to NJ and had to hoof it back to Philly for the bar close, where I collected one cancel and a $12.50 across town before going home, so they had to bonus me the difference.
> 
> ...


I missed the two $30/hr guarantees!
Uber still beats lyft at 2am!


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## MiddleClassedOut (Jun 11, 2015)

Does it? What is the highest surge now at 2am? I don't have time to look.

If you get a minimum fare, you will need 4x surge to beat the Lyft guarantee $5x4=$25. If you get something better than that, you got lucky, as we all know 90% of your rides downtown are minimum fare rides. I'll take the Lyft guarantee thanks.

Now I don't like the guarantees as much because if my acceptance rate is high enough, I will cherry pick rides at 2am since Lyft allows us to see the destination. That's how I've gotten 3x surges (200%) to Swarthmore and NE Philly before...I would have done that this weekend but my acceptance rate was already borderline and I couldn't work Sunday to raise it.


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## uberpa (Nov 12, 2015)

I got a lyft request at 1:58. It's a 10 mile trip. Called the pax to cancel.
Meantime uber had reached 4.4x. Got a min fare with $3 tip. Then another 7 mile one with $7 tip.
Got $55 in less than 1 hour. Btw, I stayed at home waiting for pings.


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## MiddleClassedOut (Jun 11, 2015)

Nice you got a little lucky I'd say...You did about as well as you possibly can at 2am, because you only have about 30 minutes to get those fares in...

$55/hr is about my max on surges...I did the rainstorm Tues, made out about the same. If you can get multiple minimum fares at 3x or 4x, that is the most profit, more profitable than one long ride usually because your expenses are lower and if you want to keep working you won't need to drive back empty.


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## uberpa (Nov 12, 2015)

The lyft 5-8 $24 on Friday was better. 3 min fares $57.6. Total around 20 miles driving.


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## MiddleClassedOut (Jun 11, 2015)

Haha, beat you there...I managed to make only $10.24 avg hourly for all 6 hours, resulting in a $62 bonus lol....Did the same thing for the $28/hr guarantee, for a $42 bonus.

I'm so good at hiding behind other cars now! Actually this is a good skill to have around 2am...I can usually manage to make the 1am guarantee with one ride. then hide behind the other cars, and then go offline at 1:51. Then you wait 12 minutes for the highest surge rates, then cherry pick rides.


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## uberpa (Nov 12, 2015)

I got over $160 guarantee from lyft last week. 
I stayed at home and tried to get a ride at the end of first hour. And got another one at the beginning of the second hour if I'm lucky. Then went home with two hours guarantee money.


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## uberpa (Nov 12, 2015)

With 2 minimum fares, minimum time spent, minimum miles drove, 2 hours guarantee money received!


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## manuellsam (Feb 5, 2015)

uberpa said:


> I missed the two $30/hr guarantees!
> Uber still beats lyft at 2am!


That's not completely accurate lol I will leave at that !


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## Lyft_94110 (Nov 16, 2015)

I don't understand why people feel so smug about trying to game the system. While you're hiding from fares, everyone else is picking them up.


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## uberpa (Nov 12, 2015)

Lyft_94110 said:


> I don't understand why people feel so smug about trying to game the system. While you're hiding from fares, everyone else is picking them up.


Because the rates are so low! It's not worth driving without surge or guarantee!


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## MiddleClassedOut (Jun 11, 2015)

Even if I thought I could beat some of these guarantees here, I wouldn't bother - because of the MILEAGE AND EXPENSES.

In downtown Philly, you'll be lucky to make $12/hr...3 minimum fare rides x $4 = $12. That's about average I think. You might get lucky and get a long ride out of town but chances are you won't, and if you do then you have to worry about getting fares out in the suburbs. Better to stay downtown and get one fare an hour and take the guarantee!

In fact, the way the guarantees bring drivers out of the woodwork, you won't beat it. In fact I'm sure a lot of drivers are having trouble finding one fare an hour.


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## uberpa (Nov 12, 2015)

Epic failure this week! Only got 1 trip out of 5 guarantee hours!
And nothing so far for the 6th hour!


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## Contuber (Jan 31, 2016)

I feel your pain, comrade.


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## uberpa (Nov 12, 2015)

Contuber said:


> I feel your pain, comrade.


Got one for the sixth hour.


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## MiddleClassedOut (Jun 11, 2015)

Ha, where do you live? You're just fishing from home? 

Sometimes you actually have to work for them...I hit them all because I have the passenger app open on my iPad, I just go to where the other cars aren't, as long as it's a reasonable distance. Like this morning I had to go from Graduate Hospital to West Philly to get a ride...Just too oversaturated.


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## uberpa (Nov 12, 2015)

I just stay at home with the app on.
If nothing, 0 mile for $0;
If 1 trip, normally 6-10 miles total for the guarantee money.
The best I had so far was less than 10 miles total for 2 hours guarantee in about 30 mins.


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## ldriva (Jan 23, 2015)

I used to do Lyft in DC and would work Lyft during the guarantees. Demand grew quite a bit so I didn't have to go far for pickups. With the new PDB rules, I would get guarantees, the 10% PDB, and tips which covered my commission & more. Because of that, I was doing mostly Lyft. On the weekends after the guarantees were over, I would turn my Uber app on. Uber isn't worth it unless it's 2x surge.


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## scrurbscrud (Sep 11, 2014)

uberpa said:


> Epic failure this week! Only got 1 trip out of 5 guarantee hours!
> And nothing so far for the 6th hour!


That's why I don't drive Lyft much anymore. Guarantees are worthless if you can't get the fare requirement filled. Too many drivers, not enough business. So the guarantees are worthless B.S!


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## Adieu (Feb 21, 2016)

29/40 guarantees (OC, CA)... most failed hours spent at home doing other stuff


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