# Lyft Destination Filters: How They Work, Latest Changes



## Dropking (Aug 18, 2017)

We are all so very tired of Lyft changing their destination filter without notifying anyone, including their own support staff and documentation team. This happened again this week when they changed the minutes allowed per each destination filter from 60 minutes to 30 minutes despite what the support team and online doc says.

This thread will serve as a current primer on Lyft destination filters as we understand them. For example, if I detect a change in my San Francisco market as I did today I will cycle this post back up to the top with the changes I noted. If you add comments, please state your geographical area as they may be testing different iterations in your own service area.

1. Number of destinations filters - how many destination filters can you set each day?

2. Length of each destination filter - how long (in minutes) before they expire?

3. Ignoring pings - how many pings can you avoid before losing a destination filter?

4. What time do the maximum number of destination filters reset each day?

5. Distance - how far in miles or time can you set a Lyft destination filter?

6. General accuracy - how accurate are Lyft destination filters in your market?



Dropking said:


> We are all so very tired of Lyft changing their destination filter without notifying anyone, including their own support staff and documentation team. This happened again this week when they changed the minutes allowed per each destination filter from 60 minutes to 30 minutes despite what the support team and online doc says.
> 
> This thread will serve as a current primer on Lyft destination filters as we understand them. For example, if I detect a change in my San Francisco market as I did today I will cycle this post back up to the top with the changes I noted. If you add comments, please state your geographical area as they may be testing different iterations in your own service area.
> 
> ...


*
In SF market as of 8/23/18*

1. Number of destinations filters - how many destination filters can you set each day?

* Six*

2. Length of each destination filter - how long (in minutes) before they expire?

* 30 (a change this week from 60). I drive less for Lyft because of this change. *

3. Ignoring pings - how many pings can you avoid before losing a destination filter?

* 3 in a row, but if you avoided 2 pings before setting the destination filter you will only get 1. Therefore go offline, then online before using destination filter. *

4. What time do the six destination filters reset each day?

* Midnight*

5. Distance - how far in miles or time can you set a Lyft destination filter?

* A long, long way, at least 200 miles, much further than Uber.*

6. General accuracy - how accurate are Lyft destination filters in your market?

* Accurate now. Six months ago different answer.*


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## Hagong (Jan 17, 2017)

Does declining (hitting X in the upper left corner) 3 times cause you to lose a DF?


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## Lyfted13 (Jul 26, 2017)

Dropking said:


> We are all so very tired of Lyft changing their destination filter without notifying anyone, including their own support staff and documentation team. This happened again this week when they changed the minutes allowed per each destination filter from 60 minutes to 30 minutes despite what the support team and online doc says.
> 
> This thread will serve as a current primer on Lyft destination filters as we understand them. For example, if I detect a change in my San Francisco market as I did today I will cycle this post back up to the top with the changes I noted. If you add comments, please state your geographical area as they may be testing different iterations in your own service area.
> 
> ...


I am in SF and since yesterday, They have only been lasting 15 minutes before timing out...


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## Mista T (Aug 16, 2017)

Portland

Ran out of Lyft DFs today. Did not keep track of exacts, since wasnt anticipating this thread, lol.

Think I had 4 total. Set for 90 miles away. They timed out at about 15 minutes, with zero notification... i just looked over and saw the app was off, no messages. I might have had more that I manually turned off after a couple minutes, in which case it was 6 total.

Never got a single ping. Then again, I drive with no DF on Lyft all the time and pings have gotten rarer anyway, so DF is like extreme rarity for pings now.


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## nj2bos (Mar 18, 2018)

1. Number of destinations filters - how many destination filters can you set each day?b

*Six here in Boston.*

2. Length of each destination filter - how long (in minutes) before they expire?

*I noticed it has changed a few times.. used to be <30mins, then was 30mins, but yesterday I had one time out at about 20mins and I was signed out of Driver mode. I gave up on guessing.*

3. Ignoring pings - how many pings can you avoid before losing a destination filter?

*I've never been dropped from my DF for ignoring pings. I use it after Red Sox games to get long rides with surge and have easily rejected 5 or 6 before getting one I wanted.*

4. What time do the maximum number of destination filters reset each day?

*Midnight EST, right on the stroke of 00:00.*

5. Distance - how far in miles or time can you set a Lyft destination filter?

*I haven't noticed a limit.. I sometimes set the destination filter for 2hrs away to try and snag a long haul.*

6. General accuracy - how accurate are Lyft destination filters in your market?

*For me they are pretty accurate. The thing that I've noticed is that accuracy improves a bit when I "overshoot" exactly where I want to go. For example, I live about 20mins north of Boston. If I am in the city and set my DF for my home, I tend to get sporadic pings that are only vaugely in the direction of where I live. However, if I set my DF for about 20-30mins BEYOND my home in the same direction, DF pings are much more accurate and bring me closer to home without going too far off the path.*


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## Loralie (Sep 22, 2016)

Hagong said:


> Does declining (hitting X in the upper left corner) 3 times cause you to lose a DF?





Dropking said:


> We are all so very tired of Lyft changing their destination filter without notifying anyone, including their own support staff and documentation team. This happened again this week when they changed the minutes allowed per each destination filter from 60 minutes to 30 minutes despite what the support team and online doc says.
> 
> This thread will serve as a current primer on Lyft destination filters as we understand them. For example, if I detect a change in my San Francisco market as I did today I will cycle this post back up to the top with the changes I noted. If you add comments, please state your geographical area as they may be testing different iterations in your own service area.
> 
> ...


Definetely not accurate i set it to airport from the sunset and i get only trips to downtown or mission


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## pvtandrewmalone (Oct 2, 2016)

*New Jersey market.*

1. Number of destinations filters - how many destination filters can you set each day? *Now 4*. *Was 6 until this week. *

2. Length of each destination filter - how long (in minutes) before they expire? *Now 15 minutes. Was 30 minutes until this week.*

3. Ignoring pings - how many pings can you avoid before losing a destination filter? *Now one "timeout" ping, but seems to not log out for "hitting the X". So now you can't walk away from your phone.*

4. What time do the maximum number of destination filters reset each day? *12 midnight...no recent change.*

5. Distance - how far in miles or time can you set a Lyft destination filter? *200+ miles...no recent change.*

6. General accuracy - how accurate are Lyft destination filters in your market? *Works at the Jersey Shore for northwest-bound pings, where there is an ocean to the east. Probably same in any "three direction" area where you can only go in three possible directions due to a geographic barrier.

Works poorly in "four direction" places like Newark Aiport and MetLife Stadium You set a filter 50 miles southwest and it sends you 40 miles southeast, and vice versa. You end up driving 40 miles, and still being another 40 miles from your set destination.*


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## Dropking (Aug 18, 2017)

Hagong said:


> Does declining (hitting X in the upper left corner) 3 times cause you to lose a DF?


Lyft is experimenting with this. Sometimes hitting the X does not count in the 3, sometimes yes.



Lyfted13 said:


> I am in SF and since yesterday, They have only been lasting 15 minutes before timing out...


yes but it's weird. for the last week, there have been days where it is 15 minutes each (like today. sunday), days when it is 30 minutes like the old days, and days like yesterday when it is 30 for the first and 15 for the rest. clearly they are gathering data on their optimal settings.



Loralie said:


> Definetely not accurate i set it to airport from the sunset and i get only trips to downtown or mission


sunset district to sfo has multiple routes, normally 19th street to i280 but also cross town to us101 is sometimes reasonable. I dont consider either of those rides to downtown or mission district necessarily a colossal failure depending on current traffic. generally getting west of divisadero and south of Geary for DF to sfo works well but you still have to look at time for the various routes.



pvtandrewmalone said:


> *New Jersey market.*
> 
> 1. Number of destinations filters - how many destination filters can you set each day? *Now 4*. *Was 6 until this week. *
> 
> ...


4 is alarming. not so in sf market (yet).


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## Wraiththe (Nov 26, 2017)

In NC, we used to get six... about 20 minutes each. Something has changed and I think we only get TWO now.
The last time I used it, I was 100+ miles away from home. After two ride offers I turned it off. 
Each wanted me to go back in the opposite direction to take two different guys on very short rides.

Before making a u-turn and going 13 minutes out of the way, I contacted the first one, and he said he was going in the opposite direction.

*Seriously... I have 100 miles to go to get home... *(with no pax)* and they are taking me more than 1/2 an hour out of the way for a 2-3 mile trip?*

What the  are they thinking?

_ (incidentally, the trip took almost 3 hours.)_

Is there a way to get it to align the rides better. Now they offer a time to get back. I tried to set it lax, and then with only a little wiggle room. Neither had the desired effect.

Thanks,


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## Lyfted13 (Jul 26, 2017)

Wraiththe said:


> In NC, we used to get six... about 20 minutes each. Something has changed and I think we only get TWO now.
> The last time I used it, I was 100+ miles away from home. After two ride offers I turned it off.
> Each wanted me to go back in the opposite direction to take two different guys on very short rides.
> 
> ...


 In addition to the shorter duration, I am noticing that I have been getting trips going in the complete opposite direction again also. This was a problem before but I haven't had this issue in the last few months. It seems that it has just started up again with these changes. I find it hard to believe that this isnt being done purposely. I don't write code, but it seems that sending a driver trips that are only going in a certain direction would not be hard to do And I know Lyft is fully aware of this issue, yet it is still a problem.


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## pvtandrewmalone (Oct 2, 2016)

Seems like there are factions in the Lyft company involved in a huge power struggle.

One faction or department loves drivers and wants to be customer and Driver friendly. This group gives you friendly emails, quick English-speaking reps, and will pay you bonuses when you complain about not getting the cancellation fees.

The other is passive aggressive and doing everything they can to screw drivers with hidden unannounced changes like making the destination filters time out faster, sending out those threatening emails blaming you for too many cancellations (but programming the bot to cancel on you with impunity) and giving drivers time out and threats of deactivation by bot.

For what it's worth... Supposedly evil Uber seems to be moving away from placing a lot of emphasis about how many times a driver cancels.. But Lyft seems to be doubling down.


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## fairsailing (May 16, 2016)

I think it's just broke, at least for the last couple days, just after they added the "time you wish to arrive at your driver destination" feature. Someone at Lyft apparently has a sense of humor. 

Anyway, since the new feature addition, I enter a df direction, and I still get all my normal crappy offers to anywhere. I expect a pop up any day saying something like, "you didn't think we were serious, ant".


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