Lyft’s latest passenger pitch: 30 rides for $299
No. 2 ride-hailing company Lyft has a pitch for passengers: a monthly subscription plan, offering 30 rides for
$299.
The fine print: Each ride is worth
$15, and if you take a longer route that’s worth more, you’ll pay the difference. And if your ride is worth less than $15, it will still count as a $15 minimum ride.
Lyft says the All-Access plan equals
$450 worth of value for $299. And it’s throwing in a 5 percent discount on additional rides over the initial 30.
Lyft is positioning the subscription plan as a low-cost alternative to young people owning cars, and ditching the monthly car payments, insurance, maintenance and gas charges with the luxury of having someone else do the driving, and also eliminate the pain and cost of parking. Lyft estimates the average cost of car ownership is
$9,000 yearly.
Lyft vice president Katie Dil says the company opted for a subscription plan as yet another way to encourage people to leave their cars at home and get more vehicles off the roads. “We want to make it easy as Netflix is with TV,” she says.
Ippei Takahashi, who runs the Ride.Guru website, a forum for passengers and drivers with ride share issues, says Lyft is aiming for a new market of young people with the All-Access plan.
“I believe a subscription plan could work, in some markets,” he said. “But there will be growing pains.”
Reader alert: When signing up for a program like this, know that drivers have the luxury of being able to cancel rides on a whim – say, if they feel the ride is too short and, thus, not profitable, or if you have a poor passenger rating.
Unlike Uber, which publishes your rating, Lyft doesn’t. You need to contact the company directly to find out how you rank with drivers. Of the 5-star ratings, Takahashi says passengers with lower than a 4.8 routinely get passed over for customers with higher numbers.
(Passengers get dinged for rudeness, being intoxicated and for low tips, for instance.)
Lyft says riders who get canceled by drivers should “provide feedback and contact our support team. Drivers who repeatedly demonstrate this behavior could be removed from the Lyft platform.” Also, check the cost of your ride before signing up and being liable for a monthly $299 recurring fee. Lyft estimates the cost of the ride after you open the app and input where you’re going.
For instance, I live just more than 6 miles from the USA TODAY Los Angeles bureau, and the price quoted using the rideshare option was $5. So the 40 rides for the month would total around $200, or $100 less than the subscription offer.