Uber Responds to Lyft Halloween Weekend Guarantee
Yesterday afternoon, Lyft released their halloween guarantee, which started on Thursday instead of Friday for most of the Uber hourly guarantee.
[Update: Be mindful that there were outages with both Uber and Lyft system last night. Read here about the Uber 30 minute worldwide outage, and here for the Lyft 2 hour Halloween Outage.]
Well, Uber responded to Lyft’s guarantee by extending the hours in some markets. In Boston, they pushed back their guarantee by two hours from 10pm to 8pm. However, there were additional requirements:
We expect this Halloween to be the biggest day EVER for our uberX partners in Boston! Demand should be strong all night and continuing into the very late hours.
After 8PM, our guarantees get even BIGGER – $40/hour!
What: $40/hour average gross fares GUARANTEED
When: Friday, October 31, 8pm-3am; Saturday, November 1, 8pm EDT – November 2, 2am EST (NOTE: This is a 7-hour window as clocks will be set back one hour at 2:00am EDT)
Where: Trips must be accepted within the eligible area
Qualifications: Opt-in, be online at least four hours, accept at least 1 trip per hour, and accept 80% of your trip requests
We expect the whole weekend to be busy, so we are GUARANTEEING $10 MINIMUM FARES almost all of Saturday and Sunday too!
I was trying out Lyft’s guarantee last night and it was stressful to meet the 2 trips an hour. Luckily I did, but barely by the skin of my teeth. Many drivers didn’t make that mark last night. I believe some drivers may still have that problem tonight as there will be too many drivers out to get that many rides. Even on Uber, I can sit right in downtown and not get pinged for 45 minutes with these kinds of guarantees.
Here are some guarantees from across the country (usually Lyft matches Uber’s offer but dates/times differ):
- Boston – $40/hr (Lyft started Thursday, Uber starts Friday)
- San Francisco – $40/hr
- Nashville – $40/hr
- Los Angeles – $35/hr
- Phoenix – $35/hr
- DC: Uber $27 for earlier hours, $35 for graveyard hours
- Austin – $25/hr
- Orange County – $25/hr
- Nashville – $25 for both Lyft and Uber
- Honolulu – $20/hr
- San Antonio – $20/hr
The four hour minimum is a bit much. I believe this is for the entire weekend and not just per day as it is a lot of hours to work. Just in case though, I will be working four hours tonight and tomorrow to make sure I get that guarantee. With something this high, why not??
Another difference is that Uber’s guarantee will be paid out in this pay period while Lyft will pay it out sometime before November 10th, which means the next pay period. Some may argue if Uber will even pay out this guarantee as some drivers are still asking for their previous guarantee. I have always had the correct hourly guarantee payout so I can’t comment on the delay, but just noting that other drivers have this issue.
Some drivers have noted that these guarantees were targeted to certain drivers. The person who posted that comment had high ratings too so it wasn’t going after just drivers with the highest ratings. I am unsure who Uber is targeting with these hourly guarantees.
So does this change your driving patterns this weekend? I am leaning towards Uber this weekend, even though I always prefer to work for Lyft, but their guarantee is just too hard to keep up with.
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