Sidecar Weekend Driver Promotions in Boston, Chicago, DC
So this week, the only promotions in any of Sidecar markets are the hourly guarantees. In the past, they had these promotions in addition to the guarantees:
- 1.10x-1.5x payments
- No Commission
If done right, you can actually clear $40-$50 an hour if you get the right trips or have your trip settings correct. The “no commission promotion” is pretty nice as you get to keep all your fares, which is essentially a 20% increase in pay, compared to Uber and Lyft. Sidecar also has higher fares so there is potential to earn more on Sidecar.
This week was the first week I haven’t seen any of the above promotions in any of Sidecar’s markets. Below lists the promotions for any of Sidecar’s city:
- Boston: 25-30 an hour
- Chicago: 25-30 an hour
- DC: 25-30 an hour
The above cities also have “discounted” rides in the city so Sidecar will be reimbursing you for the difference between what the customer is paying and how much the trip actually costs.
The rest of the cities have no promotion whatsoever, which may means that drivers may be making enough to surpass the guarantees.
By comparison, Lyft has a $40/hr guarantee in Boston and only one trip per hour as well so this weekend, Lyft has the better guarantee, but not by much. Lyft takes commission from that guarantee so its really $32 take home, compared to $30 for Sidecar. I believe that Sidecar pays out their guarantee without commission.
The future of Sidecar Guarantees?
I see that Sidecar has made leaps and bounds in terms of driver supply and demand that they are rolling back some of the incentives in order to cut a bit of cost and also take some time and evaluate what their current markets look like. I hope that they are just temporarily stopping the driver incentives and will be bringing them back the following weekend as it is good to be able to rely on a guarantee from Sidecar.
Hopefully they will continue to have Sidecar Passenger promotions. I have never had so many new passengers on the platform I am driving in since I started with Lyft back in January 2014. The comments from Sidecar passengers is that they like this a whole lot more than Uber or Lyft, because they can choose their drivers and they know how much the ride costs. They don’t mind paying a few bucks more as long as they know how much the trip actually costs. These are some of the features that Sidecar has a hard time communicating to new passengers. I know that they were trying to market these differences all of last year but it fail to materialize into new passengers and demand. The only way they did that was to discount rides and get more drivers on the road.
What do you think about the Sidecar Guarantees? Have you ever driven one of their shifts? Do you like the guarantees? Will you miss it if they went away?
Have more questions about Uber or Lyft? Head on over to our Rideshare Driver Training Course! Driver Promotions- New Uber Drivers will get up to a $800 bonus after signing up: Sign up for Uber.
- New Lyft Drivers will get up to $800 if you sign up here using this link.
