Did you know that passengers can opt out of surge pricing? Or was Uber just lying to me to keep the surge for themselves? I was on the busiest street in downtown San Diego at 1:55 am on Sunday morning. Everything around me was fire red, yet somehow, the guy I picked up didn’t surge at all. So did he really bypass the surge pricing, or did he pay the surge and Uber kept all of it?
I think a well-organized boycott would help but not on a Saturday night! A boycott has to impact the business people that depend on Uber so starting a boycott around 5:00 pm on a Sunday would definitely get some attention when the business people have to sit at the airport waiting for a ride to their hotels. And continue the boycott for 24 hours through The day Monday so you further impact business people and can get media attention. This is why government and business often make significant decisions/announcements just before the close of business on Fridays, so they don’t get as much media attention. Just my thoughts!
People today depend on Uber n Lyft the most. N it’s an Uber boycott, not a rideshare boycott. Driving Lyft as I have since the raising if rates without driver compensation news hit. Love it as Lyft pax tip much better
Any way they can to stick it to the drivers. With upfront pricing, they get around it. … Currently the area is in a surge, However, with our new upfront pricing, we can guarantee your trip price if you enter your destination … Or something to that effect. I have read an article that says Uber is fazing out surge with upfront pricing. They just simply say the demand is high you can pay 3x surge for a ride right away or upfront pricing, and we will have a car on the way in a few mins. The upfront pricing works out to be around double anyway in many cases. So with this new system, it allows Uber to still get a surge price for themselves but totally bypasses the drivers.
Maybe they do it differently in your area. But in my area, if the customer does not want to pay surge, and has already entered some address info before it lets them sign off, it tries to save the sale and offers them lower upfront prices that are not surge prices but are still almost double the regular prices. I am not sure exactly how they word it - word for word – but it has pissed off a bunch of us local drivers because if they go with the upfront price in place of the surge – we get no surge for giving the ride. I tell you all uber has got this worked out for themselves over the last two months. And on top of this, they have all these different policies, rules and rates for each area and that gets drivers all confused in these facebook groups fighting with each-other about Uber policies. For example, they lowered the cancellation time for riders in some areas from 5 mins to 2 mins. That caused a big to do in a few of the groups with drivers. No one seems to remember that each area is a totally different price rate and policy - terms of service.
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I understand Uber surge prices to occur when the demand for rides is more than drivers available.
If one is sitting at home and gets a text from Uber stating surge pricing is occurring, one may be inclined to get out and drive, helping with supply, and filling the demand.
Further, when uber prices higher, demand will decrease, since some don’t want to pay that higher price. They can call a Lyft or follow Uber’s recommendation, and wait a few minutes until demand subsides, and surge decreases or goes away.
I deal with real costs - not what if my car needs maintenance in the future costs.
Just because the IRS says you can deduct 57 cents per mile doesn’t mean it costs 57 cents per mile.
In the future, if I keep driving, I know I’ll have to change tires and brakes. Maybe a tune-up. I have a Honda, so I expect it to last 150K miles or so.
Just by paying off the van, I am saving a lot of money for the rest of the life of the car. I notice you don’t seem to account for that savings.
And this isn’t a career for me - just a gig that I do while I am waiting for another opportunity that will pay much more than this with much less work.
And, not my only source of income either. I consider Uber my hobby - granted one that I’ll put on 60-80 hours per week on some weeks.
Calling out trolls like you is another hobby – it just doesn’t pay as well.
I am not sure how this surge works. What I do know is that normally I do not chase surges. However, one morning while driving I noticed while my Uber app was not in GO (drive) there was an area close to me lit up red with a plus $7.50 in it. Therefore I drove through heavy morning traffic to this area and pressed “go”. The first thing I noticed is that while the area was still lit up red the dollar amount disappeared. Once I quickly received a ride in that red area I noticed that no surge was added at all. For me this was a lesson learned. I will never migrate to a busy area again because it’s not worth the heavy traffic effort if there is no reward. I am not understanding why Uber would do this because it seems once too many drivers have this happen to them the whole surge to get more drivers to an area concept would be useless. I do know that I will no longer be responding to theses surge wolf cries and will be perfectly content just waiting for normal rides in the area that I am already in.
These things come from experience. Never chase surge pricing unless there is some event. Try to use destination filter, you may get a long trip.
I myself never chase surge as it would change too often
I had a fair in the middle have a surge area, however I did not get paid surge rate. When I called to complain I was told to send a screenshot of the surge area. That is ridiculous since there is no opportunity to take a screenshot of the surge area after you have received pick up notification.
Advice to new drivers… Never, ever, chase a surge area. Once you drive in this to the surge area that increases the amount of uber cars in the area thus lowering the surge rate