It is important to cancel on pax in a timely manner and take the fee instead of wasting endless amounts of time waiting. In my market the fee is more than a minimum wage ride so I promptly cancel at the five minute mark. As a sidenote, if I am fast enough I can see the destination they put in and can decide, if I receive the request again, whether I would like to take it or not. They usually see you cancelled while you are still close by so you can choose to decline or accept knowing that it could effect your rating since you cancelled on them (even though you followed policy). Short ride to turn around and get the pax, who is now usually toes on curb.
The latest way to make money is be sure you get paid for your trips, guarantees, all of that by taking screen shots. That’s the only proof you have. Driver’s aren’t getting paid and can’t prove it.
Picking a good waiting spot is something I’ve worked on. There are a few places around town that I use. They feature: quiet, safe area. Easy access to major roads and features where I am likely to get a ping. 5-bar 4G cell reception.
My favorite lurking spot is a little parking lot which is 100 yards from an interstate onramp, 2 minutes from a major highway perpendicular to the interstate, 3 minutes from a big shopping mall, 4 minutes to a college dorm, 5 minutes from a busy college bar. I am likely to be the closest driver to any or all of those things and I get calls from all of them too.
My tips is to go online during rainy weather. Some driver wont want to drive on that condition. People tend to call more. At least from my experience driving taxi.
My strat
Stay home, wait for ping. Pick up the pax (within my howetown) go to wherever they are going. Then wait 15 mins get ping in that area, rinse repeat. I dont ponpoint when to drive, I just do when I am not doing anything else, like mowing my lawn or whatever. I profit in the 40% to 60% range.
I’m fine with dead miles. Sometimes the profit is in taking dead mile loss on your taxes. I would rather have deductible dead miles rather than be caught in a ping pong match driving 1/2 mile pool rides.
Managing your pay period. Don’t paint yourself into a corner at the end of the pay period to hustle up the last bit of Uber Bucks that you need to handle your business. Be smart and bust @$$ from the beginning of the period. There’s nothing better than going into the weekend with big numbers in your earnings bracket. Head start.
one more thing, Uber and the GPS really drain my phone battery. I always keep four or five external chargers in my purse that are charged at all times. Even sometimes with my phone plugged in, my battery goes down and down. You are screwed if you lose your battery.
Better yet, get rid of your car and take Uber to your minimum wage job. Invest that money so it can grow. Or simply use it to create rainy day fund.
You could have just hold their hands and walked to the destination! Love these types of trips… I used to have such trip requests during winter… Now people just walk.
When I was driving YC, I tried to stay out of heavy traffic, pick up a lot of the passengers at their homes, and look for sweet spots- high elevation areas where the dispatcher will hear me loudest if I came in on a trip where there was competition.
I guess another strategy would be the ability to convince other drivers that driving under $1/mile is almost paying uber. If more and more drivers quit, then maybe uber would raise the rates. Yes I know it’s sh()tty pipedream.
One of the things I’ve been doing is listening to the passengers, closely. I know a lot more about them than they know about me, and knowledge is power and profit. If you deal with the corporate crowd and you invest, I think you will eventually overhear something you can use. Play dumb, think of yourself as a spy.
Uber drivers tend to hate math, but yes, he’s right in some situations. Dead miles can be profitable. I tally up dead miles all the time and profit much more than without and the tax benefit on top is more money in my pocket after I zero out on Uber income and can deduct against other business income.
I have iPhone and found an awesome app that lets me track surges in ten locations. If the app is on, even when I’m not online it notifies me of surges on my list. A have a few near home and few in other locations. So when I’m not driving I watch the surge to learn the patterns. What I love about the app is that it’s in real time based on pax app.
Avoid short trips.pick up at airports.open doors for riders offer bottled water mint and gum and at the end of the trip say thank you for riding with me to rider