Destination filters. Do they work?

4381 Views 48 Replies 12 Participants Last post by Agent99, Sep 4, 2016

tipster98122

Discussion Starter · Jul 13, 2016 (Edited)

Been using the Lyft destination filter since it began. Turn it on all over the area and at different times--airport, eastside, Lynnwood, etc.

Not one ride yet.

It's now arrived on my Uber account and I'm curious if anyone has had any success with this?

I'm thinking the only benefit could be in using it near hotels, ferries, and cruise ships when I want a long fare to airport, etc. Could be especially useful @ places/events with lots of people such as stadiums/arenas.

Anyone use it?

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21 - 40 of 49 Posts

Agent99

· #21 · Jul 15, 2016

DexNex said:
And this is why I maintain my Uber presence in Seattle AND Tacoma too. These rides happen all the time (Tacoma, Gig Harbor, JBLM), especially if you run from SeaTac. I have had too many 2AM Surge runs from Seattle to Tacoma (and further) to count.

I cannot speak for others reading this but this seems like valuable info. Uber's system probably looks for drivers licensed to drive in Tacoma first before sending ride requests to other drivers. For me, Uber trips to Tacoma have been extremely rare, and none with surge.
How hard and expensive is it to get okayed in Tacoma?

DexNex

· #22 · Jul 15, 2016

Agent99 said:
I cannot speak for others reading this but this seems like valuable info. Uber's system probably looks for drivers licensed to drive in Tacoma first before sending ride requests to other drivers. For me, Uber trips to Tacoma have been extremely rare, and none with surge.
How hard and expensive is it to get okayed in Tacoma?

They are separate markets. So the system would not allow strictly Tacoma drivers to pickup in the Seattle market and vice versa. You may have seen where I have written, in the past, about certain bars in Seattle being a draw for certain long-distance crowds. There are bars in Seattle that appeal to the Tacoma/JBLM crowd. I kept getting enough 2AM surge runs to Tacoma last summer that I went down there for a day and got inspected/licensed/activated. It is NOT something you can simply do online, you would have to go into the Tacoma office.

Now, the Tacoma laws have relaxed a bit and I have an exemption in the system for all Tacoma documents. Cool to have, but not sure how I got it.

Greguzzi

· #23 · Jul 16, 2016

Just tried using Uber's filter from the airport queue, and it waon't let me do it without leaving the queue. That sucks, but it was useful in another way.

Skinny1

· #24 · Jul 16, 2016

Sometimes it works on uber XL I set it for an airport run.... But then if someone is just heading south from where I am 2 miles...it will also use my destination filter up so its not perfect.
Actually quite worthless.

tipster98122

Discussion Starter · #25 · Jul 16, 2016

Agent99 said:
Dex, I have to disagree with you here. I regularly get non-pool (UberX) rides using the Uber destination filter in Seattle and Eastside.

I second that. Happened yesterday. Twice.
I appreciate Uber has not limited it to pool only. This may be the overriding reason they limit the filter to 2 a day.

Used it 3 days in a row and it has worked on pool and non-pool rides. Its been very effective for long trips. Especially those I've had to deadhead on in the past(coming from home base into Seattle and returning from airport).

Hope that one day it will work for Lyft though they may be doing themselves a big disservice if they're only attaching it to Line requests. Seems like an odd approach to limit usage of a feature when the goal is to increase usage over the competition.

Greguzzi

· #26 · Jul 17, 2016 (Edited)

I tried the Destination thing for the first time today, and it worked really well. I got a non-Destination ride from the airport to Snoqualmie. Set the filter for the Space Needle, and caught a ride from Snoqualmie to Bellevue Square. I set it for the Needle again and caught a ride from Bellevue to Cap Hill. Pretty useful, I think.

A question for those more experienced with this: How would you set it up to catch a long surge at closing time? You have to turn on the app to access the feature, don't you? And if you are on-app, how do you get the destination entered without pings coming in to interrupt the process?

Agent99

· #27 · Jul 17, 2016 (Edited)

You can set up a destination off-line. The Uber app will ask you if you want to go on-line after it accepts the destination you provided.

All this is different from Lyft, which requires you to go online while setting up the filter.

I like the Uber filter. I cannot comment on how well it works for getting long surge rides. The risk (surge and non-surge) is you get a trip of just two miles going in the same direction as your destination which is 15 miles away.

Reactions: 2

Greguzzi

· #28 · Jul 17, 2016

Agent99 said:
You can set up a destination off-line. The Uber app will ask you if you want to go on-line after it accepts the destination you provided.

All this is different from Lyft, which requires you to go online while setting up the filter.

I like the Uber filter. I cannot comment on how well it works for getting long surge rides. The risk (surge and non-surge) is you get a trip of just two miles going in the right direction of a destination which is 15 miles away.

Really? I'll give it a try tomorrow. Thanks.

Agent99

· #29 · Jul 17, 2016

The destination filter is one of very few new features which can really help out drivers. I gravitated to it very quickly when it became available, and have been using it at least once every day I drive.

Reactions: 1

Greguzzi

· #30 · Jul 17, 2016

It sure helped me today. Lyft is pretty much dead to me, now. It used to be 80-90 percent of my business before they changed the PDB rules. It's less than 10 percent, now, and dropping. #ohwell,theirloss.

Agent99

· #31 · Jul 17, 2016

It's good to have the Lyft app on when Uber is slow. Or during those rare moments that Lyft has P/T and Uber doesn't have surge.

Greguzzi

· #32 · Jul 17, 2016

That is true.

berserk42

· #33 · Jul 23, 2016

Just tried destination filters for first time last night. WOW. Worked perfectly...got a string of two rides to within 3 miles of my house. WHICH NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE.

heynow321

· #34 · Jul 24, 2016

Wow, had it work like a charm last night. Got me a 2.3 surge from ID over to Bellevue then caught another to within blocks of where I live. Kudos Uber...you did something right...I'm flabbergasted. C'mon Lyft, get your shit together.

Reactions: 2

Agent99

· #35 · Jul 24, 2016

I used the filter last night. The first use was a failure. The trip didn't go in the same direction as my filter destination. The second use was a success. I used the filter to get a trip from Bellevue to Seattle.

Ballard_Driver

· #36 · Jul 27, 2016

So just to throw in my 2 cents in things I've noticed.

Lyft:

I think Lyft is definitely TOO selective. I live in Ballard. If I set it for home from Cap Hill lets say it seems to literally only give me pickups that are VERY close to the route that Lyft auto populates on the map with the filter on, and also that have destinations very close to the route. This means I've only ever received a few pings, but when I did they were pretty solid.

Uber:

Uber is far more useful in that it has a wider range it will shoot you stuff in. There are pros and cons to this, but mostly I like it.

Most are pickups that are only a couple minutes from wherever you are, but I have had it send me 5-7 minutes "off route" to do pickups. One time coming back west off of I90 this was a pretty decent jump to SoDo, but I went with it to see how it worked as that was the most "off route" thing it had ever sent me. That ride, and other ones where it was a semi far away pickup, all ended with me SOMEWHERE closer to home than where I started, but of course getting paid for it. Sometimes the end destination after a "far away" pickup was only a BIT farther along than where I started, but I was getting paid, and am still a bit closer to home, so I find this acceptable. That one from SoDo ended me up on Western or Elliott right near Denny. Not a huge step in the right direction compared to just jumping onto the 5 from I90, but I made a few bucks so it was ok.

Sometimes it will send you to places that aren't necessarily right along what might be the most preferable path either. For instance I was in Cap Hill or Downtown or something and got a ride to the U District. Technically I was fewer miles and fewer minutes away from home than where I started, but going to the U to get to Ballard from where I had been was not exactly the most direct route. But once again I find it acceptable.

That said I've also had it give me rides that LITERALLY took me not but 4-5 blocks away from my house, which is SUPER AWESOME.

So IMO it's pretty cool, but not perfect. I almost never do Uber X rides because I have an XL vehicle. With the destination filter I switch to "take everything" mode at the end of the night and get a ride almost 100% of the time. An extra $5-20 bucks to get closer to home beats nothing, and is certainly better than Lyfts too stringent system that rarely gives you anything.

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Reactions: 3

kraftlos

· #37 · Jul 30, 2016

How do I set the destination filter on Lyft?

Ballard_Driver

· #38 · Jul 30, 2016

On Android click on the 3 dots in the top right of the app and it'll pop up.

kraftlos

· #39 · Jul 30, 2016

For some reason the dots don't do anything on mine.

Ballard_Driver

· #40 · Jul 30, 2016

I've noticed in my app I almost have to click a little further in towards the center of the screen than where the dots actually are to activate it... My screen is generally fine with alignment, so I think it may be a little glitch in the app. Try hitting it a little to the left and see if that brings it up!

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