Lux and Black will benefit
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Are you talking about uber or Lyft?
Because on Lyft they will charge the pax surge on black , uber it is rare.
Uber black is basically base rates all the time with exceptions, many times black is cheaper than X
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While people do order lux because they can't get a regular lyft due to availability / bad rating / wait time etc, it's mostly short rides with no tip, Uber X with UFP pays about the same or even a bit more in some cases.
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Hell no at the Uber X paying better part 😅.
It’s all about sample size. If you are a part time driver, doing Uber X may be better because you can snipe and cherry-pick. However, if you need to work full time or overtime to hit your income goals, Lux is much better because the law of averages starts to kick in.
So while there will be times when you’re only getting requests for $10-$30 trips, there’s also going to be times where you make $40-$180+ super fast off of one trip at over $2/mile…which almost never happens on UberX.
So while I do have days where I may barely make $100, those days are often followed by days where I’m making $300-$600 easily. Making over $200 in a day with Uber is hard labor if you’re not completing a quest because most medium to long trips have a terrible per mile rate…so you have to do a ton of short trips to have good margins.
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Shortly after posting that, I got a $115 trip to Santa Monica and a quick $20 trip right before getting back to my starting position since I didn’t want to chill in LA. So I’m at about $215 on 4 trips. That’s almost never going to happen with UberX.
As long as Lyft doesn’t mess up the pay for medium and long distance trips on Lux/Black, there’s no reason for me to do UberX again. If it were just about short trips, then I’d still do some Uber, but I don’t do it because I don’t want to miss out on landing the big payday trips.
Edit: Did one more 6 mile trip for $32 (unlocked $12.75 Bonus Zone) to end the day at 5 trips for $245. In terms of booked time, Lux takes about 1/3rd the effort of UberX even though you need high online time. If you’re a full-timer, the reduced labor/mileage/wear&tear advantage is clear.
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As long as Lyft doesn’t mess up the pay for medium and long distance trips on Lux/Black, there’s no reason for me to do UberX again. If it were just about short trips, then I’d still do some Uber, but I don’t do it because I don’t want to miss out on landing the big payday trips.
Edit: Did one more 6 mile trip for $32 (unlocked $12.75 Bonus Zone) to end the day at 5 trips for $245. In terms of booked time, Lux takes about 1/3rd the effort of UberX even though you need high online time. If you’re a full-timer, the reduced labor/mileage/wear&tear advantage is clear.
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You should never purposely be less profitable (in terms of real income) in order to avoid taxes. Leave tax minimization to your accountant and tax planning, not your earning strategy.
If I have to put 5,000 to 7,000 miles on my car to earn $10K, it’s much more beneficial than putting 10,000+ miles on the car to earn $10K.
Beyond the mileage, there’s also a drastic wear and tear reduction per mile. To make the $245 yesterday, I only had to pickup and drop-off 5 passengers. That’s less starting and stopping, and less passengers in and out of my car.
As far as labor, we’re talking about roughly 2 hours of booked time. There’s some additional labor coming back from the one long trip, but we’re talking about a huge reduction in average amount of labor per dollar made.
If you work less than 40 hours, then Uber X is probably preferable since you don’t have to wait around as much. However, if you are someone like me who would have had to put in 60+ hours anyway to hit your income goals, then doing Lux is a much better grind than Uber X. I’ll only mix it up if Lyft ruins medium and long distance pay on Lux.
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I mean, if we’re talking about SoCal, then other drivers would be able to get the same results that I get, it just requires strategizing around long term patterns instead of short term patterns since trip demand for Lux is not constant.
Lux demand would properly be considered erratic or lumpy, while UberX and standard Lyft demand is smooth. If you work long straight shifts (8-12 hours) and you know the areas that are most likely to have demand spikes, you will essentially start to capture enough Lux trips to outpace your Uber X and standard Lyft earnings while needing to put in significantly less labor.
That’s why I said Lux is only better if you have to work long hours anyway. As you pointed out, you can’t just turn it on and get flooded with $100 trips. However, over the course of a week, if you are in the right spots at the right time, you will get those $100+ trips.
Another reason why Lyft will never be a leader in this industry
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Yeah, I agree. I accept all trips tho and only the minority of my trips are long, so I’ll have to wait and see what the overall pay cut will be once adjusted. As I said though, I wouldn’t mind a minor rate cut if it’s accompanied by an increase in volume. It’s not like I’m at the negotiation table with Lyft, so I’ll just have to adapt to whatever changes these companies make.
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Yeah, but those trips are bound to happen throughout the week…that’s why I just focus on weekly averages rather than hour by hour or day to day fluctuations.
Awesome! What type of weekly numbers are you hitting on? Do you do Black SUV for Uber only or Lyft too?I would of been happy with that lux trip back to LA but I don't turn on Lux on.
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If I keep doing rideshare long, I’ll definitely upgrade to at least regular Black eventually.
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I never focus on hourly cuz I put in my hours.
I used to not focus on daily either but now I do.
Cuz you know around how much you need to make each weekday n weekend to hit your target.
Each day I go out my goal is to make 1k.
Doesn't happen usually but that's my goal.
🥲
I love Lyft more than Uber since they changed to upfront and cut our rates.
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I feel you on the daily goals…what I meant though is that I don’t switch up my schedule as much for specific days or build around certain days being my best days. With Lux/Black how much money you make is more heavily influenced by trip quality (which can be random), rather than bonuses and promotions…so last week I made way more money on Tuesday and Thursday than Friday and Saturday. Before, Friday and Saturday would always be my best days because I was working off expectations rather than just letting the day flow naturally.
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