Rideshare promotions: they’re never the same, even if you and your spouse are both drivers who drive a similar amount at similar times. So how can you predict promotions and incentives as a driver? RSG contributor Tyler Philbrook shares what he’s learned about getting promotions and how to use them to your advantage below.
Every week that we are going to drive, my wife and I look at our current promotions and see which is the best to do.
Some weeks, it’s better for her to drive, other weeks if not most weeks it’s mine.
After reading other drivers’ comments, they have experienced the same, and in some cases much worse situations. Some haven’t gotten any promotions, others have received offers for promotions, but never got the pay from it.
So how do you get promotions? And, how can you take full advantage and make the most amount of money possible with them?
How To Get Promotions for Uber and Lyft
Promotions come in all shapes and sizes. Some are for driving during busy times, and everyone gets them. Think surges, or consecutive trip promotions. Uber knows that is where and when they will have high demand. In order to make sure they meet that demand, they give promotions to drivers to get them in that area.
Next you have things like Quests, which seem to be different for everyone. The best way I have found to get good quests is to not drive. That sounds like it wouldn’t work but, the truth is, Uber is trying to get people to get out and drive because they need more drivers.
If you are already out there driving 8 hours a day 5 days a week, you’re likely to continue. However, if you haven’t driven in 6 months, then it’s much more likely that a nice promotion will draw you out.
Finally we have a promotion they call a guarantee. What this promotion means is that Uber will make up the difference if you reach the required rides and don’t get the set amount. For instance, if they guarantee you’ll make $1,000 if you do 100 rides, and you only make $800, Uber will pay you the additional $200 to make up the difference.
Why Some Get Promotions And Others Don’t
We’ve run into many who have asked why they don’t get any promotions at all. There are a number of reasons this could be.
First, as mentioned earlier, you could be driving a lot, and so Uber feels they don’t need to provide an incentive for you to drive more.
Right or wrong this makes good business sense. Why give someone who is already doing the work you need more money to do the same work when you know they’ll do it for less? Whereas to get someone who isn’t doing the work at all it makes sense to give them a reason to start again.
Of course, will we ever learn the real reason why some drivers get promotions and others don’t? We can have our educated guesses, but in the end it does come down to ‘the algorithim.’
As this notes, he and his wife started at the same time and she got quests and promotions from the start. The husband called Uber to find out why. They explained to him that he had to complete 300 rides before he started receiving promotions. When he told Uber his wife had been receiving them all along they explained that some people do and some don’t and it’s based on the algorithm.
Another reason might be where you are driving. My wife’s family lives in a small town in Ohio where the only Uber Eats restaurant in the area is McDonalds. They make ok extra money doing that one restaurant over and over again. However, they never get a promotion to go out driving, never a single one.
Whereas my wife and I who live in the Tampa, Florida area have constant promotions and quests. Where you live will change the promotions you get, and not only the amount of money but whether you’ll get some at all.
Some drivers have changed their location to a closer, larger city. My wife’s family in Ohio could change it to Columbus or Cleveland and possibly get some promotions. If this was something they were doing to replace a full time job, they might, but you have to decide how much you want to put into getting promotions.
Ghosted Promotions
A word of caution with promotions right now though: Many drivers have reported that they are being “ghosted” by these promotions.
They will sign up for them, accept them, or even just show up when a surge is going on. After doing all the requirements, the drivers don’t get their money.
Another issue is chasing hot spots. You’ll be sitting, getting no requests then look at your phone and see that just a few miles away there is a hotspot or surge offering extra money. So you start your car and drive there, only to receive no requests, or to get a request but not the extra money.
As this Reddit post points out, never chase the surge. It essentially gets rid of the demand altogether and as such the surge for everyone.
It’s better to plan it out and be where all the drivers aren’t going. So if you see a surge, so did all the drivers, and now everyone is heading there, and the place where you just were may experience demand. So when you see a surge, don’t chase it, instead use it to your advantage and be where none of the other drivers are.
You can reach out to Uber, but that doesn’t always work, and it can be frustrating for sure. All I can say is keep track of things, take screen shots, reach out to Uber and try to get the money owed to you.
How To Use Promotions To Your Advantage
How do you get the most out of promotions? Here’s what happened to me earlier this year.
In April of 2021, I received an offer to do 100 rides and get a guarantee of $1,200.
For me, I’m still not driving passengers because of the pandemic, but I am doing deliveries. So I tested to see if deliveries would count, which they did.
What made this truly nice was that the guaranteed amount did not count other promotions, or tips. Since tips make up the majority of the money from doing Uber Eats, this was a good promotion for me.
In addition to this promotion, I would wait till the weekend promotions hit to do 40 rides to make an additional $100 – $150, which I was getting regularly at the time.
Because I drove during the best hours in my area, I also got a few consecutive ride promotions of an extra $18 for doing 3 consecutive rides without turning off the app.
When it was all said and done, I was able to make $2,103.43 in 43 and a half hours driving 600.7 miles. I drove my wife’s Prius and, after filling the tank, came out with an average of $47.32 an hour.
Note that my fares were $385.88 and my tips were $415.74, meaning that $1,301.81 of the money I made over those weekends were all from promotions. And not just one, I combined several promotions to reach those numbers.
So if you do get a promotion, combine as many possible promotions at the same time as you can. If you have a guaranteed amount, drive when you’ll also get a quest to make more, and if you get those, why not also get a consecutive ride promotion too?
By combining and driving when you get multiple promotions you’ll make the most amount of money for the least amount of work.
Have you compared the promotions you receive to others driving for Uber or Lyft? What type of promotions are you typically receiving, if any?
-Tyler @ RSG
