Is New Year’s Eve Still Worth It For Uber Drivers?

The big day is here, New Year’s Eve. Is it still worth it to drive on NYE, with all the other drivers on the road and all those crazy NYE partiers? I want to share with you my New Year’s Eve driving strategy.

Jay Cradeur from The Rideshare Guy drove on NYE last year (2018) and documented his driving strategy, and how much he ended up earning after a very long day and night of driving.

Take a look at Jay’s video to see if he still thinks it’s worth it to drive on New Year’s Eve. The video transcript is below.

 

I drove for Uber and Lyft on New Year’s Eve last year and made a series of videos sharing what it was like. Let’s get right to it with my first video, which was at five a.m.

New Year’s Eve driving strategy: Several shifts of driving

I’m going to do a little morning driving, like then because of these great bonuses that Uber has offered I’m going to focus on Uber starting at 6:00. I’m breaking my evening into two sections.

The first goes from six until ten o’clock at night . During that time if I can get 10 rides I get a $100 bonus on top of my revenue. Then from 10 until 4 a.m. if I can get 13 rides done, I can make a whopping $180 extra dollars. That’s a total of $280 extra dollars that are on the table, and I’m going to go for it.

That’s my strategy. I will check in with you periodically throughout the day. Lets go do it.

Okay so it’s just a little bit after noon on New Year’s Eve. I just went to one of my favorite Asian restaurants in Daly City, and had this wonderful dish of noodles with sliced duck and barbecue pork. Really good.

Went home, I picked up a bottle of cold brew, which I keep on hand, and I want to go out and work a few more hours because this morning was a little disappointing.

A slow morning

Whereas last year I could only drive for Lyft, because I had been deactivated by Uber as you recall, and I worked I think five hours and I made $200. This year, I’ve worked about six hours and I’ve only made $170. It’s a lot slower. I’m not getting the same kind of ping, ping, ping,and a lot of the trips have been shorter. Kind of luck of the draw.

I’m going to go out now and do a few more hours. I’d like to get over $200 before I go into the big 6:00 shift where I’m going to be focusing on Uber to get those bonuses.

I hit my goal for the evening, just barely

Okay, so the sun is setting, it’s getting dark. It’s a little bit before six. I went out for a couple more hours. I’m up to $225 for the day. So my goal’s now are for the next four hours from 6:00 until 10:00 I want to make at least the $100 in rides and do 10 rides to make the $100 bonus. That will be $200 more dollars for the day.

Okay, so it is now 10 minutes until 10:00. I managed to knock out 11 rides so I got my $100 bonus. I think I only made $90 so that was a little disappointing. There was a gap there for about 35 minutes where I didn’t get a single ride, and I thought, O my God, there’s just so many drivers. Their not going to get a ride, but then I got like three, four, five in a row and it was like done.

Late night on NYE: Worth it?

Now’s the push. Now’s the grind. So I’m going to wait until about a minute after 10:00, turn the App back on, and knock out 13 wherever I’m at, I’m done, and I’m going to go home and go to bed.

Okay, this day’s over. It’s 3:20. I did not hit my goal. There was not enough demand for Uber. I could only get 10 rides. 10 rides in five hours, and then I drove around for another half-hour and nothing.

So all the partiers are home. There’s no one to take home now, so I’m calling it.

Wow, so that was quite a day. It ended on kind of a bummer, but now I’ve had some sleep. Feeling much better, and happy that I made $625 and you know just got to experience all the highs and lows of being an Uber and Lyft driver on New Year’s Eve.

I want to thank you for watching. This is Jay Cradeur with The Rideshare Guy. You all go out and have a great day. Be safe out there.