Understanding Lyft’s Driver Bonuses

How many driver bonuses does Lyft actually offer and how can you qualify for them? Joe from The Rideshare Guy made a video explaining  Lyft’s most popular driver bonuses. Take a look at Joe’s video, and scroll to the video transcript below to see all of the points he covers.

The bonuses offered to Lyft drivers

Lyft offers a few difficult types of bonus programs. There’s the Power Driver bonus, then there are Power Zones. There are also Weekly Guarantees, Streak bonuses and lastly, there are sign up bonuses.

The Power Driver Bonus

Just a quick note: Lyft is actually moving away from the Power Driver bonus towards what they call the Weekly Ride Challenge bonus. With the Weekly Ride Challenge bonus, you’re only required to complete a certain amount of rides for the week. There’s no acceptance rate requirement or peak rides required.

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First, let’s go over the Power Driver bonus. It’s the most consistent and longstanding bonus offered by both Lyft and Uber. The comparable bonus that Uber offers would be their Quest bonus. The Power Driver bonus is a weekly bonus that allows you to earn fixed dollar amount bonuses for completing a certain amount of rides and as far as the requirements, it must be available in your region.

Your vehicle must be a newer car, currently they require a 2011 model or newer, and you have to meet the ride requirements as defined in your personal dashboard. These requirements may include giving a certain amount of peak rides as well. Peak rides are rides given during certain peak hours as defined in your dashboard.

These typically include the morning and evening rush hours as well as late night on Fridays and Saturdays. Some drivers may still be required to maintain a 90% acceptance rate for the week, but for a lot of drivers, that acceptance rate requirement has been removed.

As an example, let’s take a look at my personal Power Driver bonus requirements. I’m offered a $60 bonus, $120 bonus, a $175 and a $285. Note that the ride requirement and bonus amounts defined in your dashboard are for you personally. Other drivers in your market may have different requirements. We’ll just take a look at one of these. In other to attain the lowest bonus, the $60 bonus that I’m offered, I’m required to complete 45 total rides, 30 of those must be peak rides, and I still need to maintain a 90% acceptance rate.

Again, the Power Driver bonus is the most consistent bonus that I have found from both Lyft and Uber but those requirements will change a few times throughout the year. Last year they changed for me personally five times, and this year, they’ve changed twice already.

Power Zones: Guaranteed bonus earnings in busy zones

The next bonus that Lyft offers are Power Zones, which are basically guaranteed prime time zones. The comparable bonus with Uber would be their Boost bonus. Power Zones are geo-fenced zones typically near downtown, where you can earn a pre-defined percentage boost by either being inside the zone when a request is made, or accepting a request that came from inside the zone.

They’re available in select regions for drivers eligible in regions that have them, Lyft sends out a weekly email with the upcoming week’s schedule of what zones and percentages will be available and during what times.

Here’s a look at the Power Zone schedule for me this week. You can see on Monday there was a Power Zone from 6am to 8am Monday morning, plus 10% and that was right around the Minneapolis downtown area. Again, to qualify for that 10% bonus, I would either need to be physically located inside that zone or accept a ride request from that zone.

Weekly Guarantees: Guaranteed earnings for completing ride quotas

The next bonus is Weekly Guarantees. With Weekly Guarantees, you are guaranteed to earn a certain amount for that week by completing a certain amount of rides and being logged in to driver mode for a certain amount of hours.

Like the Power Driver bonus, some drivers may be required to maintain a 90% acceptance rate for the week as well. With Weekly Guarantees, again you’re guaranteed to make that amount for the week so if you don’t earn that amount on your own, Lyft will bonus you out to get you to that guarantee for the week.

For example, here you can see there are four Weekly Guarantees offered. In order to obtain the $200 weekly guarantee, this driver must maintain a 90% acceptance rate, be logged into driver mode for at least 10 hours, and complete at least 30 rides.

Say that driver meets all the requirements but only earns $185 on their own that week, Lyft will then bonus them $15 to get them to that $200 weekly amount. These are typically offered to newer drivers who have been approved to drive within 30 days of starting their application. If Weekly Guarantees are available in your region and you do qualify, you will receive an email with the Weekly Guarantee offer.

Streak bonuses: Earn more for back-to-back rides

Next, there are Streak bonuses, and the comparable bonus with Uber would be their Consecutive Trip Boost bonus. With Streak bonuses, you’re guaranteed a bonus amount for completing a certain amount of rides in a row and it’s all about your first ride. That first ride must, either the request or the pick up, must occur within a specified time.

For example, here you can see this driver is offered a Streak bonus of $15 if they give three rides in a row and their first ride request, or the pick up, must occur between 5.00 and 6.00. Again, you don’t have to complete the entire streak within that hour, just that first ride must originate from that hour.

Say you get a ride at the very end of that hour, it starts within the hour, your streak has started so you can continue the streak until you hit the three rides for as long as it takes. You will still receive the Streak bonus outside of that hour. Additionally, you need to stay online in driver mode for the entirety of a Streak and accept every ride. If you log out or miss a request at any time, the streak starts over and Lyft will send you a text message and notify you in the app when a Streak bonus hour is active.

Sign-up bonuses: Additional earnings for each ride during an introductory period

Lastly, there are sign up bonuses. You always want to try to use a sign up code when applying to drive. There will also be a link in the description. The way Lyft’s sign up bonuses work is you’ll be given a bonus amount for every single ride that you give after becoming approved as a driver up to a certain amount, within a specific timeframe.

For example, you may be offered up to, say a $300 bonus within 60 days of becoming approved to drive. Within those 60 days, if say for every single ride that you give, up to 300 rides, you will be given a $1 bonus for those rides. If you complete 250 rides within those 60 days, you’ll get basically essentially a $250 bonus. But say you give 400 rides within that 60 days, you’ll still only get a max bonus of $300.

You can see the bonuses available to you in the Earnings tab

All bonuses that you are offered will be listed under the earnings tab of your driver app. Also again, bonus amounts and requirements will vary by market and driver and some bonuses may not be offered in your market. In the description, there’s a link to Lyft’s documentation for all of these bonuses, where you can get even more detailed information. Thanks again for watching, please like, comment or subscribe, and drive safe.

 

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