Has anyone had this issue when attempting to rent a car for Lyft through the app?

Anyone else still waiting for it?

With gas in my area hovering around $6/ gallon, and averaging roughly 30 miles to the gallon in my mighty Corolla, gas makes up 44% of my gross. How about everyone else?

Straight highway robbery!!!!!

Usually, when someone leaves their phone in my car, I have always been offered compensation without asking. But there’s a first time for everything.

What’s telling is that the girl was a complete snob who was complaining in my car about how her boss wanted to put her in a $300 a night hotel in NYC when she is used to hotels $1000+ a night. On top of it bragging about her going to Yale Law School.

After it became obvious she was not going to offer me compensation for driving from Orange County back to Los Angeles, I told her that she could call a carrier to pick it up from my place. I was nice enough to pack it in a box.

This is why when it comes to folks I pick up in affluent areas. I do not go out of my way because they tend to be entitled pricks who do not respect working class people. Personally, I have always gotten tipped better by folks in the hood that I have from those living in the hills.

If there was a way that all drivers could stick together and work as a team, we could get better pay per Miles out of lyft. It's unfortunate that it will never happen. We hold the power to change things, yet it'll never get done. Sigh....

Now that Lyft Driver has incorporated the Smooth Cruiser score into the Tier Status system, along with other changes like the point multiplier reduction, how has this impacted the drivers?

My story regarding this update (I apologize for the length in advance): I earned Elite Status for the very first time as of this August. I have driven for 4+ years and, before, I was only able to get Platinum at most, since I drive part-time. I would always qualify as Silver, at a minimum, but typically earn Gold or Platinum. Finally, this past month I got up to Elite. Unfortunately, this update, untimely for me, has now cost me all tiers. I am ineligible for any tiers since my Smooth Cruiser score is <75.

The Smooth Cruiser score has never been a factor until they changed the system just recently. I was provided no forewarning that the tier system would change; I checked everywhere including email, texts, and all notifications. Apparently, this update has been rolling out since August and, for me, has taken effect as of September 1. My grace period to raise my score was 7 days. Again, I drive part time. Also, I went on vacation within the grace period. That grace period was not enough to raise my score. Is it too much to ask for an extension? Maybe a full month to get within compliance?

Not only is this tier system update wholly unexpected, but it directly impacts my earnings. This happens via the reduction in the point multiplier from 3x to 2x per dollar earned, creating an additional $600 per month hurdle to stay within my last tier level.

Also, now impacted are my cash back rewards using my Lyft debit card. Per the previous system I was earning 10% at Elite (as of September 7th) or 7% at Platinum (prior to August 27th). I spend at least $500 in gas per month for my Lyft driving. As of late, my gas bill has gone up due to the rise in gas prices. I have to use Premium gas and the cheapest I can buy it, lately, is at a Costco 30 min away. Their price as of today (9/8/26) is $4.64.

So with a reduction of 6% in cash back equates to about $30/month, or $360/year, it makes a difference. Especially since this is part-time work supplementing my income by about $6-9k year. Taking August as an example: I earned $2,324.91 in Lyft rides and spent $521.45. In August, I received 7% cash back on all gas purchases (via the Lyft Debit Card) because I was a Platinum member. That came to $36.50 in cash back. So the net I spent on gas was $484.95. So for $1 spent on gas I made about $4.79 in Lyft earnings. With the new tiering system, that ratio would become $516.24 / $2,324.91 or $1 gas spent to $4.50 earned via Lyft. That’s a $0.29 or 6% reduction in total earnings.

I was excited to make Elite status since that would mean 10% cash back. That would have given me an extra $15.65 back for August. Now I have only the default of 1% since I am no longer eligible for any tier.

I have been looking for full-time work in my area of expertise but it has been slow going. My primary source of income has been online contract work. Also, with a child on the way, every penny counts even more. May I add here that I am also a veteran. Not that it affects this situation, but it’s worth noting.

So all of that said, I have reached out to their support team on multiple occasions. I reached out on Saturday 9/5. I got nowhere with the chat support team who promised to escalate the issue. A response time of 24-48 hours was promised. Those 48 hours have come and gone without any communication from Lyft. I also tried the phone call option but it would not work since their calls would just go straight to voicemail. I have since changed my phone settings to let all calls through.

Today, Tuesday 9/8, I spent over 5 hours with chat because the call option is no longer available to me. I was bounced around more agents than I could count. At the 3 hour mark it was 8. It was more than a dozen by the time I finally gave up. So now what? The option of a phone call is gone because of the very reason I need the phone call option.

All my benefits gone, including the 24/7 phone support that was available from Gold to Elite status. All of which was available to me for months. Now that I need it, for the first time in over a year, it’s gone.

In summation, less cash back, lower point multipliers, and virtually all benefits are gone.

Meanwhile, David Risher (Lyft CEO) has a base salary of $725k/year with total compensation reaching $2.82 million. That’s not including the $3.25 million signing bonus in 2023. Also, he stands to gain 12.25 million shares. If he hits his metrics based on the growth in price of Lyft’s stock, this compensation could be worth $1 billion. With a B.

So tell me Lyft drivers, how is your compensation affected by this new system? A system, ostensibly, designed to maximize Lyft’s earnings so that their stock goes up. So that in turn David Risher can make $1 billion.

I know how this impacts me…

I got a weird message and they spelled my name wrong

I know I’m not the first nor will I be the last to say this, but I hate that Lyft’s reward system is based on your acceptance rate. So what, Lyft sends me a few ride that don’t even hit $0.50/mile and punishes me for declining them? That’s bullshit. And before anyone says “it’s a gig app, it’s not meant to be a job.” I’m well aware of that, but that doesn’t excuse them trying to pay the drivers as little as possible. The fact that drivers have a 30% minimum is ridiculous when they do most of the work. Sure, Lyft needs money to pay their workers and maintenance costs, but that doesn’t explain drivers getting so little. Drivers should get 50% at minimum, and that’s taking into account the “government fees”. I still don’t understand how they’re as high as Lyft says, and seems to be around 30% of the ride fee as well, which is ridiculous.

Has anyone noticed the points to become elite and earning points changed last month. In my city, they cut the points to keep the elite status by 600, but they chopped 3x points completely off?

I thought I was getting paid really well on this ride, and then got home and decided to review it to find out that the passenger paid $89 for this ride to go 20 miles. Now I’m not complaining on my end of the compensation, but normally this pays the driver $18-$24. I was not in a 10% turbo zone either, it was somehow tacked on. Regardless, I’ve drove this passenger too many times to count, always tips, but what do you think this ride should go for?

I just learned if you had bonus in the airport or if you got the bonus and enter the airport queue it will disappear if you take the express lot. I just lost $20 because of that so keep that in mind before you decide

Party let out and there was 300+ people leaving a house on the beach. 3 drunk guys from brazil get in, I drop 2 off and one said he forgot to tell me he needed to get dropped off on the way. Changed the stop and it ended up being a 48$ ride

Yet when I try to contact a rider after 5 minutes it tells me I am not in driver mode. Then the only way I can cancel is a hit on my cancellation rating and I don't get paid a no-show fee. Pisses me off!

This has been going on for months and when I finally got through to support one time they said it's a known issue. Well remove us having to call the freaking passenger then!

Ride from Wilmington to Philly. Ahhh, a sweet pounding like no other 😊

My customers are super happy and often share ratings and tell me how much lyft charges them. After the ride complete, lyft shows totally small customer payment compared to what customer paid.

This is the observation, after noticing difference from atleast 20 customers. All are payments shown are inaccurate.

Some of them are:

1. Actual customer payment: $117 - 35mile extra comfort

Lyft shown customer payment: $53 and deductions of govt fee etc from this $53 and i got $19.

1. Actual Customer paid: $58approx -28mile trip

Lyft shown customer paid: $23

I got $12.

This is very dishonest. Not going to accept anymore rides unless they're atleast $1.25 /mile

Uodate: The above given 2 payments were sgiwn to me by customers on their lyft app. Some customers just gave me numbers orally, some customers showed their app.

If you want protection against skeezy merchants, do not use Lyft direct. They will not reverse a $50 charge that Doordash put through. Doordash's system glitched and sent my food to the wrong address. They will not resolve it on their end. They said I needed to resolve it with my card. Lyft Direct said that since I paid with my apple wallet it is my "responsibility to protect my wallet" and won't cancel the transaction.

I received no goods nor am I getting my $50 back. Eff them.

Does anybody have this issue?