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My 300 Mile Lyft Ride From Chicago to Bradford

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Re: My 300 Mile Lyft Ride From Chicago to Bradford

#41

Post by kelnos »

umeshunni wrote: post #4
sharadov wrote: post #2

What a great story? I always ask Lyft/Uber drivers about interesting stories. One told me how he picked up 3 girls outside of a fancy condo in LA and drove them to Vegas which is about 300 miles and a 5 hr ride. Turns out the girls were drunk and the condo guy had called for a ride to take them home, And they decided they rather go to Vegas to continue the party ;-)

Wouldn't the person who called the Lyft be the one entering the destination?

This may have been in the days before you were required to enter the destination up front and could just tell the driver when you got in the car.

Re: My 300 Mile Lyft Ride From Chicago to Bradford

#42

Post by envy2 »

This is a fun story—but he should've just booked a round-trip rental car, and dropped it off in Dayton anyway. I've done this a bunch of times, and all they'll do is charge you the one-way rate and grumble a bit...

Better to ask forgiveness than permission.

Re: My 300 Mile Lyft Ride From Chicago to Bradford

#43

Post by matz1 »

khrbrt wrote: post #24

This is why we need a train system with funding parity to the highway and airport systems. There should be trains leaving constantly, at most every 10 minutes, from Chicago to the east, and frequent, semihourly, trains between neighboring cities along the way. Even if the author could rent a car, having to drive 300 miles is astounding waste of time and mental energy.

In a few years self driving car will save us.

Re: My 300 Mile Lyft Ride From Chicago to Bradford

#44

Post by ska »

sokoloff wrote: post #28
bryanlarsen wrote: post #19

Since the driver would have had to dead head back to Chicago, if his expenses were a not unreasonable 0.50 cents per mile, the only profit the driver made was the tip.

Variable expenses on a car you already own are nowhere near $0.50/mile. (The GSA/IRS figure includes apportioned fixed costs, which do not fully apply here, IMO.)

$.50 is already lower than the IRS rate ($.58 this year).

It may be a little conservative, but it's not crazy. You absolutely should be computing TCO of the vehicle and amortizing that if you are driving for a service like Lyft. What fixed costs do you think don't fully apply?

Re: My 300 Mile Lyft Ride From Chicago to Bradford

#45

Post by crooked-v »

gregkerzhner wrote: post #25
bryanlarsen wrote: post #19

Since the driver would have had to dead head back to Chicago, if his expenses were a not unreasonable 0.50 cents per mile, the only profit the driver made was the tip.

If the driver drove 600 miles and his car got 25 miles to the gallon, at $3 a gallon his gas expenses would have only been $72. Of course there are other costs (maintenance, depreciation), but those also exists if you are just driving your car around town, and I think Uber / Lift's whole business model is based on the driver not really taking them into account. If the tip was $100, the driver would have walked away w…

$0.58 per mile is the standard IRS deduction for business use of a car, meant to fully encompass gas, maintenance, etc., which would suggest a total expected cost of about $348 if you include more than just gas.

Re: My 300 Mile Lyft Ride From Chicago to Bradford

#46

Post by gerdesj »

acemarke wrote: post #5
exabrial wrote: post #3

I was hoping I'd get to know the total in case this ever happens to me!

> Turns out it would cost about $330. Which, as it happens, was only a little bit more than what it would have cost for that one-way rental that Hertz wasn’t going to give me even though they had the car. > When I got home I tipped him hugely So, figure maybe $375-400?

On the bright side he didn't end up in Bradford (Yorkshire, UK) That might cost a bit more.

Re: My 300 Mile Lyft Ride From Chicago to Bradford

#47

Post by t34543 »

sokoloff wrote: post #33
kevin_b_er wrote: post #6

The utter inability to get a one-way rental is quite obnoxious. Also the bit about how he was able to reserve a car, but he wasn't a charter flight. Hertz's utter incompetence on the phone was striking as well from some sort of bizarro catch-22 world.

This doesn't make any sense. When I reserve a rental car at Signature or any other FBO, I may or may not give my tail number, but I'm pretty sure that no one has ever checked. I could have arrived in the front door and rented the car. (No one does this, because the cars are more expensive rented this way than from a typical rental desk as the FBO takes a cut and sometimes the airport adds a cut as well.) This sounds…

Is this current knowledge? I used to pick up one way rental cars from the airport but the last few times I tried ~5 years ago the clerk wanted a flight number. I didn’t bother to lie.

Re: My 300 Mile Lyft Ride From Chicago to Bradford

#48

Post by jedberg »

logfromblammo wrote: post #21

An interesting solution, but I probably would have tried a Penske box truck first. I wouldn't entirely trust a U-Haul to make it the full 300 miles without some kind of a mechanical problem, even when the box is empty except for my suitcase and carry-on. Moving truck rentals are better set-up to do one-way trips than the airport car rentals. Also, you won't get the airport surcharge. Might be a little more expensive…

I see someone else has watched "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles".

Re: My 300 Mile Lyft Ride From Chicago to Bradford

#49

Post by adamson »

morganvachon wrote: post #23
jandrese wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like normal this-world Hertz incompetence to me. The best and brightest people do not sign up to stand behind a booth at a car rental agency.

> The best and brightest people do not sign up to stand behind a booth at a car rental agency. According to the article, the guy behind the counter at Hertz agreed with the author about their insane charter flight policy, and tried to help him fix the situation, but was powerless. The red tape was all above his head and much of the confusion/frustration was on the phone with customer support.

If anything, the "best and brightest" folks in Hertz management who drafted the policies that both the phone assistant and the person behind the counter had to try to navigate (and who both acknowledged the policies they were struggling against were dumb) are the ones who failed big time here, not the every men that GP is insulting.

Re: My 300 Mile Lyft Ride From Chicago to Bradford

#50

Post by dhd415 »

I did the same thing recently when a flight home from a weekend trip was diverted due to weather to an airport 150 miles away. All the rental cars were taken, of course. The next flight out was 8-10 hours away, I was dead tired and had important work obligations coming up. I made sure the Lyft driver knew what I was asking. He phoned his wife to tell her he'd be late getting off his usual shift and off we went. It's certainly not something I'd do often, but I'm glad it was an option then.

As a related aside, I have a friend who frequently takes Uber/Lyft for trips from the CT suburbs to Boston since it often beats flying and the Acela train on both cost and time, especially if he's traveling with family members.

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