How I’ve Failed to Make Use of My Lyft Pink Membership … But I’m About To Do Better!
I use Lyft to get around. In fact, I use it so much so that I decided to go ahead and sign up for their Lyft Pink membership. It’s saved me money over the past year or two on those Lyft rides. However, I just realized this week that I’ve failed to really make use of the benefits of the membership, I intend to remedy that now.
Why I Use Lyft
I have up my car when I moved to San Francisco 15+ years ago. Honestly, I love being car-free. This is a small city, geographically speaking. I can walk a lot of places. Moreover, between the bus and the BART, I can easily get around with public transportation. However, then Lyft came along. It was so affordable and so convenient that I started using it. At the time, shared rides were the best because you could get a really cheap ride if you were willing to detour a bit. During COVID, I didn’t want to deal with other public transportation. Therefore, Lyft became my default.
What is Lyft Pink?
Lyft Pink is a membership. You don’t have to pay anything to use the Lyft app to get rides. However, if you become a member, then you get a variety of discounts. You pay a monthly fee, however. So, you have to figure out if the benefits are worth the added cost.
The huge benefit is a 15% discount off of all rides. At the time that I signed up, I rode Lyft enough that just simply by signing up, I saved money at the end of the month. So, it was worth it. To be honest, I didn’t even pay that much attention to the other benefits.
Lyft is Getting Pricier
For better or worse, Lyft prices have gone up steadily over time. For one thing, they don’t offer shared rides during COVID. Therefore, I pay more per ride than I used to when I could share the ride. I really hope they bring that service back soon. Of course, more importantly, there’s a lot of controversy and new laws and issues around the gig economy and fair wages for the drivers, etc. So, of course, I can understand that’s affected the prices. However, with prices going up, I have to really think a lot about whether or not Lyft continues to make financial sense for me.
Will I Regret The Annual Membership?
I’ve always paid monthly for my Lyft Pink membership. Moreover, I’ve paused it during months when I knew I wouldn’t travel much. However, an option popped up this week to pay an annual fee instead. You save $40 as compared to if you made 12 monthly payments throughout the year. Therefore, in an effort to save money, I signed up.
However, that took over $200 out of my pocket today. I could have used that for other things. Moreover, with all of the changes happening, I’m not even sure I’ll use Lyft as much as before for another year. So I’m wondering if that’s a money mistake that I’m going to end up regretting?
Other Benefits of Lyft Membership I’ve Missed Out On
One way that the price would be worth it would be if I took advantage of all of the other perks of Lyft Pink membership. I recently realized that I could set up a free GrubHub account as part of my Lyft Pink membership. I’ve wasted so much money this year simply by not knowing that. Honestly, I had deleted my Postmates app because I was ordering too much delivery. However, there’s on particular Ramen place I always love to order from. So, without the app, I’ve ordered from GrubHub for that. And I’ve paid a ton of fees. Fees I could have avoided if I’d only know that my GrubHub account was free with my Lyft Pink membership. At least now I’ve fixed that one!
Lyft Pink often offers a deal where you can link certain credit cards to the account. When you pay for a certain number of rides with that card, you get a discount. I’ve done that in the past and enjoyed the deal. However, they don’t currently offer it for any of the credit cards that I have. So I’m missing out on that. Is it worth applying for a new card to get that discount?
Other Perks of Lyft Pink Membership
- Free and discounted Lyft bike / ebike rides, which I’ve never used. To be honest, I don’t even know how to ride a bike.
- Free and discounted Lyft scooter rides. You guessed it, I’ve never tried those either.
- Car rental upgrades when renting from SIXT. Unfortunately, I don’t use that service to rent cars. (I prefer Kyte, personally.)
- Priority airport pickups. I don’t know how this one works, but it doesn’t seem like it’s automatic. After all, I waited nearly an hour for my last airport pickup to arrive. Everyone around me got their rides first. Frustrating but I do want to figure out how to activate / use this one.
- Waived lost and found fees. I’ve never had to use this one.
They do also, however, waive three canceled rides per month. I have taken advantage of that one.
In summary, I’m going to keep trying to maximize my Lyft Pink perks and rewards in order to make the most of this year long membership I’ve just signed. Then, when it’s up, I’m going to do a deep dive review to determine whether or not this membership is really worth it.
What do you all think? Is a Lyft Pink membership worth the cost? Do you use the perks?
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