For the first time in the Lyft’s ride share history, they’ve worked out a subscription plan, $450 worth of rides for just $299.
If you frequently use Lyft or just want to drop your car altogether, this all-in-one monthly subscription plan may appeal to you. As per Lyft in an official blog post they put out earlier this week (Oct. 19,2018) simply put, for $300 a month you get one daily Lyft ride up to $15 in value. If you happen to use more than one ride per day or go over $15, you pay for those additional rides as you would normally with a five percent discount and you pay the difference over $15.
Lyft is quick to point out that, on average, as per a recent AAA study, based on the monthly ownership fees of a regular car, there’s a potential 59 percent savings per month to be had. AAA found, that on average, new car owners spend about $8,849 annually, which works out to around $560 a month. That includes fuel, maintenance, repairs, insurance, license/registration taxes, depreciation and loan interest.
Then again, based on how you can use this subscription plan, it’s not like the average car owners only goes on one trip a day with an average trip length of around 3-4 miles. A bit of a stretch for Lyft to even compare the benefits of a Lyft ride once a day compared to the freedom of driving when you want.
Lyft does have a point that, with this subscription plan, you don’t have to pay for car necessities like fuel, maintenance, repairs etc. which can add up.
Since this is literally the first plan of its kind, I reckon Lyft is treating this subscription service as a test run just to see how well it’s received and, more importantly, how profitable it can be.
Rest assured they fully expect for people with this subscription plan to not use all its services to its full potential. There will be some days where a plain ol’ walk will suffice or you get a ride from a friend with an actual car.
I also imagine, in the near future, cheaper packages for fewer rides will be available to further scoop up customers who aren’t willing to pay that much up front.
Overall, I think it’s a decent experiment worth trying out and may be commonplace in the future.
