On our trips to New Orleans and New York, we chose not to rent a car. We knew we’d be able to use public transport or get a ride to where we were going. In addition, car rental prices are insane.
We soon found out that prices for ride-sharing services have also gone through the roof. I always checked both Uber and Lyft and the latter almost always was less expensive. So we’ve been using Lyft for the majority of our rides, even scoring Lyft Black rides for just a few dollars more.
I was willing to grab an Uber, even if it was a little more expensive, because I have a $20 monthly AMEX credit. I’d rather use it for a ride I’m taking instead of ordering food I don’t need just to use the credit.
I finally found a ride where Uber was charging about the same. The first driver went back and forth for about 10 minutes before canceling the ride. We were assigned another driver who was 12 minutes away. We spent 25 minutes standing outside while the app went back and forth, saying the driver was 2 min away and 10 min away.
With Lyft, we never had to wait more than a few minutes for a ride.
It wasn’t until I got home that I remembered two other reasons I like using Lyft instead of Uber. With Lyft, you earn 3X Hilton Honors points per dollar spent and 10X Ultimate Rewards points when paying for the ride with a Sapphire Reserve. You can earn 1-2 Delta Skymiles per dollar instead of Hilton Honors points if you want.
I’ve managed to pick up some additional Hilton points over the last few months.
With Uber, there are no partners for earning miles and no special bonus for using your AMEX card, just the monthly credit.
I’m not going to pick Lyft over Uber because of the bonus miles. 550 Hilton Honors points aren’t going to get me very far. But if Lyft offers better prices and provides the same or better service than the competition, I have no reason to avoid them.
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5 comments
This is incorrect. You can earn 2x-6x Bonvoy points with most Uber rides/orders.
https://www.uber.com/us/en/u/marriott-bonvoy/
Thank you for the information.
I would like to enjoy the Chase benes with Lyft, but my problem has been the number of Lyft rides I have been left waiting for because the driver decided to pick up a more convenient fare instead. Lyft shows the driver your destination up front, so they can always abandon you on the way to pick you up. Uber doesn’t reveal the destination to the driver until you are picked up.
I’d had more Uber drivers cancel when they get to the location and then pull away and try to say you ended the ride. YMMV.
While I do find the Lyft experience to be better, this is unfortunately incorrect. You can double dip and earn 3x Marriott Bonvoy points as well as 1-3x (Per CAD not USD so earning rate is even better) Air Canada Aeroplan points. Every 10 rides on Uber gets you a $20 CAD credit on Air Canada as well. If you’re having trouble adding either to your account and not in Canada simply message support and they will enable it for you, quite a useful tool for building up Star Alliance and Bonvoy points.