FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Lyft's Lack of Transparency
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Old Oct 18, 2017, 12:25 am
  #2  
diburning
 
Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: New England
Programs: American Gold, Marriott Gold, Hilton Silver
Posts: 5,617
[QUOTE=TWA884;28945465Am I supposed to order a ride without entering a destination address?[/quote]

You're not supposed to, but I think it may be allowed.

Between the time that I ordered the ride and the time that the driver showed up, I kept searching for the estimated cost, the only thing that I found was that there was a $5 charge for cancelling at that point (which brings to mind another Uber advantage, I have never been charged for canceling a ride with Uber).
Uber charges a cancellation fee if you cancel more than 2-3 minutes (down from 5 minutes before the change) after requesting. Lyft charges a $5 cancellation fee if you cancel more than 5 minutes after requesting.

How do I get the upfront pricing to display?
Select origin, and select destination, and make sure to select the type of service you want. I'm not sure if your case was a bug, but for me, it shows me the up front cost every time, and if tapped on the price, it would tell you whether it's Prime Time (Lyft's equivalent of surge).

What I can tell you is that if Lyft can't estimate the time it takes for the driver to get to you, sometimes it can't calculate an up-front cost (this tends to happen at airports where the staging area is off-site), although I've only seen this once (albeit also at LAX). The other thing I can tell you is that LAX is almost always in a perpetual Prime Time or Surge.

As far as transparency and quality of customer support goes, Lyft is thousands of times better than Uber.
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