Maybe lack of a tip button is in agreement with the plaintiffs. If uber collected tips there's no doubt they'd have to issue 1099's to the drivers. Of course they'd prefer cash only.

Lot's of reimbursement policies require receipts for any expense. Cash tips on top of receipted expenses are considered especially suspicious.

Not that I want to go further OT, but cash tips on top of receipted expenses are the norm in countries where the employee provided the service is all but guaranteed to not receive the tip from the employer ;)

Just thinking from the driver perspective (and not my own opinion about tipping), I would think they'd come out way ahead if the app had a tip button, even factoring in giving 30-40% back to the Man.

Cash? I'm never doing that. I'll roll the dice and hope the tit-for-tat thing with ratings never materializes in the real world.

App? I'll begrudgingly play ball, like I do with Lyft, and leave a tip.

In cities where Lyft and Uber are both strong, and where drivers often take rides via both services, my sense is that the drivers prefer Lyft. I've been on Uber rides where the driver has given me his Lyft referral code.

Don't disagree with your point. If Uber drivers expect tips, and the app doesn't have a tip option, then cash is the only answer. Cash tips may be a deterrent to those traveling on business due to expense report policies. Another post implied that business expense reimbursement policies always permit tips without a receipt and therefore this wouldn't be a concern if the tips were within reason. To that blanket statement I disagree.

Just like I avoid taxis that don't take CC, an Uber driver expecting a cash tip will be disappointed due to expense report policies of my clients.

Our expense policy accepts a paper taxi receipt. If I'm in a part of the world where cabs are commonly paid for with cash, I'd have no problem submitting a receipt including the tip amount.

But I don't think I'd submit a line item called "Uber receipts". That looks weird. There is no paper receipt. There's the standard Uber receipt that everyone is aware of by now. (I submit a screenshot of that.) I'd end up just not expensing the tips. It would drive me away from Uber on business trips, perhaps to Lyft or some other service.

I have gotten three 1 star ratings in the last week alone for not tipping an Uber driver because I don't have small change. No, I'm not going to tip the guy $5 for a $13 ride. Traveling internationally would make it even more of a hassle. Take UK for example, the primary reason I take Uber is so I don't have to find cash to pay the hackney cab drivers. Now if I have to find cash to tip the Uber driver it would be even more of a hassle (ATMs don't give out GBP2 coins at withdrawal.

Your rating is immaterial. There's no evidence anybody has a worse experience because of their rating.

In a regular low demand period probably not. During peak hours, drivers would probably cancel a request from a low rating rider. Just as we cancel low rating drivers. In their minds now, a low rating rider = non tipping rider.

If that were true, during peak hours there would be plenty of drivers and it would be easy to find a replacement.

As you waste precious minutes resubmitting requests, sometimes getting a driver who already rejected you previously.

Pax ratings matter.

How did you confirm that you were dinged for not tipping? And where were the rides?

I mostly use Uber for transit to/from the airport. I remember when drivers would get out and help with bags, have bottled water and/or mints available, be friendly, and not expect a tip. Now I get the opposite.

Going to go out on a limb and guess that danielchee didn't puke in the back seat of three separate Ubers. ;)

If the rider is waiting where he should be and completes the ride normally, why wouldn't he get five stars? The only reason...in this new world...would be because some drivers are expecting to be bribed for 5's.

You check your rating before and afer each ride

The rides were in NJ. I had a 5.0 before these 3 rides. Requested a driver rating from Uber and it shows less than 5.0, so I requested Uber to let me know what I did wrong. They told me I got low rating for being rude to the driver. How can I be rude when I was busy replying to emails throughout the trip? The phone was on silence, so there was no noise. Am I required now to entertain the driver? My routine has not changed in the last 3-4 years of riding Uber and the bad rating kicks in right after the lawsuit settlement.

Is your situation a hypothetical? Where's the evidence that pax ratings matter?

If a driver cancels on you the app finds you a different one IME, you're not wasting any time. The new driver may be even closer to you than the old driver.

If you can't get rides and you attribute that to your rating, create a new account. Everyone starts with 5 stars.

Ah... New Jersey. I hope you adjusted your driver ratings as appropriate.

Or a driver may not be available within 10-15 minutes of you... or already heading away from you on the freeway...

Ask any "experienced" Uber driver about pax ratings and acceptance rates... to earn bonuses, drivers can't outright reject requests and disqualify themselves from the bonus. Instead, they accept them (to keep up the acceptance rate) then cancel (no hit on acceptance rate). Couple that with many drivers saying they won't pick up under a certain rating (4.0 or 4.5 seem to be a popular threshold), and you start seeing the results. My ratings apparently haven't been a problem, but a couple of times, I've been on the wrong side of a surge area, so drivers have canceled on me (after accepting) in hopes of getting a surged fare instead.

Yes I did. Also passed their information to friends who take Uber all the time to avoid them.

If you're someplace where there could be no other drivers within 10-15 minutes, then Uber is not dependable transportation in that area, no matter what your rating is. You'd need a scheduled car service.

Cancellations are also monitored by Uber, whose research scientists have the upper hand over drivers playing games.

So in your advocacy of tipping, your foremost argument is that it is not prohibited. You understand that tipping Uber drivers is inconvenient by design and contravenes custom, yet you insist that non-tipping customers are hypocrites by way of imputing us (baselessly) as adherents of a philosophy that customers, not businesses, bear responsibility for the livelihood of their workers. You deride us as cheapskates -- that is your prerogative. I continue to believe there is nothing cheap about using a service in accordance with expectations and social norms.

If the day comes that tipping is customary on Uber, I will tip, regardless of how much my driver otherwise makes.

Moo says the cow in the herd. Unable to think for himself and help his fellow man earn a living.

The overwhelming majority on this thread say don't tip, don't tip, don't do it.
I say who cares what the norm is, help a brother out.

[Moderator edit to reflect since-deleted quote.]

I don't object to drivers making more money: I object to the off-platform side-bribe that is creeping into the system.

It's not up to me (the rider) to determine what an equitable wage for Uber drivers is. That's up to them, by whether or not they choose to open the app and make rides available. If we (the collective ridership) aren't paying enough, then they don't log in and surge pricing is needed to entice them. If Uber, the platform owner, is taking too big of a cut then that opens opportunity for Lyft or others to capture more drivers.

Let the system function as originally designed. The laws of economics will take over. The side-bribing isn't fair to anyone - the platform itself, riders, or the tax authorities.

Putting it in the app isn't an excuse: it's a recognition that if this scourge is forced to exist due to some court agreement, that it's done above-board and in the light.

Best post in the whole thread. Bravo ^

[Moderator edit to conform to deletion of original quote.]

1) I am more likely to tip if it were offered in the app. Uber doesn't offer it. Almost all taxis and ride share platforms (including Lyft) offer a way for customers to tip without cash. Uber is behind the times if they expect their customers to tip.

2) When I first began to ride Uber, I was under the impression that Uber rates were high enough to essentially make a driver whole without getting a tip. Uber has since slashed rates to ward off competition and to attract new customers in kind of a bait and switch play.

3) Uber has consistently marketed its service as being cheaper than a taxi. When I start tipping, it becomes as expensive or more than a taxi. Again, a bait and switch.

4) If Uber really wanted to help its drivers, it would reduce its own take rate on a fare and reallocate that money towards gratuities to drivers.

5) Tipping, and stereotypes about tipping, can lead to all sorts of discriminatory behavior on the parts of passengers and drivers based on all sorts of categories (race, sexual orientation, origin neighborhood, destination neighborhood, style of clothing, whatever). Uber as a service helped get rid of a lot of this. Introducing tipping, especially a cash only system, may reintroduce these biases.

This.

Why not let drivers set their own rate? Make it true dynamic pricing. In fact, i heard Uber be referred to as the eBay of transportation. Letting providers set their own rates would also go much farther to prove that independent contractors are that which uber says they are.

Sidecar was a rideshare offering that allowed drivers to set their own prices.

Keyword "was."

Why are you trying to equate the fact that Sidecar drivers set the prices (really, more like heavily influenced) to their demise as a rideshare platform? Do you have actual proof of this?

"Michael Jackson was a singer who could moonwalk.

Keyword 'was.'"

There is no causal claim in my post. The second sentence exists for emphasis.

That said, I'll now surmise a chain of causality based my experience with Sidecar. I found nearly all drivers asked for above-market rates, thus failed to attract customers and ultimately quit the service. I spent the summer of 2014 commuting in various U.S. cities exclusively via rideshare apps. I'd compare Uber, Lyft, and Sidecar, and always pick the cheapest option. I took over 100 trips, of which exactly 2 were through Sidecar.

Taken in a vacuum, my hypothesis would be that drivers would stop making cars available, and the surge pricing would kick in more often. I don't know if this actually happened or not...I seem to recall Uber flooding the market with coupons/promos for about a year, and I guess I assumed the drivers were still getting paid even if I rode for "free" thanks to a promo.

My hope is that a strong Lyft presence would help moderate the take rate of both platforms. Seems like in a lot of cities, Uber is the only game in town, so they can push the envelope on their cut vs. willingness of drivers to log in.

Completely agree. It was a great thing about Uber, and I imagine even better for people who have historically been discriminated against by taxis.

I've heard of Sidecar but never used it. I wonder if drivers were using it as a way to pick up lucrative rides during predictable Uber surge periods? Hence the high rates...

Anyway, it sounds like a more complicated platform for the rider...I have to look at the individual cars near me and click on their rates?? Uber and Lyft both are very easy-to-use apps.

Doesn't AirBnB allow hosts to set their own rates? and they can hike or lower their rates depending on the location, tourist season, special events.

https://help.uber.com/h/1be144ab-609...5-b9c7de5ec073

DO I NEED TO TIP MY DRIVER?

The Uber app cannot include a tip when billing you for a trip fare.

Where available as a vehicle option, uberTAXI is an exception. uberTAXI connects riders with licensed yellow cabs, and includes the option to set a gratuity percentage added to your trip fare.

Rule 1 when making an FAQ: actually answer the question being asked :cool:

Yes, and it works for that market because this isn't a jarring or unexpected user experience. We expect that hotels, B&B's, apartments, condos, etc. might have different sizes, amenities, locations, and prices. We're usually willing to invest a little time in looking at them. Thus we're willing to accept a well-designed search process with filters and such.

We aren't willing to do this for a bunch of nearly-identical rides while we're standing on a streetcorner hoping to locate said ride in the next 2-3 minutes. Uber/Lyft simply replace the on-demand point-to-point ride. It's a commodity. Gotta keep it simple...

If Sidecar still existed, I'd be more apt to use that kind of platform to book a private car for a period of hours. Then the analogy would make sense...finding someone to drive me around a foreign city for a day of sightseeing, for example. Or maybe, for a more simple domestic use case, a stretch limo ride to/from a special event. Then I'm willing to check out different makes/models of vehicles, additional amenities (drinks, snacks, etc.), and varying prices would be the norm.

So I traveled to/from LAS this past weekend for work. I have a company-issued VISA card, but they don't allow it to bill directly to Uber. In the past, I had just used my personal card and done an out-of-pocket to claim the charge on my expense report.

I used Uber from LAS to Vdara, then back Vdara to LAS. On both trips the drivers got out, loaded my bag into the back of their vehicle. When I was dropped off at LAS, the driver even took my bag to the nearest curb.

The trips weren't much, $11 and $10. But given that the drivers helped with bags, and were friendly I gave each $2. When I do my expense report, I'll just include the tips in with the charge, so it will look like $13 and $12. I don't need receipts if the charge is under $75.

Normally I don't carry small bills around with me, but last week while in the office (I work at a bank), I changed a $20 so I'd have some small bills for travel.

I park my car at an off-airport parking lot. The driver picks me up at my car, loads my bag into the bus, drops me off at the airport, puts my bag onto the curb. I tip him/her, so figured i should tip the Uber driver for doing the same.

Was I wrong to tip?

No you're welcome to tip the driver if you feel he provided value. I am not against tipping the driver if I have loose change and I feel he provided value on top of simply driving the car. I do however have an issue with drivers leaving bad ratings for riders who don't tip. Tips are supposed to be gratuity, not something that is expected as part of compensation for the ride. If the option to tip is in the app, I tend to put in a few dollars, but I will not purposely carry small change just to tip the driver. Don't like it? Drive for Lyft instead. Most already drive for both platforms, so suck it up and move to Lyft exclusively and leave Uber. No drivers = Uber being forced to change the way they do business. But no, these drivers prefer to take it out on the riders instead because it's easier.

I have started tipping drivers a couple of bucks on longer rides (15-20 minutes) if the ride was very good. Usually if the vehicle would have passed for a Select car/suv (had a caddy xts yesterday), sometimes if I happen to engage in a pleasant conversation.

I wouldn't have a problem if Uber allowed riders to select a default tip percentage for each type of service. I travel a lot internationally and I like not having to convert money as soon as I arrive at the airport. Since cell service can be spotty and occasionally expensive, I use Wi-Fi at the airport to book a car. Until I arrive at my hotel, I couldn't easily add a tip to my fare even if it was part of the app.

In NYC, for non-surge rides depending on travel speed without tipping Uber may be more or less than taxis. Uber might need to cut prices if tipping becomes the norm in NYC to remain competitive with taxis.

For rides from Westchester and Fairfield counties to NYC airports, at current rates and a 20% tip I don't see a compelling reason to take Uber instead of a car service. If there is no traffic and no surge pricing, I believe Uber will be less. If surge pricing is in effect or traffic is moving slowly, Uber may cost considerably more than a car service that offers a fixed rate. With a car service, I can select the time of pickup and I know what the ride will cost in advance. I don't have to worry about surge pricing, driver cancellations or traffic.

My guess is that Uber prices reflect what Uber believes is necessary to attract riders. If tipping becomes the norm, it is quite possible that prices will go down and drivers may not end up better off even if everyone tips generously. Some people check Uber instead of Lyft because they believe that Uber's all in price is cheaper than Lyft's and only check Lyft is surge pricing is in effect.