Are Scheduled Early AM pickup bu Uber or Lyft guaranteed?

No, there is no guarantee.

However you are much better off scheduling the ride with Lyft  vs. Uber. Here is why:

When you schedule a ride with Lyft (as long or as little time in advance), Lyft immediately publishes all scheduled rides on what I call a virtual job board (basically a separate section of the driver application).

The ride is displayed on phones of all drivers who happen to be within approximately 10 mile radius of the pick up location and are looking at that section of the driver app.

Rides that offer better payout are snapped up by drivers in seconds after they come out, These drivers will be happy to wake up early and be there to pick you up on time. vs a ride in my example where all I would make is $4.00 - $5.00 (I am not even going to scoop up this ride as I have to be on line long time before they send me that ride as you will learn further down, that it makes absolutely no sense fo ra driver to add such a ride to their que.

The scheduled rides screen (on driver app)…

Read more...

No, there is no guarantee.

However you are much better off scheduling the ride with Lyft  vs. Uber. Here is why:

When you schedule a ride with Lyft (as long or as little time in advance), Lyft immediately publishes all scheduled rides on what I call a virtual job board (basically a separate section of the driver application).

The ride is displayed on phones of all drivers who happen to be within approximately 10 mile radius of the pick up location and are looking at that section of the driver app.

Rides that offer better payout are snapped up by drivers in seconds after they come out, These drivers will be happy to wake up early and be there to pick you up on time. vs a ride in my example where all I would make is $4.00 - $5.00 (I am not even going to scoop up this ride as I have to be on line long time before they send me that ride as you will learn further down, that it makes absolutely no sense fo ra driver to add such a ride to their que.

The scheduled rides screen (on driver app) looks like the one I posted below. It shows Date and time of pick up, Approximate pick up location; Drop off location; estimated earnings. If a driver likes what he sees, they will click the "View Details" and then "Confirm Pickup" button and will be told if the ride is still available (as while the driver was contemplating whether to add the ride to their que or not, some other driver could have grabbed it and by time original driver gets around to clicking the Confirm pickup button the ride is history, lol). At this moment the driver whoever got to it first will be able to add it to their virtual que, where it will tell the driver what time the driver has to be on line to get the ride pushed to them. Typically driver has to be on line 30 - 10 minutes before scheduled pick up time (to give driver time to get to the pick up location in time. Passenger is given a 15 minute window for the pick up).

Once the driver in on-line at specified time the scheduled ride is pushed to that driver with a banner "Your scheduled ride" so we know it is that very ride and not some other request.

Drivers: If you scooped up that lucrative $80.00 ride originating in say NJ, and you are on time at specified time, say only 5 minutes away but on the PA side of the border, you are not going to get that ride sent to you, get yourself over the border into pick up state and magic happens, you will get that ride even as soon as you are in the middle of the bridge between the two states. That is what I noticed in my market, may be similar in yours. If you remain on wrong side of the border, Lyft will bombard you with text messages saying "Go on line, accept your scheduled ride..." You will be sitting there and saying to yourself, "I am on line where is the damn ride", well you are on the wrong side of the river :)

In my below example most likely the driver would be told to be on-line and ready to receive this ride request sometime between 11:20 am - 11:40 am. Note: that as a passenger (in below example) your pick up window will be displayed on your phone as 11:50 am - 12:05 pm (so by having driver be on line at 11:20 am) Lyft gets themselves almost 45 minutes to try to find you another driver if the original driver is not on line or is in the middle of another ride, removed the ride from their que, etc.

This way if your ride is a far one (the driver who is scooping it up from the job board knows ahead of time where he will be taking you). 

If you do not schedule in advance and just try to request a car 30 minutes prior to your needed pick up, your ride request will go to closest available driver with a banner 45 Minute plus (this banner typically shows up on rides that are about 40 minutes in duration and on. Available driver who decides to accept your request still does not know your destination (only that a ride is potentially long), now that driver gets to you within 10 minutes, realizes you need a ride from PA to JFK and politely tells you , sorry I do not go to NY. Now you have to start from scratch requesting another driver, and will certainly be late. So if you are forced to request a long ride without scheduling it (call the driver immediately after they accept to ask if he will take you where you need to go, in order to save the 15 minute wait time to learn that the driver will not take you there after all). Remember drivers who are using a registration city other than your destination may end up outside of their market and not be permitted to pick up another passenger until they get out of that zone. PA and NJ drivers are not allowed to pick up passengers in NY, so you can see why some drivers will not want to take you to JFK as then they have to backtrack all the way to NJ on their own dime and that ride can be an hour long if they are backtracking via Manhattan trying to avoid (Verazzano bridge tolls) as that toll will not be reimbursable

I remember getting the scheduled ride (that I added to my que in advance) be pushed to me while I was still 27 miles away, which made me late to get the passenger by 10  minutes, but because Lyft could not find any other driver closer they did not remove the ride from my que and still sent it my way.

As a passenger you should know that once the driver shows up to pick you up within your pick up time window, they are only mandated to wait for you for 5 minutes before cancelling.

So in my above example if you r pick up time is 11:50 am and driver gets there at 11:50, by 11:55 am he can mark you No Show, collect his $10.00 and move on. Thus, do not assume that because your pick up window is 11:50 am to 12:05 pm that driver must wait for you for the entire 15 minute window. Most drivers will try to call you to see what's going on before cancelling (I actually even think we must attempt to call the passenger on a scheduled ride first before cancelling). The reason we do not want to cancel is we invested all this time to get to you on time and all we are making is the $10.00 cancellation fee. Basically form 11:20 (the time we had to go on line) until 11:55 am (( your scheduled pick up time + 5 minute wait time) we were not able to perform any other rides, and now also have to back track to some area on our own dime for another 10 - 30 minutes while waiting for some other fare (so be considerate of that). However, if the area where your pick up was to occur is pretty remote and driver is there, and sees light in your house is on, thus assuming you are indeed going to eventually come out, and you are not picking up the phone, a driver will cancel after 5 minutes to get the $10.00 fee and drive off about a block, knowing that passenger will frantically start requesting a Lyft ride immediately after realizing the driver cancelled despite seeing the driver  was just sitting out front just 5 minutes ago. Passenger still needs to go where they need to go:). Guess what that is going to get your request now, yep the very driver who just got $10.00 cancellation fee will happily accept :) as that driver is the closest available driver.

While a passenger can also schedule a ride on Uber, drivers have no prior visibility as to where, how much they will make, etc ahead of time. Uber just sends the request out like any other request to the closest driver and hopes they accept. 

Morale of the story is, anytime you need a long ride try to schedule it ahead of time, even if you schedule a pick up for 30 minutes form your needed pick up on the same day, you are eliminating the issue of having the driver show up and tell you "Sorry I am not going there" :)

Read less...