Lyft Personal Plan Subscriptions Lock The Price For Regular Routes

Lyft has announced a new subscription called Personal Plan that enables frequent riders to lock in a specific price for a specific route. A rider who takes a car to work every morning, for example, can use the plan to make sure they're paying the same rate every morning, making it easier to budget for the transportation. There's one important catch, though.

Earlier this year, Lyft launchd its first subscription offering, something called All-Access that would enable customers to pay a flat fee to reserve a number of "free" rides, such a $49 USD to get a total of seven rides that would otherwise cost up to $15 USD. Personal Plan appears to be an evolution of these subscriptions, one targeted at customers who take the same route.

Taking the same route to the same location doesn't ordinarily guarantee that you'll pay the same rate. In the same way that Uber has surge pricing during times of heavy demand, Lyft has something calls Prime Time, which are times when drivers are busier than usual. Riders can expect to pay higher prices during these Prime Times, meaning a trip that cost $6 yesterday may cost $9 today.

The Personal Plan option changes that, locking in a flat trip rate that won't change even if the ride happens during Prime Time. The new subscription option is being offered to customers in the US; Lyft doesn't require the user to sign up for a certain minimum duration, meaning you can drop the plan whenever you want.

There's one catch, as mentioned, and it's that the locked-in rate can only be acquired for routes that would ordinarily cost less than $25 USD.

SOURCE: Engadget