Lyft Rolls Out Paid Membership Discount Program

Lyft is rolling out Lyft Pink, a new membership plan for riders looking for discounts on car, bike and scooter rides, the ridesharing firm said in a blog post on Tuesday (Oct. 29).

The membership plan costs $19.99 a month and comes with a 15 percent discount on all car rides. It is intended for riders who use Lyft two to three times per week or more. The discount does not apply to bike or scooter rides but Lyft Pink members get three complimentary 30-minute bike or scooter rides per month in select markets.

Other perks offered with Lyft Pink include priority airport pickups, waived lost and found fees and a break on cancellations, with up to three cancellation fees covered each month. There will also be occasional seasonal discounts, premium mode discounts (e.g. Lux or XL) or partnership offers, Lyft’s website said. 

This new membership plan replaces Lyft’s year-old All-Access Plan, which gave customers up to 30 rides for $299 a month. Any customer who subscribed to All-Access will get an enrollment offer for the new membership service.

There is no official launch date for the new service, but Lyft started a wait list where users can sign up.   

In other recent news, Lyft said it would turn a profit by the end of 2021, one year earlier than expected. The company’s shares went up 9 percent on the news on last Tuesday (Oct. 22).

The company said it has been focusing more on profitable growth, rather than simply scaling for the sake of doing so. Lately, both Lyft and its ridesharing competitor Uber have been pulling back on rider and driver subsidies to stave off costs. 

“We’ve never laid out our path to profitability, and we know that’s a question on a lot of investors’ minds,” Logan Green, Lyft’s chief executive officer and co-founder, said at the time. “We’re going to be profitable on an adjusted EBIDTA basis a year before analysts expect us to. We’re going to hit this target in Q4 2021.”