Mornin’! Readers of this blog (all three of them — thanks, Mom!) know that I’ve been driving for Uber on the side during the slow season. As a driver, I get to pass out my promo code for new riders, so, here you go!
When you sign up with Uber, use promo code CWO65. Your first ride will be free up to $20. It can be used anywhere in the country.
This is especially handy in the holiday season. Trust me — riders don’t care if you’re carrying a fruitcake (unless he’s drunk — heyo!) And $20 can actually take you pretty far, at least around here in the Beltway. Since I stick to the morning hours, I do a lot of across-the-river hops, or a lot of trips to the gym or something. One of the longest rides I gave was from DC to Dulles, and that was about a $50 fare. Those are (unfortunately for this driver) fairly rare, but it illustrates how far you have to go to start racking up insane fares.
Full disclosure — yes, I get $5 or something for everyone who uses my promo code. I’m not going to retire on this, but it’s nice to have a passive residual source of income.
A word on the Uber experience: I was skeptical at first, at least as a driver. I knew right away that the stories about people making $100,000 per year were likely extremely rare, or those guys were driving 15 hours per day. My experience has borne that out. But I quiz every rider about their Uber experience. Except for a few marginally “bad” experiences — such as the driver having no idea where he was going WHILE his GPS was not much better — none of my riders had anything really bad to report. On the contrary, people love the service. Seriously — there are few middle-of-the-road reports. People love it because the drivers are (kind of) running their own businesses. At least part of their livelihood depends on the star system. Once they fall below a certain threshold, they’re off the system until they pass a course they have to pay for.
Needless to say, drivers are seriously motivated to provide the best damn transportation service anywhere (a core principle of My Truck Buddy, too!) With UberX, they’re driving their own vehicles, which are well-maintained and clean.
So check it out. Use the service to go downtown on a weekend. Ever try to find parking near the Smithsonians? I don’t recommend it. If I didn’t have ten kids or whatever, I’d never drive into the city again.
Cheers,
C.