Just because you’re a rideshare passenger doesn’t necessarily mean your driver knows where they’re going.
That’s how my family got an unplanned sightseeing trip of some San Francisco landmarks this past Sunday night.
A Bay Bridge Detour
My family spent this past weekend enjoying a fantastic visit to Walnut Creek, California. We visited family we hadn’t seen since before the COVID-19 pandemic.
If you’re not familiar with Walnut Creek, it’s about 17 miles northeast of Oakland.
Oakland is the closest major-ish airport to Walnut Creek. We opted to take Southwest this trip because it offered the best flight selection from our home airport (Hollywood Burbank/BUR).
We left for the airport around dinnertime Sunday. I ordered us a Lyft for several reasons:
- I already burned through July’s Uber Cash deposits from The Platinum Card® from American Express and American Express® Gold Card
- The Lyft Pink subscription that comes with my Chase Sapphire Reserve® card gives me a 15% discount on rides
- The Chase Sapphire Reserve® awards 10X on Lyft purchases (through March 2022)
- I earn bonus Delta SkyMiles on Lyft airport rides
I specifically selected Oakland International Airport and Southwest Airlines on the Lyft app.
Our driver — whom we’ll call “Bob” (not his real name) — picked us up at my brother- and sister-in-law’s house. He asked where we were traveling. We said Los Angeles. His reply? “Oh, I’m sorry,” before a hearty chuckle. (We get that a lot when we visit the Bay Area.) Then he said something like, “Where’d you rather go? LAX or SFO?” Another chuckle for whatever that punchline was all about.
“Just Oakland, please,” I said.
(Bob was actually a pretty decent conversationalist after that.)
My wife and daughter spent most of the ride playing games on a tablet. I was busy on my phone, monitoring our flight and catching up on baseball scores. I glanced up every so often to see where we were and gaze at some of the sights.
A few minutes later, we slowed for a toll booth. That’s weird, I thought. We’ve never taken a toll booth going to OAK. Only when crossing the — oh, no! We’re going into the city!
Yep. We were starting to cross the Bay Bridge. At 7:00 PM on a Sunday night. Just like thousands of other people were.
“Bob, are you going to SFO?” I asked.
“Yeah. That’s where you’re going, isn’t it?” (Maybe he had his weird LAX-SFO joke on the brain.)
“No. Oakland!” I said.
Traffic was at a standstill (fantastic!) so he had a minute to check his dash-mounted phone.
“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry,” he said. “I’ve never done this.”
We eventually crawled to a mid-point known as Treasure Island and were able to turn around. (Spoiler alert: this Treasure Island doesn’t have any gold or pirates. Lame.)
Bob decided to play tour guide, apparently thinking that would make things better.
“So that’s Alcatraz over there,” he said, pointing out the infamous island of incarceration.
“Oh, yeah!” my wife said in a light voice, trying to lighten the mood. I pointed out downtown San Francisco and “all the tall buildings” to our daughter.
We eventually got to Oakland. Bob apologized up and down. We made our flight (largely because it was delayed by Southwest mechanical problems…) and got home several hours later.
Bob said he’d email Lyft to get a price adjustment. I submitted a claim to Lyft and will see how it plays out.
Why Didn’t Bob Just Follow the Navigation?
I wonder the same thing.
Had Bob followed the Lyft app’s navigation instead of doing his own thing, this entire problem would’ve been avoided. He’d have earned five stars and gotten a tip. He received neither.
Why — and How — to Pay Attention
First of all, it’s easy to get distracted during car rides — especially by electronics. We’ve all been there.
So first things first: look up from your devices every now and then. Pay attention to where you’re going.
Next: When you’re not familiar with a city, follow along on a navigation app separate from your rideshare app. For example, open Google Maps on your mobile phone Punch in your destination and track your ride. See if your rideshare driver is taking a good route — or even headed in the right direction. (Looking at you, Bob.)
Between business and family trips, I’ve been to the Bay Area about two dozen times in the past 15 years. So I have a general idea of where things are. But if I were a stranger to the city and didn’t know my way around, we could’ve easily ended up at SFO.
Final Approach
Your rideshare driver may forget your destination or not know where they’re going — despite having all that information almost literally at their fingertips. Even though it’s easy to get distracted and zone out when someone else is driving, it’s important to pay attention during rides — so you end up at the correct destination.
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We had something similar in LA, we dropped of the car at the Hertz location near LAX and then used Lyft to take us to the hotel. He picked us up and I thought the route was a little strange and sure enough about 5 mins later he said “here you go” – in front of the Hertz location. After a brief moment of embarrassment, he got us to our hotel.
We recently had a similar situation happen in Mexico with Uber. We were going from our hotel to a clinic for a Covid test. I normally watch the route map in the Uber or Lyft app as we drive and he didn’t turn where indicated. Looking at the map there was a different way in and I gave him the benefit of the doubt that maybe the second entrance was easier. When he missed that turn as well I mentioned the clinic name to him. He looked at his phone and apologized. He was taking us to a larger hospital instead of the clinic out of habit. He immediately ended the ride in his app so we wouldn’t get charged more and turned around to take us to the correct destination. In the end it was only a slight delay and he accepted his mistake. We still arrived on time for our appointment. I always pay attention to the drive in these apps.
Had that recently via cab after our trip to Key West where a certain airline dumped us off in Atlanta at 11:30 PM vs Jax!! WE booked a room at the AC Marriott and gave the cab driver the name and address(showed it to him via phone reservation also).We go t out of the cab and go to Lobby to find it is a regular large Marriott with No rooms available. We then had to walk to the AC down the street and around the corner. We went the back way with no road just a dirt large pathway. Not fun at Midnight.. Then to get up at 4am to get seats for the next flight!! a long evening was had by all. One interesting thing was that a Fancy Jag electric car was available in the almost middle of the night to take us to the train to get back to the airport!!
About 4 years ago, the wife and I went to Cuba for a few days. We flew into Havana and took a taxi to our Air BnB in the middle of “Old Havana”. I had prepared a written note for the driver with the address on it and all went well; no problems. The day before our departure, the landlord contacted me to ensure our early morning flight was still on schedule for the next day. I confirmed that it was and he asked how we would get to the airport. I replied that we would simply get a taxi. He had a better idea. He said he had a cousin or nephew of sorts who would be happy to bring us to the airport in his car and would only charge about half what a taxi does. I pushed aside my bit of concern and agreed. The next morning, the landlord arrived right on time in his circa 1957 DeSoto. (No, not some fully restored classic as one might envision but an old car that truly showed its 60 years of age.) A few minutes later, our ride arrived. It was a small, sub-compact, Soviet era relic which appeared to have escaped from a Cuban junk yard! Oh well, let’s just go. Now my Spanish is pretty iffy at beast but he understood we were flying back to the USA. So, we were off to the airport. He dropped us off at the airport, near some sort of boarding platform but something didn’t look quite right. There were a number of people standing there with briefcases and such but no entry to the building. I found a fellow who spoke very good English, told him where we were going and he then informed us that the International Terminal was on the other side of the airport! And no, it’s not walkable! E-Gads! Fortunately, there were many taxis dropping folks off there, so we simply hailed one and asked to be brought to “el Terminal Internacional”. He smirked just a bit and shook his head in the affirmative. About 5 minutes and 5 (American) dollars later, we arrived at “International Departures”. Hooray! Fortunately, we still made our flight to Miami with time to spare. On more reason to plan to arrive early for your flight!