What If You Didn’t Party On New Year’s Eve And Drove For Bolt (ex Taxify) Instead?

NOTE: If you were looking for a free-ride Bolt promo code then it’s DAVIS. Download Bolt and read more about getting your first ride FREE worth up to €10 here. 😁

Is New Year’s Eve made for one of the largest parties of the year? WRONG! It’s made for side-hustling at Bolt (previously – Taxify) because it’s the only night of the year when taxi fares literary skyrocket 🤑 Let’s find out how much money you’d made if you hadn’t partied on New Year’s Eve and drove for Bolt instead!

Renting a car

Previously I experimented with renting a CarGuru, which turned out to be very expensive… This time I searched cars at the peer to peer car rental Autolevi – and managed to secure a 2008 Toyota Prius Hybrid for €36/day (after applying a 10% bonus code you’ll find below). ✅

Skyrocketing fares 🤑

It was announced that due to astronomical taxi demand on New Year’s Eve the fares are going to be increased as follows:

€2.13 base fare + €0.71/km + €0.14/min
Minimum fare: €6

If normally a 10-minute 5-kilometer ride costs €3.81 (€0.71 + 5 x €0.36/km + 10 x €0.13/min), then with increased fares: €7.08 (~1.9 times higher).

However, at 2 AM the demand for taxis even with the increased fare was so unexpectedly astronomical that the dynamic ‘surge’ pricing unexpectedly kicked in and the fares increased even 5 times higher than normal!

With the ‘5x price’ the 10-minute 5-kilometer ride cost, waaaaait for it, €20.75 (~5.4 times higher than normal) 🤑

It sounded awesome until for a 19-minute 13-kilometer ride I had to charge a nice couple with a child €41.40…

Everybody was shocked by the fare and in the end, I just took a €20 bill for the ride. It turns out that I didn’t profit that much from the ride because I still had to pay the Bolt commission and taxes from the full fare (€41.40 for 19 minutes, damn!).

EDIT: Bolt representative contacted me and told that it’s possible to use the ‘Price Review‘ function in the Bolt driver’s app. It turns out that many drivers used the Price Review to re-calculate the fares, and saved themselves large commissions and taxes when then total fare was astronomical and they had to settle for less. 🤓

Here are the stats:

21 completed rides
8h 35min driving Time
232 km driven

€201.21 Revenue after Bolt commission (including tips) minus adjustment for the mentioned fare
– €31.91 Microenterprise Tax
– €36.00 Toyota Prius Hybrid rent
– €16.43 Fuel (the hybrid ate ~6 liters/100km – in the city!)
–  €1.00 Car wash

€115.87 Net Profit (€13.50/hour)

On top of that, I saved all the euros that I didn’t burn at New Year’s Eve parties (and my liver says thanks as well! 😋).

Would you like to try hustling at Bolt? Sign up to become a driver here. Suggested hustling hours: 6-10AM & 4-7PM on working days & Friday, Saturday nights (from 20.00).

In order to hustle at Bolt, you’ll need a comfortable car with 4 doors made in 2008 or earlier. If you don’t have one, try looking up at the peer to peer car rental Autolevi. Enter the bonus code Davis10% and get 10% off your first car rent!

Haven’t tried Bolt app yet? Then download the app, sign up, use the Bolt promo code DAVIS and get a free ride worth €7 now! Download link and instructions are here.

Do you have any questions or comments? Leave them below and I’ll reply!

Ping me:

Enjoyed the post? Share it with your friends!