Lyft discounts its monthly Pink ride-share subscription with annual pass

Lyft's monthly subscription service, Lyft Pink, which offers discounted ride-shares, electric (and pedal-powered) bike and scooter rentals, and even food delivery, is now available as a yearly pass.

Called Lyft Pink Annual, the $199 annual pass knocks $40 off the cost of 12 months of the $19.99-per-month option. Lyft Pink first launched in 2019.

Aside from the savings, the yearly pass adds unlimited free traditional bike rentals — as long as they're 45 minutes or less — discounted e-bike prices, and waves the unlocking fees for e-bikes. The monthly Lyft Pink membership only includes three 30-minute traditional bicycle rides each month.

Discounts on e-bikes vary from city to city on each pass, but mostly range from 25 to 33 percent off the per-minute rate. For example, in New York City, Citi Bike electric rentals accessed via Lyft are discounted to $0.12 per minute — down from $0.18 per minute — with no fee to unlock the bike.

Otherwise, the annual subscription is the same as the monthly version:

• 15 percent off all ride-share trips

• Free or discounted scooter rides (where Lyft scooters are available, which is only Denver; Los Angeles; San Diego; Minneapolis; Miami; and Washington, D.C.)

• Free food delivery through an included Grubhub+ or Seamless+ membership (worth $9.99/month)

• Free upgrades when booking Sixt car rentals on the Lyft app

• Priority airport pickups

• Waived cancellation fees three times per month if you rebook a trip within 15 minutes of canceling

• Waived lost item fees for anything left in car (it's usually $15 for the driver to return your forgotten item)

Lyft's main competitor, Uber, offers two monthly memberships. One is Uber Pass, which provides discounted rides, along with food and grocery delivery discounts for $24.99 per month, and the other is Uber Eats Pass, which gets you unlimited free food delivery for $9.99 per month.

The expansion of the Lyft subscription pass comes just after an unexpectedly promising earnings report from the past three months. As more people return to IRL activities, Lyft rides are coming back after use of the service waned during the pandemic. There were 3.6 million more riders on the Lyft app last quarter than there were at the beginning of the year, according to CNBC.