CaBi Launches Bike Angel Program

[Judd]

@peterw_diy 180782 wrote:

To continue my griping, when they write that “24-Hour passes and membership extensions will be emailed as soon as they’re earned.”, apparently they don’t mean when you earn that 10th point, nor even when the month closes – it’s the 5th of the month and I’ve received no email about my reward.

Strange I got the 24 hour pass e-mail within minutes of earning my tenth point last month. I’ve had mostly great customer service experiences and one meh experience.

[Judd]

@Judd 180784 wrote:

Strange I got the 24 hour pass e-mail within minutes of earning my tenth point last month. I’ve had mostly great customer service experiences and one meh experience.

Also I’ve read a few other stories about great service by phone.

[peterw_diy]

@Judd 180784 wrote:

Strange I got the 24 hour pass e-mail within minutes of earning my tenth point last month. I’ve had mostly great customer service experiences and one meh experience.

Thanks for letting me know. So it seems I just keep encountering software flaws. When I hit my 10th point (after 3+3=4) I got the expected app notification telling me I’d hit 10 for August & 10 lifetime, but that was all. ☹️

[dbehrend]

@peterw_diy 180787 wrote:

Thanks for letting me know. So it seems I just keep encountering software flaws. When I hit my 10th point (after 3+3=4) I got the expected app notification telling me I’d hit 10 for August & 10 lifetime, but that was all. ☹️

Even when I’ve refreshed the app immediately before taking out or docking a bike, I’ve experienced several occasions where I earn fewer points than what the app showed. I chalked it up to there being some sort of lag between the app and traffic at the docking stations. Since the points are an added bonus for my ordinary use of CaBi, the discrepancies haven’t bothered me too much.

[peterw_diy]

@dbehrend 180990 wrote:

Even when I’ve refreshed the app immediately before taking out or docking a bike, I’ve experienced several occasions where I earn fewer points than what the app showed. I chalked it up to there being some sort of lag between the app and traffic at the docking stations.

https://help.capitalbikeshare.com/hc/en-us/articles/360010827591-Earning-points says

Quote:

Station points “freeze” when you start your trip, so the points you’ll earn will not change mid-trip. Even if the scores you see displayed change while you’re mid-trip, you will earn the points that were available when your trip began.

But yeah, clearly my experience also is that it doesn’t work as advertised.

[peterw_diy]

Wow, CaBi online support is so bad, it’s like they’re trying to be awful.

Having heard no response two weeks after emailing “customerservice@bluebikes.com” as directed by CaBi’s initial response, I tried the online support form again. This time, after merely two days, in addition to the same sort of boilerplate response that didn’t address my questions, CaBi directed me to email “bikeangels@capitalbikeshare.com”. This time I didn’t need to wait two weeks for confirmation that sending the email was pointless — I got an immediate response from CaBi’s email provider that the email address “bikeangels@capitalbikeshare.com” isn’t valid. 👍

My greener side is still interested in helping rebalance, to make CaBi a more appealing alternative to autos. But that desire is outweighed by my growing animosity towards CaBi.

[secstate]

@peterw_diy 181196 wrote:

My greener side is still interested in helping rebalance, to make CaBi a more appealing alternative to autos. But that desire is outweighed by my growing animosity towards CaBi.

If an issue so trivial is causing animosity toward CaBi, yes, please take a break.

[infinitebuffalo]

@dbehrend 180990 wrote:

Even when I’ve refreshed the app immediately before taking out or docking a bike, I’ve experienced several occasions where I earn fewer points than what the app showed. I chalked it up to there being some sort of lag between the app and traffic at the docking stations. Since the points are an added bonus for my ordinary use of CaBi, the discrepancies haven’t bothered me too much.

oddly, i’ve gotten more points than expected on a couple occasions, when I’ve taken a Cabi+ out from a station that was showing a point available for bringing bikes in. I expected to lose a point then, but didn’t.

I did get the email notice of my free week of membership almost immediately after reaching 20 points for September–within hours, certainly.

[Yule]

@peterw_diy 181196 wrote:

I got an immediate response from CaBi’s email provider that the email address “bikeangels@capitalbikeshare.com” isn’t valid.

The Bike Angel program is run by Motivate. There are Bike Angels programs running in several cities; I believe NYC was first. Afaik, all are centrally controlled by Motivate. The way to get an inquiry addressed is, I would presume, [something]@motivateco.com.

One reason for this confusion is that there are now two layers of “bureaucracy” in Capital Bikeshare, i.e. the CaBi layer itself and the Motivate layer. I don’t know who does what, but there are clearly some communication-mismatch issues; but, then, the relationship is still young.

[secstate]

The Bike Angel program is on pause.

I’d be curious to know how successful it was. I earned a number of free one-day passes but most of these were accidental — it was rare that I’d alter my rides to pick up points.

From the e-mail I just received:

As you probably know, the Bike Angels program was created to give bike riders (like you!) an opportunity to earn rewards for improving the balance of bikes and docks in the Capital Bikeshare system. The changing nature of Capital Bikeshare with different types of bikes and parking methods, means changes to the operational challenges of “balancing” bikes and docks across the system. We know that riders will have an important role to play here, but the current Bike Angels system — with points tied to specific stations — won’t make the most sense.

As a result, we’re hitting pause on the Bike Angels program, and the last points will be earned on February 29.

[Yule]

@secstate 198773 wrote:

The Bike Angel program is on pause.

If this is the end of Bike Angels entirely, which it seems it may be, I for one (as a Bike Angel) will be sad.

[Author]

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