Want to get the best out of the Bolt app as a driver? Check out our best tips for becoming a 5-star driver to help you maximise your time on the road and make the best earnings

Be nice and polite

In the real world, nice people finish first. Leaving a good impression and generally being a decent human being is especially valuable when you’re interacting with people on a daily basis. And let’s be honest – as a Bolt driver, you are surrounded by people for the most part of your day. People, who will rate you and can either leave positive feedback or describe how bad their ride experience was.

Impoliteness is one of the top reasons drivers receive a bad rating from passengers.

So, offer help when needed, be nice, save the cheeky comments for your personal friends and drive safe. These are the key ingredients in making sure you receive good feedback from your passengers and won’t lose your driving privileges due to bad ratings.

Drive peak hours

Now that you’ve gained some experience on the roads, you will have noticed that there are peak times and not so peak hours. Trip requests are heaviest Monday through Friday during rush hour traffic hours on Fridays and over the weekend. Take advantage of these peak driving times to maximise your earnings and minimise downtimes. Think of it like this, more people needing a ride = more possibilities to earn as a driver via the Bolt app.

Remember that off-peak hours don’t mean you need to get off the roads. Use your local city knowledge of busy areas like malls and airports as well as the live map feature on the Bolt app to see where hotspots are at every time of the day.

Don’t cherry pick rides

Bolt has an exciting feature called Back-to-back rides. Back-to-back rides mean that as your current trip is about to end, another trip is lined up for you and when you complete the ride, you can proceed to the new pick-up location right away. This helps reduce the waiting time between rides and increases your earnings and overall ride efficiency.

PS! Declining a back-to-back ride affects your Bolt driver activity score in the app, so make sure you’ll confirm the final destination with your rider before starting the journey. For disabling back-to-back rides, open the three stripes on the top right corner when you have accepted a ride and toggle the “Accept next ride” button to disable.

In addition to accepting as many back-to-back rides as you can, it’s smart to keep your activity score high by accepting the majority of orders that come your way. When you turn down a request just because you don’t like the name of the rider or the sound of the neighbourhood, you reduce your own earnings and bring down your activity score. It’s worth remembering that a low activity score means the system will automatically serve you fewer orders. Also,  If 20% of the last 100 orders you get have been rejected, your account will automatically be blocked by the system.

Be aware of local events and weather conditions

Big concerts with famous headliners, football matches or significant political or social events fill the city with people who need to move from one place to another. For you, days like these are great opportunities to earn more by driving people around town. Also, you can bring a little extra to the table by being the “awesome driver who gave great recommendations on what to do and where to eat”, as big events like this are also great tourist magnets. That will definitely score you a high Bolt driver rating on the app.

You should also pay attention to the weather. Low degrees and rainfall mean more people requesting rides. So, tune in to your local weather channel and be guided on best times to hit the streets. We’ll also let you know when big events are happening around you.

Read the messages Bolt sends you via the app and email (hint: we talk about bonuses!)

We’re constantly in communication with our drivers, offering tips, perks and deals available from partnerships we’ve closed especially for you.

Our in-app messages and emails also constantly communicate bonus information and campaigns you can benefit from.

Want more information about becoming a diver? Read this.