Bike Angels FAQ
What is Bike Angels? Bike Angels is a reward program that offers points for relocating bikes to locations where riders most need them. Angels earn rewards based on the points they earn each month, plus additional swag for hitting lifetime point milestones. Best of all, Bike Angels are do-gooders who help the system run smoothly for all. How do I sign up for Bike Angels? You can sign up in the app by going to your profile, in the side menu, and clicking ‘Bike Angels’. You can also tap here from your phone to sign up directly. Bike Angels is only available to riders with a Citi Bike membership. Where can I check how many points I have? If you are an active Bike Angel, you can see your monthly reward points, and how many points you’d need until your next reward, on the home screen of the Citi Bike app. To see your monthly and lifetime points, just tap on the ‘Bike Angels’ tab from your profile, or when opening the app you will see your lifetime points shown in your Citi Bike app. Did Bike Angels change with the new Citi Bike app? We updated the Citi Bike app in February 2021, with a fresh new look and several new features. While Bike Angels has a new look, as well, it’s still the same great program it was before. We have also made some changes based on your feedback to improve the monthly and lifetime rewards. I was a Bike Angel before the new app update — do I get to keep my points? Yes! When you sign in to the new Citi Bike app for the first time, your existing Bike Angel points will automatically carry over. If your account is missing points, please reach out to support and we will fix this for you. What were the changes to the monthly rewards? We’ve added 10 free ebike minutes, which are unlocked after the first 10 points you earn each month. Weekly membership extensions are still available, and earning 80 points will now unlock a full calendar month (instead of just 4 weeks). We have also added Lyft credit, from 80-200 points, that can be used to pay for Citi Bike or Lyft rides — see the full list of rewards. What were the changes to the lifetime rewards? We have recently updated the entire lineup. Swag now includes a new water bottle, gloves, backpack, and a new Bike Angels key. Each physical reward also now comes with a corresponding pin. Also, all Bike Angels that get to 250 lifetime points will permanently unlock 60 min rides for their membership (up from the standard 45) — see the full list of rewards. Where can I access the leaderboard? Monthly Leaderboards can be accessed on the Citi Bike website, as well as in the app from the Bike Angels tab. How do I check how many points I earned for a specific ride? When a ride earns points, you will see this reflected in the notification at the end of your ride, as well as in the app before you rate your ride. To check how many points you received for a previous ride, you can check your ride history from the sidebar in the app. These pages will also indicate when you unlocked a reward from a trip. If a given ride earned 0 points, these pages will also offer an explanation of why. How do I redeem rewards? Rewards are redeemed instantly as soon as you hit the required number of points. For physical rewards that need to be shipped out, you will receive an email as soon as you unlock a reward, so you can specify the address where you’d like to receive your swag. Do ebike rides count for Bike Angel points? Yes! Ebike rides and classic rides earn the same amount of points.
Citibike/Lyft again makes a change to the program with no notification!
So it seems like Citibike/Lyft has pulled another fast one on us–instead of Bike Angels getting the previous $200 worth of value (obviously not actually cash anymore) when we redeem 1000 points, starting this month you seem to have lowered it to us getting only $150 worth of E-gift cards. And as usual, you have not sent an email informing the Bike Angels of this change, you have posted nothing official on this blog, nor did you do anything to make us aware of it, so the only way anyone would have found out is at the end of February, after they spent the whole month accumulating points when they went to redeem them, and suddenly discovered that they were now worth 25% less in value! This is reminiscence of many of the changes Citibike/Lyft has made to the Bike Angels program, most recently when you decided to stop letting us redeem our hard earned points for ACH, changing your long-standing arrangement, with no communication to members, only some fine print if they redeemed their points that month, that many people missed. And if anyone was banking their points, thinking they could redeem them later for cash, well they were just out of luck! I just found out about this most recent change yesterday because someone shared it with me, otherwise I would’ve been in the dark until I went to redeem my points at the end of February. I really feel that Citibike/Lyft does not care about the Bike Angels, and it’s doing everything in it’s power to destroy the system and any goodwill that they had left with us. Pretty soon no one is going to want to be a Bike Angel, and Citibike/Lyft will have to spend all the money (and likely more) that they think they are saving by making these changes, and hire more employees to move all the bikes. And again, this lack of notification, of transparency, along with last year’s long delays in receiving our rewards after we redeemed our points, speaks volumes to how Citibike/Lyft really feels about their dedicated Bike Angels.Automatic redemptions
I have a question/complaint about some recent activity in the app. Three times in the last week, the app has redeemed points from my points bank which I did not initiate. The attached pic shows the recent items. On 6/9, 6/12 and today, 6/14, redemptions were made for Lyft credit and e-bike credit which were done without any actions on my part. I’ve now lost 40 points this week and I neither requested nor want these credits. Can I expect to lose points every few days now for credits I don’t want? How can this be stopped or blocked? On a somewhat comical note, the items are shown as “gifts” from CitiBike. Since I was forced to pay for these items they are in no way gifts.Idea: Always Offer Low-assist option for eBikes (next-gen)
As many riders know, the low-assist mode for next-gen eBikes is only available if there are no classic/acoustic bikes at the station. When you then scan the eBike using the app you choose between low assist and full assist. Citi Bike ought to offer the option of low assist for next-gen eBikes regardless of the presence of a classic/acoustic bike to accommodate. If you agree with this idea, please like this post to show your interest to the Bike Angel team. For me there are two reasons why I'd like to see this: Classic bikes have seats that don't go high enough for riders 6'1 or taller which can lead to knee pain for long or uphill rides. Next-gen bikes allow for the seat to move higher but more often than not I have to pay for this privilege because there are classic bikes at the station. On more than one occasion I don't get the pedal assist option for eBikes because there's one classic bike at a broken dock that can't be removed so I'm forced to pay for a full power eBike ride when I don't want to/shouldn't have to. To streamline the experience, this should be an opt-in option so that full-assist riders used to scanning and riding aren't burdoned by having to choose full-assist each time. Lastly, in conjunction with this idea, please offer users the pedal assist preference via the iPhone and Android apps (under Settings). For some reason it is only offered via https://account.citibikenyc.com/profile after logging into your account making it frustrating and confusing for riders who primarily use the app and can't find anywhere to update their preference:Citibike app "Bring a friend on a ride" ??
Hi If anyone can help it will be much appreciated. With the Citibike app is this "Bring a friend on a ride" feature enabled and is it unlimited? (photo below) In NYC I will have the Lyft All Access Pass and my friend will not have any memberships. With the Lyft Pink All Access Pass membership you use the Citibike app in NYC to get bikes. We're hoping the "Bring a friend on a ride" feature is enabled in the Citibike app and is it unlimited. As you can see in the Divvy app, there is an icon, and it reads: Bring a friend on your ride. Start riding together and add up to 1 person on your ride. Thanks for your help. Much appreciated.
