You can buy 7 day passes for $30 or 30 day passes for $112. Or pay $2.50 for each one way ride/$5.00 round trip. I could probably deduct 1/30th of the cost of the monthly pass for each day I shop if I went that route (or 1/7th for the weekly). If I know I'm shopping a lot in a week I will buy the weekly pass but I have lost money on them before, since I don't shop every day or full time. I don't know if I can deduct the entire amount for a monthly or weekly pass if I'm not working every day.

I usually get a pass for $39.25 if I'll be doing a lot of shops that week.. Monthly is $133... Thankfully it is tax deductible. NYC sounds cheaper!!

LA just instituted a program where you can pay once and then board another bus within 2 hours of your first trip for free as long as it is not going back to where you came from or further in the same exact bus line. I am amazed and pleased they did this as they got rid of transfers several years ago and there are few places I can get to on only one bus. Generally because LA is so spread out it is not all that easy to find a job on the same blocks.
I got an email from a company the other day directed to southern calif shoppers encouraging a route of cell phone shops. I looked at the list and only one was actually in LA. These "route" shops were few and far between and in order to do even 3 of them I would have had to drive 100 miles....there was no bonus whatsoever just this note that the shopper would make lots of money as they could string these together. It was a very long string.

I live in the Denver metro area. The bonuses here can be pretty great. They usually start out at $5-$10 but eventually pay $20-$40 over the original payment. I'm hoping to get some pretty fat bonuses this weekend.

Slightly OT but following up on what Sandy posted, the new fares in LA (which are still much cheaper than NYC) make it even more affordable to get to shops via public transit. If you do an open-jaw (triangular) route within a 2-hour period, you can travel for the cost of one ride ($1.75). I was very impressed with myself earlier this week when I made 3 stops after leaving my house, then returned home 2 hours later and only had to pay once

This is also important for traffic-plauged cities like LA because it makes shopping during rush hour possible/profitable if you are using the train. In another year or so, I'll be able to take the train to Sandy's neighborhood and steal shops from her….or should could be taking my shops. Hmmm.

I have posted this before but LA also has a number of shops that will reimburse parking and I have had very good luck with getting MSCs to reimburse for metro passes in lieu of parking, and some shops that will even forgo a valet component to get an available shopper.

Steve,
You are welcome to take my jobs....there are hardly any I like left anyway...But I did just snag one in Santa Barbara that I have not been quick enough to get in Los Angeles in three years but this is the second trip in 2 years to Santa Barbara and both times the shop was available. You need not worry about my coming downtown to do your jobs. I have thought of taking the train down to one I know you used to do but have thought long and hard about whether I would want to be carrying all the pastries back on the train.
I will be out doing the lucrative parking jobs while you take the train!

I see bonuses all the time in the New England area ranging from 20 to 40 and above sometimes. Like Cettie there is a lot of driving involved but for me it is well worth it!

I am reviving this old thread I started a couple of months ago to report that since I started this thread I started seeing bonuses in So Cal where I live. I have actually seen some bonuses which are more than $1-2, have seen small bonuses often instead of once in a great while and have gotten emails about larger bonuses out of the city but still in the southern half of California. Either a lot of shoppers finally got a full time job with the employement picture changing or else the ms companies are reading this and responding with some extra bucks for us city folk.

I see few bonuses in Philly. Sometimes there is the rare 20.00 bonus in New Jersey, but most of the time you will occasionally see a 5.00 bonus. I live in the inner ring suburbs of Philly and I believe there are many mystery shoppers in my immediate location.

BillBryaninCarthage Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I have seen good bonuses in the Houston area. But
> the hidden costs of driving so many miles will eat
> away at profits. And if you drive many miles,
> there will be the inevitable flat tire or
> small-town speed trap, so get in the habit of
> driving the speed-limit and always using your turn
> signal. Last week I got a ticket for not using my
> left turn signal to change lanes. The ticket is
> $169 if you pay early, and $196 if you don't pay
> early. Good old American city government raising
> money to pay for local services.

Good advice BillB...after a while you get to know which cities like to collect money from drivers. I myself think I follow all the rules but i have been caught...on all sorts of uncommon violations...You always need to figure out the value of each job after expenses. I keep seeing a job with a huge fee plus some mileage but it is so far away no matter what they gave me would not be worth the many hours of driving as there are no towns bigger than a few houses on the way to pick up other shops. I will leave that job to someone with a Prius or who is working for minimum hourly wage or less. Unfortunately I think they need someone with great finances to qualify so I doubt someone willing to work for $5 an hour would qualify. Now if I had a relative to visit in that far flung town..maybe.

I've been busier than the proverbial cat in the sandbox

tlin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm in the STL suburbs, but generally only travel
> about 10-12 miles from my home location for shops.
> I work from home full time and any farther
> doesn't make much sense for me unless it is a
> Pandora shop or a restaurant shop to stretch our
> measly restaurant budget or if I can string
> together a couple shops at the mall for my teen.
> I rarely see bonuses and if there are they are
> usually in the $2 to $3 range. Right now there
> are very few shops available, mostly bank and cell
> phone shops that have long rotations or shops with
> age/gender limits that I don't fit.

I live in THE City (new York, New York..so nice they named it twice).
I've seen nice bonuses regularly but not lately.

Its a supply and demand thing purely...the supply of shoppers in a area can be higher than the demand so they don't need to pay for the shops. But a lot of us shoppers have our own strategy. Some are doing this to get the free meals, some are doing it for some extra spending money, some are doing it to target a debt and some are doing it to make a living. The hard thing about all this is, people are going to pick up what they are going to based off their goals.

I only shop NYC, and I've gotten some sizeable bonuses. I have also found that with the shops I am interested in generally have decent fees and reimbursements (if necessary), so I don't feel put out.

So a bonus is just a "bonus".

I would think it would depend on simple economics. If you live in an area where there are lots of shoppers willing to take the jobs at base pay, then you may never see the big bonuses. If you live in an area where shoppers are scarce, then you will probably see bonuses more often.

I'm told I live in an area where they are in need of shoppers. This probably explains why I've been able to score some ridiculous bonuses at times.

I learned alot about shopping NYC this past Saturday. LOL Won't be doing that one again unless there are some hefty bonuses attached to the shops. Between the train fees (R/T) and all the subway fees, I don't think I made much money. :/

Ah, HeatherB, I wouldn't make any money on the weekends if I didn't have an unlimited metrocard.

I see decent bonuses in LA all the time. They're often in unsafe parts of town. I also see some in the Beverly Hills and Century City area frequently. I drive everywhere. Can I see myself on a bus to do a shop in Compton? No!

I have noticed an increase in shoppers in the Seattle area in the past six-nine months, especially north of Seattle. There were more than enough shops a year ago. Now, if I am not sitting at my computer when the email comes in, I'm SOL. I am busy, but I think that is because I have worked hard at maintaining good rapport with the schedulers I work with and provide good reports. I have never had a report rejected and rarely receive emails from editors asking for clarification. I have found that if I consistently provide detailed reports that are well written, I get the shop. It's hard work, I know, but I take this business seriously and do the very best that I can.

I am in a mid sized city, and have found several of the shops that I would like to do are snapped up as soon as I receive the e-mail. With rotation rules, there must be a large number of shoppers, or one other shopper who is not following rotation. there are 4 chain stores within driving distance of my home, and they each have about 6 departments (6 separate shops), so no being able to snag one or two says a lot.