Pull ups/fed-ex holiday freight

Yes, we have done it a couple times. Positive side is that the mileage is exact. But rates not that great. Other issue we found was that we didn't really get the miles for the lanes we ran. They plan on have certain amount of volume but if it is not there they will cancel the load. I think our drivers did less than 2,000/week on average.

They really do gear up for it.

 

You'll be disappointed with the rates offered up. Granted the economy hasn't been so hot in a few years and I am sure there are times when capacity is really tight that it likely does, or at least SHOULD pay very well. You'll see lots of trucks with headache racks pulling doubles, plenty of extra competition and everyone is doing it.... What I saw last year, and the previous year, rates-wise with it made me yawn and roll back over to sleep. On the high end maybe $2.05 a mile, maybe, Bill is that wrong? did you see any that was much better than that?.. ..they will quickly hang up on you if you dare mention "I've got some deadhead to cover" or whatever.....

 

The wife and I have done the UPS thing for the last couple years now, starting right after Thanksgiving and running right up until the day before Christmas eve.

Two years ago was better than last year, the miles were all solid with no cancellations and the rate was solid for all of the miles we booked as a package.

Last year, not so good. The rates were down and the packages were selling briskly, the decision was to go ahead because we were up in the Jersey area and had been there working as power only as our trailer was tied up with FEMA/Sandy, so we booked our holiday package. A lot of the runs we agreed to were cut short, if it had a Amazon listed as one of the stops you could almost guarantee that it would end where the Amazon pu was, and you would be routed back to your point of origin.

The best thing about the UPS holiday gig is the volume, you can book 6 weeks of all you can run at a pretty decent rate. Year before last we booked our package at $2.17, and ran with extremely light trailers, empty, and BT.... not bad work when you can get it.

 

Last year LS had them at $2.39, (as the rate for their drivers, before the LS cut, so figure the percentage of that), and were brokering them out.... there was a fair amount of double brokering going on, and the double brokered rates offered were laughable.... something like $1.75-$1.80...

 

Where and how do you get those loads?

 

The other positive is the elimination of deadhead. They always get you back to where the trip started from, even if they have to bobtail you....

1) downside, the terminals are really hectic that time of year and you really have to watch yourself and your truck in their terminal at that time.

That's if they permit you into the terminal. Usually you just drop the trailer in the driveway at the check in phone, or in their overflow lot.

Keeping track of each trailer number on each leg of the trip is critical, as there are no bol's and you may or may not get an LMA that has the complete info on it. (I don't do the invoicing, but I know that every year they struggle in the office with this. Last year we gave them every trailer#, every point to point within each route code, and every route code in order, and they still had trouble billing it out...)

 

Broker boards

 

Yeah I saw them for $1.75-$1.80 I think the agency was CIF that had a lot of them in this area. That $2.17 a mile to your truck is not bad at all for steady work but for me I can't haul it at that rate, with a percentage coming off the top I'd need another 20 cents a mile to make it an ok rate same as yours. Landstar always advertises this freight just before holiday season ramps up. They have so many of these loads they don't know what to do with all of them.