Uber Rewards is ending on November 1, 2022 | Hacker News Reader

Uber Rewards is ending on November 1, 2022

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64 pointsjohntb8641 comments

Sad. Was one of the few things keeping me on Uber eats. Now they have no benefits over their competitors. Doordash costs the same and has more restaurants. Plus the markups from restaurants in Uber is higher than DD. No point using them

The DoorDash app is way worse though. It’s tracking and time estimates are awful, much worse than Uber.

Unfortunately Ubereats is no better on this front. The shifting goalpost is a big problem. Keep changing ETA so that when you call customer service, they always point to the new ETA and claim that they are within their estimates.

I began screenshotting my original ETA every time years ago with Uber and Uber Eats for this reason.

A few years back I had an ETA which remained at 15-20 minutes for two full hours and Uber wanted to charge me to cancel. When it happened again I was able to show the original ETA was over 1.5 hours earlier than my cancelation time and received a refund immediately.

We shouldn't have to do this though. It's an awful customer experience and has lead me to use alternatives whenever possible.

FYI this happens with Doordash too. The app constantly gaslights you on purpose to make it seem like less time has passed.

We had a kids' birthday party ruined by UberEats. The pizza arrived 90 minutes after the original estimate. Some slippage may be unavoidable, but this was terrible. They just don't have any quality control. They can't predict when Uber drivers will be available.

Agreed, when I (rarely) order from these services now I just usually assume it'll be 2x the time they state for me to actually get the order.

They aren't awful, they just lie. You just haven't noticed the pattern yet.

faster ETAs improve conversion :)

What did you think compared to Grubhub now that they have the year free integration for Amazon Prime customers (which I guess is like 1/3 of American households)? I don't use the meal delivery often enough to have a representative sample, I've gone to order a few times from them and they all just seem insanely priced

The Uber growth hacking pyramid scheme is complete with the phasing out of the rewards programme with nothing to replace it.

It was a good run for the investors who suggested this growth hack in the early days and now they are laughing all the way to the bank and the users and drivers are left behind once again.

well... we all enjoyed unsustainably cheap rides and unsustainably high pay. Nobody forced us. We are just sheep.

Just like the Uber credit card. They've removed every benefit and re-issued a vanilla master card.

Its a company you can't trust.

It's a company openly founded on "we can make money if we ignore the law". That they weren't trustworthy seemed pretty obvious from the start.

It's not about trust. Uber is just realizing they don't really have any moats.

All the gravy they collected from riding the gravy-regulation-skirting train was wasted on trying to build competitive advantages, developing self-driving and rewards programs like these to make it more attractive to customers compared to competitors.

They've been selling $2 for the price of $1 and now that the party is beginning to die down, they're doing what any large faceless corp is doing - reducing the quality of the services they offer so they can extend their own runway.

You mean there was a point where you could trust a business that broke local laws repeatedly and never had a profitable business model?

Uber certainly has things in its past that make it a company you can't trust, but discontinuing a credit card with ample notice and reissuing it?

I mean, in a thread about discontinuing a rewards program with ample notice, it seems pretty relevant to mention the credit card which suffered the same fate.

Uber had rewards program?

Yea per usual you spend like $1k for $5 off or something.

They really didn't make it that easy to use or find. I think I got 1-2 discounts out of it but it certainly wasn't something I thought about regularly (or at all except when there was some push notification)

I was a big Uber eats user out of laziness and the rewards program actually cost me something like $10 per month and saved me $50 or 60 per month.

Interesting that this model didn't work for them when it seems to work very well for airlines which also have a pretty undifferentiated service (I mean, I know some are more or less timely or cancellation prone but generally you are getting a seat on a Boeing or Airbus and nearly everyone has the same experience up to the gate unless you have Clear or TSA Pre which aren't related to rewards programs).

Airline miles are nowadays bordering on useless for actually booking flights. Loyalty programs are attractive instead for “status”, priority boarding, upgrades, free changes, free bags etc. Uber can’t really offer any of this.

airline miles have been devalued frequently over the past few years, along with the rest of their award programs.

The thresholds for the rewards were insane anyways youd have to make like 15 orders to get anything

Taxi companies never did rewards programs, and they had cheaper cost structures.

I mean they sort of did / do. Once you use them a lot you get to know drivers and you call them directly and they would give you better prices and pickup times. Calling dispatch would often not even work on busy nights. Obviously this isn't for placed like NYC where you just get a cab off the street. But in a lot of places you could establish relationships with a few cab drivers if you used them regularly.

In my entire life, I don't think I've ever seen a cab driver more than once. How small a place do you live in?

You may just be closed off to the idea due to personality (not chatty) or due to lack of need (never needed to call and schedule a ride), but pre Uber (and maybe even today, don’t know) it was definitely common

I'm not doubting that this CAN happen, just wondering where it DOES frequently happen. I do enjoy chatting with drivers, though these days it's 99% Lyft and almost never a taxi. Back in the day though, I'd ride a taxi maybe once a week or so. The opportunity never even came up, like how would you start that discussion...? "Cool chat bro, can I have your number so I can just call you direct next time and bypass dispatch?"

I'm not saying this is unbelievable, I'm just genuinely curious as to how this comes to pass, organically. I've never heard of anyone doing this, so was surprised when you said it's common, that's all.

in my experiences in a couple of places it was usually from recurring trips to downtown areas to bars, restaurants, etc. so after chatting a bit a business card was offered or just a hey here's my cell call anytime you want a ride

and i think the direct relationship was good for both parties though of course sometimes the driver wouldn't be available

and maybe my saying "common" is overstating it since my knowledge is ultimately quite limited compared to the universe of taxi/rider trips taken but I and a handful or friends/acquaintances over the years have had these (ultimately fleeting) taxi relationships which were generally pleasant while they lasted

20-ish years ago in Orange County, CA we had a cab driver we would call instead of dispatch. Super chill guy and good conversations with prompt service.

anyone know why? Aren't loyalty programs typically good for the company?

"...we've decided to end Rewards soon, as we shift our focus to our new Uber One membership program." (EDIT: received in an email notification)

It looks like they're trying to drive loyal customers into a paid membership who may have been otherwise happy with the benefits they were receiving under Uber Gold or other level.

First they nerfed it. Used to be able to redeem 500 points for $5.

Earlier this year they replaced it with discounts, so 400 points gets you 10% off. My most expensive ride in the past year was $30, so I view this as a 25% reduction in point value.

I guess that wasn’t enough?

Loyalty programs also cost money in the form of the free stuff you give away as benefits. For a company that perennially has trouble turning a profit on razor-slim (and most often negative) margins, this would be a problem.

There's also a question of if the retention ability of the loyalty program outweighs of the cost of benefits you're giving out.

Additionally the shape of the business matters. For some industries (see: hotels, airlines) a lot of the benefits are in the form of things they would've lost money on anyway if they didn't give to the loyal customer. Upgrading room at check-in? That room was pretty much guaranteed to go empty that night anyway. Upgrading airplane seat 24h before departure? That seat was pretty much guaranteed to go empty if they didn't. So the opportunity cost of giving the user the reward is ~zero-ish. This is definitely not true for Uber, where free rides = lost money.

This is a great point, I was wondering why this seemed to work well for airlines and not Uber. And for airlines, I mean it's not even 24hrs sometimes, it's literally at the gate when there is 0 downside for them (other than the cost of a slightly more expensive meal and maybe some cheap champagne?)

Good for profitable companies, yes.

I don't see the difference? Like if the program was providing value, perhaps in the form of retention, then the value exceeds the loss.

They must have data that their loyalty program did not improve retention to justify the costs to run the program or (as others pointed out) they must see that force loyal customers to Uber One will increase their revenue/more.

> if the program was providing value, perhaps in the form of retention, then the value exceeds the loss.

This looks like a syllogism, but it is not. If something provides value, it does not mean that the value exceeds the loss. Otherwise everything useful would be profitable, like my gold toothbrush.

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