Uber travel tips

Holders of The Platinum Card® from American Express and American Express® Gold Card already enjoy up to $200 and $120, respectively, in annual Uber credits. Enrollment is required.

About three years ago, Marriott and Uber launched a partnership that lets U.S. Marriott Bonvoy members earn points on U.S. Uber transactions, including rides and Uber Eats orders.

Today on the podcast we feature Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi in conversation with Skift Founder and CEO Rafat Ali onstage at Skift Global Forum in New York City last month. 

A new campaign from Uber One has brought together an unlikely pairing in Hollywood legend Robert De Niro and Sex Education star Asa Butterfield, as they become ‘best friends’ thanks to their shared love for ‘eating food and going places’.

Uber will enable users to book hot air balloon rides in popular Turkish tourist destination Cappadocia as part of its strategy to make further inroads in the tourism industry.

If Cappadocia, Turkey had an official postcard, it’d likely be the rainbow of hot air balloons floating above its conical “fairy chimney” rock formations at sunrise when the sky is tinted pink. Most mornings, roughly 150 to 200 hot air balloons ascend above the wildly unique landscape in Göreme National Park, which becomes a popular spot for photographers, too.

CEO Dara Khosrowshahi took the stage at Skift Global Forum in New York City last week and discussed Uber’s high burn rate, its use of artificial intelligence, and the United Kingdom as a test market.

JetBlue passengers whose flights are delayed or canceled overnight can expect a smoother ride going forward. The airline is partnering with Uber to issue travelers Uber vouchers for transportation to hotels during overnight delays, the airline and ride-hailing service announced Tuesday.

JetBlue is making life easier for customers who experience certain disruptions by providing complimentary Uber vouchers.

Furthering its partnerships with yellow taxi cab companies, ride-hailing company Uber earlier this week announced its latest collaboration with Los Angeles Yellow Cab and its five partner taxi fleets in Southern California.

Uber is pushing forward with experiments in other areas of travel. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi detailed some of the plans on Thursday during the final session of the 2023 Skift Global Forum.

Many of us travel for both personal and business reasons, and sometimes, it's hard to keep them separate. And with the continued trend toward blended travel, where trips have both leisure and business purposes, this is even more challenging. The last thing you want is to charge a personal expense to a business card (or vice versa).

Artificial intelligence has been a major discussion in travel over the last year, and that’s why the theme of the Skift Global Forum is Connection in the Age of AI.

Hotel occupancy and room rates have bounced back to pre-pandemic numbers, primarily due to the soaring demand for the G20 Summitto be held in New Delhi on September 9 to 10. 

Do you remember a few years ago how there was so much talk in online travel about the Booking Holdings–Expedia Group duopoly? How Expedia Group, which owned Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz and Hotels.com, and Booking, with brands including Booking.com, Kayak, Priceline and Agoda, controlled the hotel market and a whole lot more in travel?

After renting out some 50,000 electric cars to Uber drivers across North America, Hertz is now taking its partnership with the ride hailing giant to Europe, where it will make 25,000 Tesla and Polestar vehicles available.

Uber and Lyft are focusing on their loyalty programs, with new partnerships designed to keep members ordering cars, meals and groceries for longer periods of time.

The Kansas City Chiefs weren’t the only ones celebrating on Sunday night. The companies that shelled out for spots during the big games, which more than 100 million people were expected to tune in to see, are watching closely as social impressions, commentary, and — in some cases — sales roll in.

Hotel development in the Middle East is ramping up as investors begin to see opportunity in the region again, according to Lodging Econometrics’ Middle East Construction Pipeline Trend Report. The report said new project announcements in the region continued to trend upward throughout 2022 closing the fourth quarter of 2022 with 67 new projects housing 19,837 rooms, an increase of 56 percent year-on-year. The fourth quarter also witnessed 33 new hotels accounting for 6,452 rooms open in the region. Overall, 2022 saw a record number of hotels openings with 81 hotels accounting for 17,736 rooms. Lodging Econometrics’ forecast for new hotel openings in 2023 is 123 new hotels with 30,113 rooms while 116 new hotels and 29,085 rooms are forecast to open in 2024. Countries in the Middle East with the greatest number of projects in the construction pipeline at the close of fourth quarter were Saudi Arabia with 243 projects and 67,618 rooms, followed by the United Arab Emirates with 104 projects and 29,210 rooms. Egypt came third with record high project and room counts of 87 projects and 21,672 rooms.

Uber is extending the reservation period to pre-book rides from 30 days to 90 days to help boost its airport business.

Booking.com does it and so do Amazon, Etsy and Alibaba, so why not Airbnb?