Get £20 of Uber credit when you book a flight via the app

This may be targetted – the T&C say that it is for ‘select users’ – but I have an offer in my Uber app offering me £20 per passenger of Uber credit if I book a flight.

Importantly, there is no minimum spend. I appear to have triggered it with a £51 one-way easyJet booking.

Here are the key terms and conditions:

• you need to book your flight by 28th November

• there are no restrictions on when you fly

• you receive £20 per passenger of Uber credit as a bonus

• you can only earn the bonus once

• the credit is received within 10 days of completing the first leg of your flight

• the credit will expire within 180 days if not used

• Uber credit issued in £ can, as with all Uber credit and gift cards, only be used within the UK

• you will earn the same miles and status points from the airline as you would as if you had booked direct – unlike hotels, airlines do not punish you for booking via third parties

If you have the offer you will see this on the ‘Travel’ or ‘Train & Coach’ page of the app under the ‘Flights’ tab:

It isn’t £20 of entirely free credit. The easyJet flight I booked cost £51 vs £49 on easyJet.com. However, I’m £18 up on the deal.

Let’s be clear though. In general, we don’t recommend booking flights via online travel agents. The pandemic reminded everyone that, if you don’t book directly with an airline, it is virtually impossible to deal with them if there are issues with your trip. Your contract is with the company that books your ticket, not the airline.

However, when I get a net £18 back on a £51 purchase, I’ll take it.

If you are spending a substantial sum on a flight ticket, I’d think twice before giving up the flexibililty of a direct booking in return for a £20 incentive.

An extra benefit – buy ‘no fault’ cancellation insurance

During the booking process, Uber let me buy ‘no fault’ cancellation insurance.

This is nothing to do with the airline. Uber and/or an insurance company funds this, and gambles on charging enough to make a profit overall.

It’s not clear if they offer this to everyone or if there is some algorithm behind it, based on only targeting people who are less likely to cancel based on travel date / destination etc.

On my £51 easyJet ticket, the options were:

• pay £11 for a 100% refund in airline credit or cash if I cancel up to 72 hours before departure

• pay £9 for a 100% refund in airline credit or an 80% refund in cash if I cancel up to 72 hours before departure

This is interesting. Lastminute.com offered something similar pre-covid – I’m not sure if they still do – and clearly there is an extra profit here for Uber IF they price it right. The risk for Uber, of course, is that only people who feel that they will cancel will buy it.

There is definitely an arbitrage here for events such as major football finals. Buy a cheap ticket a year in advance, pay a small amount for Uber’s insurance and then cancel if your team doesn’t make it.

PS. Uber is continuing to offer 10% back in Uber credit when you book a train ticket via the app. I booked a £370 Eurostar trip via Uber this week and it was totally painless, and the same price as the Eurostar website.

Here’s a tip. Whilst booking, Uber has a box for ‘Discount Code’. You put your Club Eurostar number in this box, which is clearly not very intuative. You will immediately be able to access your booking in the Eurostar website and select seats, which the Uber app doesn’t allow. (EDIT: a comment below suggests that I could be wrong and that Eurostar matched it up via my email address instead.)