Uber City Pass, July Update

July 05, 2017 / Garrett Gaudini

Uber CityPass, July Update

July 5, 2017

Last time we took a deeper dive in at an Uber CityPass concept for travelers, based on extending the trial program: Uber Ride Pass.

I was just offered the Uber Ride Pass for SF and thought I’d share more details; in case Ride Pass is not available in your city <OR> the offer has not yet been bestowed upon you by the Ubes.

Loyalty

When mobile ordering apps take their foot of the pedal with loyalty - offers and rewards - the mobile commerce engine comes to a grinding halt. Uber is no different, but rather than discount offers, they run their entire business at a loss - funding growth through an all out market-grab with a discounted service (there’s a good Bloomberg article with more details). Loyalty does have a price.

So essentially, Uber is one big loyalty program and Ride Pass is an even deeper discount over standard UberX and UberPool services. The Ride Pass goes beyond CAC (customer acquisition cost) and is a cost to keep customers by making their products habit-forming, a “Customer Habitual Cost” if you will.

Update Pricing

Ride Pass pricing, at least for SF, was updated since the last time we visited this the FEB-2017 pricing for 20-ride option:

was: $10 fee to unlock $2.49 UberPool & $4.99 UberX lasting 30 days
now: $8 fee to unlock $3.49 UberPool & $6.99 UberX lasting 28 days

The est. per ride price went up for UberPool from $2.99 to $3.89 and for UberX from $6.99 to $9.49, when I spoke to them this April they mentioned they’re still tweaking the numbers, so perhaps this update is closer to their desired “Customer Habitual Cost” for making Uber part of the daily routine.