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Update: This seems to only impact Android, not iOS (see comments below)
Yesterday a bunch of folks jumped on the Amazon “Today’s Deals” offer for 20% discounted Uber gift cards (your chance to score one yesterday was better if you were an Amazon Prime member – #ProTip for next time). Some got in on the deal just for the discount while others may have purchased all they could for resale, possibly at profit, and pocketed the points earned from a travel or rewards card. I did not have time to take advantage of this one.
I talked about in this week’s Rookie Wednesday post that we are going to have to look at all kinds of fresh ways to reach minimum spend on some travel cards to get the new card bonus beyond simply buying VDGCs. Offers like this one could really be a sweet and quick way to get done whatever spend goal we are working on. But that is not the point of today’s post.
Last week I shared my frustration with the order in advance for Uber that turned out to be all but pointless and I will never ever make that mistake again. The other thing that I just touched on but really deserves its own post is payment choices. Many of us, wisely, use our non-Delta Amex Platinum card for bonus points and it is simple to add the card as your default payment choice. But what if you have discounted credits from either an Amazon deal like above or like me from Amex SYNC offers from other stores?
In the Uber app, under default payment choices, you can add gift cards but you can NOT select it as the “default payment” choice. Nope – one of your cards becomes the default.
This means, each and every time you request a ride, you must click on the payment method and go to payment options and then manually move the slider over to the right to have credits pay for this ride vs. your whatever travel card (note this is not needed for non-Delta Amex Platinum card monthly credits – just for Uber gift credits). Then you can go back to the request a ride screen, and even after you have moved the slider over, the default card still shows as the payment choice but the ride “should” pull from your credit balance at that point! 🙁
I really wish this could be simply set as a default payment choice until the credits are empty but Uber is making it hard to use your prepaid credits when you are in a hurry and on top of that does not really show you that you are in fact using them when you finally request a ride – sigh.
Considering how many dumb things Uber is doing right now I think I should have room to once a month or so pop up a “stupid Uber tip” post so get ready for more helpful tips just like this! – René
PS – Don’t forget about the chance to WIN a 25x use Gogo pass HERE!
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Responses are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.
Thank you for posting this tip
I uber to/from work every day and use GCs to save on commute costs. A card has to be selected as a default, but after you opt to apply a GC or credit balance, it’ll automatically deduct from that balance for each ride until you opt not to use a GC balance. Only negative is that there’s no transaction history for the GC balance, so can sometimes be a pain tracking how much is being deducted (though the receipt that’s emailed typically shows this)
@Brian – Can confirm this is 100% the case that you must, at least with Android, do this every time. I have taken any number of Uber rides this month and each time I forget to go move the slider my credit card gets billed.
This is definitely an Android issue. I jumped on the GC deal yesterday, got it loaded already, and I now see that when I request a ride on iOS it’s auto-selected as the default payment method on the slider.
@GoAmtrak – 😉 Cue all the iOS folks telling me I need to upgrade 🙂
No judgments here, I promise! I stuck it out with Blackberry until a few years ago.
Use Lyft instead, people! Don’t support a crappy company like Uber.