Delta and Lyft have been partners since 2017 however it was silly to earn Delta miles for Lyft rides since both Alaska and Bilt partnerships with Lyft are move valuable.
This spring, Delta will drop Lyft for Uber. While this was announced by Delta CEO Ed Bastian and Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi as part of Bastian’s The Sphere event in Las Vegas during CES, it is pretty anodyne. Specific launch date not yet available beyond spring, and will offer:
- 1 SkyMile per dollar on Uber X airport rides
- 2 SkyMiles per dollar on premium rides
- 3 SkyMiles per dollar on reserved rides
- 1 SkyMile per dollar on UberEats restaurant/grocery orders
And, so excited that our two key commercial partners @Delta and @Uber are teaming up. Uber->Joby->Delta here we come! pic.twitter.com/tUcMBwLSBh
— Eric Allison (@eallison) January 8, 2025
You'll be able to earn Delta Skymiles when using Uber this coming spring #CES2025 pic.twitter.com/rSZA2j8f56
— compleXcty (@compleXcty) January 8, 2025
It’s just Uber paying Delta for access to customers they can incentivize to ride. Uber used to have many more partnerships and especially with earning under their Marriott partnership devalued, SkyMiles is likely to be the most rewarding program to link to an Uber account.
Still, there’s little question that the various stackable Lyft rewards options are superior. I usually check both Lyft and Uber estimated wait times and pricing for most trips, and since I earn 10 Chase points per dollar with Lyft, plus a Bilt point, plus at times stackable card-linked offers I’ll choose Lyft if they’re anywhere close to competitive. There was a time when Uber was unbeatable but they’ve made the experience so much worse for customers and drivers under the former CEO of Expedia that their edge is largely gone.
Maybe Ed should focus on running the airline and not playing tech/electronics company CEO.
and yet DL will come in, once again, as the largest airline in the world based on revenue, have the highest profit at least among US airlines, and has the best operational and customer service metrics among its competitive set.
All the indications are that DL is at the top of the industry – as good or bad as it is – and, as CEO, Bastian deserves a certain amount of credit for that.
Who cares. One poison for another.
I feel most for the drivers who take nearly all the risk and effort yet keep getting a worse and worse deal as time goes on through both Uber and Lyft as the ratio of their take-home pay has diminished in favor of big tech while those greedy companies provide hardly any benefits to their so-called ‘independent contractors’ —admittedly, this is not getting better anytime soon.
Just because unnecessary cruelty and ‘profits over people’ is the current reality (and the historical norm), it doesn’t mean it has to be that way. We could simply pay workers more. No, instead, with the way things are going, we’ll likely all be indentured servants to the oligarchs soon enough. Yeah, I’m talking to you, too, mere multi-millionaires and small business owners; whether you realize it or not, you’re one round of tariffs and hyperinflation away from joining the rest of the peasants. Maybe fight for better conditions from the bottom up for a change. You’ll thank yourself later.
Strange statement, Gary: “There was a time when Uber was unbeatable but they’ve made the experience so much worse for customers and drivers under the former CEO of Expedia that their edge is largely gone”. So, I went back to your December article to better understand your position, but all that you came up with was higher prices and cold food delivery. The fundamental issue here is that the overall “experience” in consuming a product or service is entirely different than the “price”. Since you used the word “experience”, I’m looking for evidence that it’s become demonstrably worse (irrespective of “price”). Logically, the indicators (for riders and not food customers) would be vehicle condition, driver pleasantness, on-time pick-up (for pre-books), and reasonable wait time (for non-pre-books). I’ve been unable to witness any degradation of any of those metrics, which is why I find the statement to be curious.
Maybe travelling enough miles on Uber to circle the Earth several times will get you enough skymiles for a biz class one way to Europe?