Earn Free Miles Every Time You Use Lyft for Ridesharing (and Earn With Uber, Too)

Delta and Lyft have a new partnership. All SkyMiles members earn 1 mile per dollar spent with Lyft (and three miles per dollar on airport rides as a limited-time offer).

You just link your accounts and this happens automatically.

The offer of $10 off your first two rides is one of several standard referral offers, Delta earns a commission off signups just like they’re selling miles to Lyft.

This rideshare deal is on top of Delta’s partnership with Airbnb.

Both are modest, this hardly puts Delta at the center of the sharing economy even though their Lyft partnership is exclusive (their Airbnb partnership is not).

Both ridesharing and homesharing businesses are looking to loyalty marketing to attract and retain customers. So far they’re looking to leverage existing loyalty platforms, though Airbnb is said to be interested in building a loyalty program of its own.

Uber has partnered broadly, it’s integrated into the United app and American had a promo. Three hotel chains — Starwood, Hilton, and IHG — partner with Uber. But only Starwood’s partnership is worthwhile.

IHG and Hilton offer ‘ride reminders’ so that when you’re leaving the hotel you’ll remember that you need transportation to wherever you’re going.

However with Starwood’s tie-in you actually earn Starpoints for riding Uber. Earning was recently reduced to one Starwood point per $2 spent with Uber (2 Starwood points per dollar while staying at a Starwood property). A Starwood point is worth almost double a Delta mile anyway. You need a Starwood stay before activating points-earn with Uber.

The nice thing about Delta-Lyft and Starwood-Uber is that earning is payment independent, so you can earn points for your ride and points for travel spend on your payment card. I wouldn’t choose Lyft or Uber because of the points-earn but it’s worth setting up points earn with both so you earn when you ride. In either case I’ll happily sell my ride data for points.