Uber Wants You To Drive Yourself—Reserve Parking In 15 Cities, Earn 10% Back

Uber is launching parking reservations in 15 U.S. cities, letting you find a garage or lot, compare prices, and pay inside its app. Uber One members earn 10% back in credits on eligible bookings and of course Uber One comes with Amex Platinum. It’s a little weird to have self-service Uber. You supply the car. You do the driving. But they offer Uber Eats for pickup, so I guess? Still, even if it’s not gig workers and urban mobility, if the price and rebate are good, ok then. Where Uber Parking Is Available Uber’s November 9 launch covers Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, New York City, Philadelphia, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. They plan to expand across the United States. This follows Uber’s acquisition of SpotHero, announced in February. SpotHero’s broader network has more than 13,000 garages, lots, and valet locations across over 400 cities in the U.S. and Canada. However, Uber’s parking page lists 7,000 facilities. Tap Parking in the Uber app, enter your destination and parking times, and compare the map’s prices. You can filter for self-parking or valet, garages or surface lots, and things like on-site staff. Enter your vehicle details and license plate, pay via your Uber Wallet, and follow the entry instructions on the parking pass. Uber already has your account and payment information. SpotHero had parking reservations. Now it’s in one place with Uber rebates. 10% Rebate, Including Taxes And Fees Uber One members earn 10% credits on eligible completed parking reservations including the parking charge, taxes, and fees. Credits generally arrive within 24 hours after the reservation. Not every location or reservation qualifies. Uber One costs $9.99 a month or $96 a year. Buying an annual membership solely for parking requires $960 in eligible annual parking purchases just to earn $96 in credits, assuming you use those credits at full value. So this is for someone who already has Uber One. Can You Use Amex Uber Cash? And Does Amazon Help? Uber Cash works at supported parking locations. Uber’s parking help page says so, and Uber’s American Express terms say: The Amex Benefit may be applied to any services to which Uber permits Uber Cash to be applied. So this is a new way to use monthly Uber credits ($15 monthly, plus another $20 in December). Consumer Gold offers $10 monthly. And you can get Uber One via Amex Platinum: up to $120 in statement credits per calendar year for membership fees charged directly to the card. Both monthly and annual plans qualify. (Consumer Centurion cards have a membership credit as well.) Keep Uber Cash off for the membership payment so Amex is charged and can reimburse it. Amazon Prime doesn’t unlock this. The new U.S. Amazon arrangement provides $0 delivery fees on eligible Uber Eats restaurant orders of $25 or more placed through Amazon, but doesn’t give you an Uber One membership. Those orders use a separate account and Uber One benefits don’t apply to them. Uber Isn’t The Only Option In This Market There are plenty of alternatives. Alternative What To Compare SpotHero directly The same underlying parking business, with a broader geographic footprint and hourly, monthly, event, and airport parking. ParkWhiz and BestParking Other booking channels for prepaid garage and lot reservations, including event parking. ParkMobile and PayByPhone Useful for paying for and extending parking in participating locations. ParkMobile also offers advance reservations. AirportParkingReservations.com and Way.com Airport parking comparisons, including off-airport lots and hotel parking. Compare shuttle schedules, operating hours, and cancellation rules. The garage, hotel, event venue, or airport directly Prepaid offers, parking packages, validation, and loyalty discounts that might beat an intermediary’s price. I’ve written about the economics of empty parking spaces: the garage already exists, and an unsold hour is revenue the operator never gets back. Advance booking can give operators a way to discount to people who compare prices while charging more to drivers who just show up. Uber says many participating locations offer rates below their drive-up prices. Read The Parking Pass Before You Pay Uber’s parking rules leave several decisions to the individual facility: Cancellation. Uber says most options can be canceled free before the start time, but the deadline shown for your reservation controls. Extensions. Most active reservations can be extended if space is available but don’t assume you can stay indefinitely at the original rate. Entry and exit. Follow the pass’s barcode, license plate, or attendant instructions. Most participating facilities don’t allow repeated entry and exit during one reservation. Vehicle restrictions and extra charges. Check height limits and oversized vehicle charges, along with early entry and late exit rules. Uber’s charge guidance flags additional fees. A reservation doesn’t imply a particular space is being held. SpotHero says it manages inventory with operators rather than physically holding a specific stall. If you arrive and can’t enter or the lot is full, Uber directs you to the parking pass’s help option. Good luck. There are two other launch limitations in Uber’s FAQ: business profiles aren’t supported, and Uber and SpotHero accounts can’t be linked. An Uber reservation won’t appear in your SpotHero account. The claim in the launch pitch that Americans spend an average of 17 hours a year looking for parking comes from a July 2017 study. It seems to me there’s very high variance in this. In fact, isn’t one solution just to Uber? Uber gets a transaction from people who choose to drive, then offers credits that encourage them to come back for a ride or food order. They also say they’ll explore using parking locations to stage autonomous vehicles between trips. They’re going to be losing their Waymo partnership so I wonder what that looks like? What I’d Really Like Is Uber Valet About a decade ago, Luxe offered a valet would meet you at your destination, take your car away to park it, and bring it back when you were ready. Zirx did, too. Walking into a restaurant while somebody dealt with your car was super value add! But it’s a tough business. Luxe ended its consumer valet service in 2017, and Volvo bought its technology, team, and other assets that September. Zirx stopped consumer valet service in February 2016. Attendants had to reach customers, park their cars, and return them, on top of paying for parking and insurance. Uber considered buying Luxe’s assets and engineers before Volvo did. Valet Network in New York advertises $10 parking, using street spaces. Apparently the service is in Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, and the Lower East Side and it’s another $3 to return the car. Ector offers something like this at French airports and train stations. That seems like an Uber feature, this is more like selling hotels through the app because they already have customers and their customers travel. I liked the old Travis vision for the company so much better. They had some growing up to do and maybe they wouldn’t have achieved everything before the VC cash ran out but this just isn’t that exciting of a vision, even if you have something new to do with existing Uber credits. Topics on this page