The Price is Right
One of our favorite shows growing up was the ‘Price is Right’. If you remember, the trick on that show was getting the price just right… without going over!
Here at Uber we do a lot of work and analysis to make sure that prices are ‘just right’ for both riders and Uber drivers. Too low and drivers have trouble paying for the ever-rising costs of filling up their cars. Too high and riders are better off walking - after all, Boston is America’s Walking City!
That’s why today we’re rolling out two changes to pricing: (1) airports and (2) surge pricing on weekend evenings.
Airports Flat Rates now $45 to/from Boston and $55 to/from Cambridge
If you’ve never tried to book an airport transfer in Boston, you know that it’s not cheap. Some range up to $120 to/from downtown Boston to Logan! When we first launched in Boston in October, we thought we were making airport rates ‘Uber’ by bringing fares down to $55 each way from Boston and $65 each way from Cambridge. This was also our way of convincing some of our early partners to work with us, as they’d not yet seen Uber in action on point-to-point routes in the city.
Fast forward several months and based on the feedback we’ve been hearing, there’s been a few times that riders have been surprised by the ‘flat rate’ to the airport. Sometimes flat rates aren’t perfect since they can be over twice the cost of a cab; however we use them because we don’t want to make you read the fine print on airport tolls/surcharges. Uber Boston rates, we’re dropping these fares by $10 each way starting on Monday, March 26th. No surcharges. No surprises. $45 each way to Boston. $55 each way to Cambridge.
If you have any questions about what rate applies to your specific pick up, just shoot us an email at supportboston@uber.com! We’ve also updated our city page here.
Surge Pricing on Weekend Evenings
Boston’s heating up. Quite literally. we don’t like idle small talk talking about the weather, but this week has been been ridiculous (Totally grabbing a pair of white summer pants #ridiculousness)!
When it’s 70+ degrees outside, restaurants are full and bars are packed. If you’ve Ubered on weekends between 12am and 3am, you’ve probably noticed it can get hard to find a car. This is because of a crazy wild demand spike (thanks a lot, last call) coupled with drivers wanting to go home or finding other business as we stay out until the early morning.
This trend is becoming even more apparent as the thermostat rises, and after weeks of testing we’re rolling out surge pricing on weekend evenings. For the last several weeks we’ve been testing surge pricing for drivers only, and seen a dramatic increase in the number of Ubers available late in the evening. Last week we used it for St. Patrick’s Day. We always want to be a reliable ride, and surge pricing works.
In case you’re not familiar with surge pricing, we’ve covered this topic in-depth in the past during Halloween and NYE. Remember that if surge is active you’ll always see clear and concise messaging in the app or via SMS similar to that below:
We’re delighted to continue to bring efficiency to the world of car service with these pricing updates. Looking forward to more airport transfers and late night Chinatown pickups as the weather continues to heat up!
