Travelers wait for an Uber ride-sharing vehicle at Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles on February 8, 2023.
Mario Tama | fake images
Delta Airlines will link its lucrative SkyMiles loyalty program to Uber this spring, the companies announced Tuesday, as the airline ends its eight-year partnership with a smaller ride-hailing rival. Lyft.
Once customer accounts are linked, Delta SkyMiles members can earn one mile per dollar spent on airport rides with UberX, two miles per dollar spent on “premium rides” like Uber Comfort and Uber Black, and three miles per dollar on trips with Uber Reserve. Uber said Tuesday. For the food delivery service Uber Eats, members will earn one mile for every dollar on orders over $40 at restaurants and grocery stores.
“With record numbers of travelers taking to the skies, we're focused on helping make their trip to the airport as efficient, affordable and effortless as possible,” Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in a press release.
Delta and other airlines have expanded their partnerships to earn and use frequent flyer miles, part of loyalty programs that have generated billions of dollars for airlines. Other Delta partners include starbucks, hertz and Ticketmaster.
Customers who have linked their Lyft accounts to Delta can earn miles through April 7, a Delta spokesperson said.
“Customers with linked accounts will receive direct communication from Delta and Lyft in the coming days about the transition,” the spokesperson said. “We appreciate the partnership we've had with Lyft, which benefits loyal customers who have collectively earned billions of miles.”
Travelers wait for rideshare vehicles at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Tuesday, July 23, 2024.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | fake images
“Years ago we partnered with our first airline to unlock more ways to improve and innovate around travel experiences, turning those customers into Lyft loyalists,” Lyft said in a statement. “We continue to expand our horizons by joining forces with major brands that share our customer obsession, including Alaska Airlines, Chase, DoorDash, Mastercard, Hilton, Disney and Bilt.”
Delta did not comment on why it is switching transportation partners, although Delta's credit card partner American Express offers some cardholders credits to use with Uber for rides and food delivery.
Delta, which reports its quarterly earnings on Friday, estimated at an investor day in November that it would receive about $7 billion in 2024 from the AmEx partnership, and set a long-term goal of $10 billion a year.
Lyft had 24.4 million active users at the end of the third quarter, and customers booked more than 216 million rides on the platform in the three months ended September 30, a record and up 16% from a year ago. .
Meanwhile, Uber had 161 million monthly active users on both its ride-hailing and food delivery platforms as of the end of September, and its customers logged more than 2.8 billion trips, including delivery, freight, ride-sharing and ride-hailing. , in the third quarter, 17% more than the same period of the previous year.
Last year, Uber launched a shuttle service to New York's LaGuardia Airport from Manhattan.
Delta and Uber announced the new partnership at the CES tech show in Las Vegas, where Delta also said it would launch an AI-powered “assistant” in its app and make updates to its in-flight entertainment systems.
