As Uber gears up for the summer travel season, the company announced Tuesday a new feature to ease the planning process for riders. The feature offers a convenient way for users to search for destinations in another city and reserve rides in advance before their plane even lands.
Uber’s new feature addresses the surge in summer travel and aims to make it easier for travelers to make transportation arrangements way before arrival. Airlines for America predicts that about 271 million passengers will fly worldwide between June and August, compared to 255 million last summer. According to the company, this feature has been a popular request among riders for a long time.
Now, when a user plans a ride, they can select the “Search in a different city” option and type in their desired destination. The most useful part about this is the reserve function, so travelers can book a pickup time from a location that they will travel to later that day or 90 days from now. Additionally, Uber provides estimated wait times and costs for rides from local airports and within various cities.
The new feature is available in more than 10,000 cities, including Athens, Buenos Aires, Dublin, Florence, Paris, Rio De Janeiro, Santo Domingo, Sydney, Tokyo and Vancouver, among many others.
Uber launched the feature today alongside a host of others, including a partnership with Flying Blue to allow members to earn miles, additional reservations for its “Uber Bubbles” product where visitors in Paris can book champagne tours and a free one-hour cruise experience in Pont Marie.