Last Updated on 11 May 2023 by Dan
Hello everyone! Ride and takeaway hailing app Uber recently launched a new subscription service called Uber One. Uber One charges you a regular fee, but in exchange offers you a range of discounts. Is it worth it for Uber UK customers? Read our review!
What is Uber One?
Uber One is an entirely optional additional service from Uber which costs a recurring billing of £5.99 a month (may vary outside the UK).
In exchange for this you get a number of potential discounts on use of services within the Uber Family – they’re really designed to incentive you to use the Uber Services more by making heavy use cheaper.
Let’s take a look at what you get with Uber One and review if Uber One is worth it! We’re going to assess each individual piece of the Uber One offering, and then look at if it’s worth it as a whole.
How do I get Uber One?
Select “account” in the bar within the Uber App – you’ll see an option for Uber One in the list of options that appears, underneath the big grey buttons.
Selecting this brings up details of Uber One and will allow you to select to opt in.
Uber One offers discounts on car rides
With Uber One you get:
- 5% off basic trips with UberX
- No cancellation penalities.
- 10% off trips using an Exec/Lux
Is this perk worth it? Potentially, it’s definitely one of the better pieces of UberX. If you’re taking a couple of longish journeys home that stray into the higher cost brackets, this can generate savings.
However you do really need to be a regular user for this to work standalone.
If you’re an UberX basic user you’d need to make just over £120 of journeys each month just to cover the Uber One monthly cost – if you’re Executive or Lux users it’s a lower amount of £60 (although the rides themselves are more expensive).
Uber One offers no delivery fees on eligible food and groceries.
Usually ordering through Uber Eats will attract a varied delivery charge depending on how close you are to the takeaway place. I’m in a London borough and I find these usually range from £0-4.
There’s a couple of caveats:
It’s only applies to places with the Uber One logo – however a quick check showed that nearly every takeaway place and grocery shop near me did recognise Uber One.
The second is that this applies to the delivery cost rather than Uber’s service fee – so there is still some extra cost applied.
Is this perk worth it? Potentially if you order multiple takeaways or grocery orders a month from somewhere further away from you. If your favourite takeaway place is very close, it’s likely that the delivery fee you’re paying is nothing or minimal to begin with.
FYI – once you’ve got Uber One, you can see there’s a little logo next to delivery fee which shows if the delivery fee discount applies to this.
Uber One Latest Arrival Estimate Promise
Uber One will pay you £5 in credit if the “latest arrival” that’s cited on your delivery isn’t met.
Is this perk worth it? Absolutely not, latest arrivals are largely smoke and mirrors where very large amounts of time are built in to ensure the stated timeframe is met.
Nice to get a fiver if it’s that delayed, but you’re probably more concerned with where your takeaway is and well into “bad service” if it hasn’t appeared by now.
I’ve only ever had a missed latest arrival happened once, and it was when I attempted to order a takeaway during the football World Cup final (for future reference, I don’t advise doing this).
Uber One (apparently) offers special discounts and promotions.
Cited as a benefit of the sign-up page but low on detail is that Uber One will give you access to special discounts and promotions.
I’m going to have to take this as apparent – I haven’t yet seen anything which has been sent to me which appears not to be a standard Uber promotion. If you’ve had anything which you think is because you’re an Uber One member, please let us know in the comments as we’d love to assess this more fully!
Is this perk worth it? With no offers received we’ve no idea, but it appears to be meaningless at the moment and something to ignore.
Overall Review – Is Uber One worth it?
At it’s core, Uber One is a combination of two real things providing value – discounted car trips and discounted delivery fees.
If you use Uber or Uber Eats just occasionally to take a ride or get a takeaway, it’s really unlikely that there’s enough benefit to subscribing to Uber One for you.
If you are using an Uber for reasonably substantial journey’s more than twice a week or ordering a weekly takeaway from somewhere which is not right around the corner from you, Uber One can represent something that does save you money.
Personally, I think it’s worth spending 10 minutes to do the math – what journey’s and orders have I made over the last few months, and so what would my saving be relative to the cost.
Top tip: Remember Uber One is a monthly service – as with all subscriptions, you can simply switch it off when you’re not using it and reapply when you are, such as you know when you have a heavy-use month coming up.
How do I cancel Uber One?
If you want to cancel Uber One, select the account button in the app then Uber One in the menu that subsequently appears. Select cancel on the page that subsequently appears, and you’ll be ask for your reasoning.
You must fill out this, and then select to still cancel on the confirmation screen that pops up, or it won’t go through.
You’ll keep your membership until the next natural point that you would have been billed, whereupon it’ll expire without you being charged.
What is this 5.99 charge from Uber?
I’ve noted some people are checking in what they think to be a random 5.99 charge from Uber – if you’re seeing this it’s likely you’re subscribed to Uber One, intentionally or unintentionally.
Follow the step above to cancel or read the rest of the article to see if it might be worth it for you.
Any questions?
If you have any questions on Uber One, we’d love to hear from you! Just let us know in the comments below.
And that’s it!
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