At the Money2020 conference in Las Vegas, the cab-hailing giant, Uber announced of getting into the credit card business in partnership with Barclays and Visa.
With the new credit card system, users earn rewards in the form of points from ride-hailing, purchases from the restaurants, hotels and of course, UberEats. Uber’s ride-hailing service is used by over 10 million people every day. This venture will give Uber an access to the valuable customer information. It will get records of some of the purchases of its customers. Also, it will act as a checkpoint in its race to attain a larger role in online and offline commerce.
Applying for the card is a fairly easy process. From 2 November, users can apply for the card from the Uber app itself. Within a few minutes, you will get your creditworthiness and instantly use it for Uber rides and UberEats purchases. The physical card will be delivered to you within a period of one week.
You get a plethora of benefits with the card. If you spend a sum of $500 on purchases within the first 90 days, you will get a bonus of $100 with the no-fee card. Also, you will get 4% back on restaurant, bar and take-out purchases; 3% on airfare, hotels and short-stay rentals; 2% back on purchases made via online platforms and 1% back on every other purchase.
Users will also get a $50 credit for online subscriptions if they spend $5,000 on card per-year. If you regularly use the card to pay your phone’s monthly bill, you can avail a phone insurance worth $600. You will also get exclusive invites for events.
To put that in different words, Uber will hook you up with $50 to get information about how you have spent $5000+ dollars. Also, the company will insure your phone only after getting information from your carrier regarding what you are spending your money on through the carrier.
However, Uber confirmed that it would not be selling the collected data to any third party companies.