Uber - Capital One Promotion

Earlier this year in April, Uber and Capital One Bank teamed up for a pretty amazing promotion where you would get 20% rebates on your Uber rides if you paid with your Capital One Quicksilver credit card until April 2016.

As you may know, we weren't huge fans of Uber in Manhattan (given the wait time required when so many yellow cabs were immediately available). But we did find UberX very valuable outside the City, especially when going to the airport or in other cities.

However, it wasn't until recently that my father did a "product change" from his Capital One Venture card to a Quicksilver Card. Both cards had no annual fee, but only earned 1.25% and 1.50% rewards, respectively. Given the low rewards rate, these cards spent more time in the proverbial sock drawer than in my father's wallet.

But as NYC taxi ride quality (both car and driver) became more of an issue, we started using UberX - especially when the 20% discount made it most cost effective when compared to taxi fares after tipping. From what my cheap Asian father tells me, Uber drivers work for themselves, so no tipping is required.

Our September Quicksilver statement just closed, so we thought we'd update our readers with the actual results.

20% Promotional Rebate
On September 13, we took a ride to our friends' apartment for dinner. As you can see, those charges posted the following day, and we just received the 20% rebates for those rides this afternoon in the amounts of $1.92 and $2.25.

We also just took a $14.38 Uber ride yesterday and that also posted, but not soon enough to have the 20% rebate post on this statement. I fully anticipate it will show up on next month.

1.5% Quicksilver Reward
In addition to the 20% promotional discount, all spend on the Quicksilver card earns 1.5% in cash rebates that post immediately (the $0.17 reward is shown above, but the $0.14 is cut off from the image).

1 SPG Point per $ (worth 2.5+%)
Plus, my father had linked his Starwood SPG account, so all Uber rides also earned him 1-3 SPG points per dollar spent on Uber. Those rewards posted the day after the ride was taken. If we take an Uber ride on a regular day, we earn 1 SPG point per dollar. If we take Uber on a day where we're staying at a Starwood hotel, then we earn 3 SPG points per dollar. My father values each SPG point at 2.5 cents/pt minimum, even though we often get 3-7 cents of value from our hotel redemptions.

Unclear how much we'll use UberX as we still prefer using MTA subways and buses for most of our transportation, but it's nice to know we can get up to 24+% back!