With gas prices surging, it’s not just airlines adding fuel surcharges — Uber is adding fuel surcharges as well.
Details of Uber’s new fuel surcharges
As of Wednesday, March 16, 2022, Uber will be introducing fuel surcharges, with 100% of the additional fees going directly into workers’ pockets:
- Uber passengers will pay $0.45 or $0.55 in fuel surcharges per trip
- Uber Eats customers will pay $0.35 or $0.45 in fuel surcharges per order
These new fuel surcharges are temporary for at least the next 60 days, and will be reassessed after that point. The amount of the surcharges will be based on the average trip distance and increase in gas prices in each state.
These surcharges won’t be introduced in New York City. That’s because as of March 1, 2022, drivers in New York City received a 5.3% increase in the mandated minimum earnings standards. Furthermore, the vast majority of NYC delivery workers use bicycles, and not cars.
This seems like a fair development
With record high gas prices and drivers being on the hook for filling up their own tanks, it seems totally reasonable for some surcharge to be added to help drivers.
Airline fuel surcharges frustrate many consumers because they’re raised when gas prices go up, but then often aren’t lowered when prices go down, and they’ve become a permanent fixture of how airfare is structured. Of course there’s always the risk that we see something similar from Uber, though there’s no reason to believe (as of now) that this would happen.
In the case of Uber Eats deliveries, I do want to note just how many different fees there are on those now — in addition to the actual order amount and taxes, there’s now a service fee, delivery fee, fuel surcharge, and then there’s the tip. All of that also assumes you don’t pay the priority delivery fee, which I’ve increasingly found to be worthwhile (if I don’t want cold food to be delivered warm, or warm food to be delivered cold).
Bottom line
You can expect Uber rides and deliveries to get more expensive as of this coming Wednesday, as the company will be adding fees ranging from $0.35 to $0.55 per ride or delivery. This is to account for record high gas prices, and seems like a reasonable move.
What do you make of Uber adding fuel surcharges?
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