Uber wants customers to bulk buy rides, restaurants to batch cook value meals

The company is already making more trips and deliveries than ever.

9/24/25 8:21AM

Whether you’re a delivery fiend with a penchant for a popular dish from a local spot, or you’re someone who makes the same monotonous cab ride multiple times a month, Uber wants to make your routine a little cheaper.

Yesterday, the company announced a raft of changes across its services, with The Verge presenting one new feature — where riders can bulk buy 5, 10, 15, or 20 passes for the same route at a discounted rate — as an attempt to “chip away at the perception that its ride-hailing service is too expensive.”

Similarly, “Meal Deals,” a new Uber Eats offering, is also designed to save users a bit of cash, with a range of popular dishes prepped in batches at local restaurants priced at $15 or less, including fees.

With a renewed focus on its power customers, Uber’s latest initiatives might help the company book a few extra trips. However, its riders and drivers are already busier than ever, with the number of deliveries and taxi rides booked through Uber hitting record highs as it is.

In 2018, Uber was clocking just over 1.1 billion “trips” (a composite measure of the number of rides and food delivery orders completed on the platform) in the first three months of its fiscal year. In the last quarter, it notched almost 3x more than that, as users hopped into cabs and ordered private burrito taxis a staggering 3.27 billion times on the platform across Q2.

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JetBlue is raising its bag fees as fuel costs squeeze airlines

JetBlue will reportedly hike its bag fees, as the cost of jet fuel continues to climb amid the war in Iran. It’s the latest example of carriers finding ways to push rising costs onto travelers.

Last week, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said that if fuel prices remain elevated, fares would need to rise another 20% for his airline to break even this year.

As CNBC reported, when one airline raises fees, others tend to follow.

Earlier this month, JetBlue hiked its first-quarter outlook for operating revenue per seat mile to between 5% and 7%, saying that strong Q1 demand helped “partially offset additional expenses realized from operational disruptions and rising fuel costs.” Now, the carrier appears to be making moves to further boost revenue to offset those costs.

Earlier on Monday, JetBlue rival Alaska Air lowered its Q1 profit forecast. The refining margins for the carrier’s cheapest fuel option — sourced from Singapore and representing about 20% of Alaska’s overall supply — have spiked 400% since February.

JetBlue did not immediately respond to a request for comment.