Uber Ride: Cost vs. Convenience and What We Know

Generated Title: Uber and Delta: Because Flying Wasn't Already Enough of a Rip-Off

Alright, so Delta and Uber are "deepening their partnership." Because apparently, airlines and ride-sharing apps weren't already squeezing every last dime out of us. What's next, a mandatory subscription service to breathe the recycled air on a flight?

The "Enhanced" Drop-Off: A Solution to a Problem They Created?

This new "pilot program" at LaGuardia (LGA) is supposed to "reimagine the airport drop-off experience." Seriously? Reimagining? It sounds like they're just shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic. They're letting you self-select "Express Drop Off, Checked-In" to be dropped off at a special curb. Oh, and you get "curbside hospitality" whatever that means. Probably someone in a cheap vest pointing vaguely toward the security line.

Joshua Kaehler, some managing director at Delta, says they're using partnerships to "solve real customer pain points." Give me a break. The "pain points" are often caused by these very companies – overbooked flights, surge pricing, hidden fees. Now they're pretending to be heroes by offering a slightly less miserable drop-off experience?

And insights from this LGA pilot will "inform similar ground experience programs at other Delta hubs." Translation: They're going to roll this out everywhere and pat themselves on the back for fixing a problem they helped create.

But here's the real question: is this actually going to reduce congestion, or just move it around so the VIPs don't have to look at it?

Loyalty Beyond the Flight: Loyalty to Whom, Exactly?

They're bragging that 1.4 million SkyMiles Members have linked their Delta and Uber accounts. Big deal. That just means 1.4 million people are now even more locked into these two ecosystems. It's not "loyalty," it's captivity.

You earn miles on eligible Uber rides and Uber Eats deliveries. So you spend more money to earn points that you can then use to spend even more money. It's genius, if by genius you mean "diabolical."

Oh, offcourse there's the free Uber ride home for Thanksgiving in certain Georgia counties, thanks to The Law Offices of Joshua W. Branch, but that's a band-aid on a gaping wound. Drunk driving is a serious issue, and yeah, it's great someone's offering free rides, but it doesn't excuse the overall predatory practices of these companies. You can read more about this initiative in How to get a free Uber ride home this Thanksgiving.

And speaking of predatory practices...

The Real Cost of Convenience: Are You Even Comparing Prices?

A study found that there's a 14% price difference between Uber and Lyft for the same ride. And most people aren't even comparing the costs. We're all just blindly clicking the first app we see.

Michael Luca, a professor at Johns Hopkins, says ride-hailing customers in NYC pay an extra $300 million annually by not comparing prices. $300 million! That's enough to buy a small island, or, you know, maybe fix some potholes.

Uber's response? That the study doesn't consider the "supply of drivers, customer demand, or the distance between the driver and the hailer." As if we're too stupid to understand basic economics.

Lyft chimes in with "Riders have a lot to gain, and little to lose by checking Lyft." Yeah, no kidding. But who has the time? We're all too busy trying to survive to comparison shop for every single damn ride.

The study also points out that Uber doesn't allow third parties to use its API for price comparisons. So they're actively preventing you from finding the best deal. Real classy, guys.

But wait...are we really expecting Uber and Lyft to make it easier for us to pay them less? Am I the crazy one here?

It's Just Another Way to Nickel and Dime Us

I'm not saying convenience doesn't have a price. But let's be real: this whole Delta-Uber partnership is just another way to extract value from already-overburdened travelers. They dress it up with fancy words like "reimagining" and "loyalty," but it's the same old song and dance. And honestly...I'm tired of dancing.