Uber pilots Uber Ride Pass with a select few customers in Bengaluru

Uber pilots Uber Ride Pass with a select few in Bengaluru. The cab aggregator has given the option of 30 rides within 30 days for Rs 99 per ride on UberGo for an upfront cost of Rs 299.

The day Ola announced its partnership with Microsoft to build a connected vehicle platform for car manufacturers, Uber started piloting the Uber Ride Pass service with a few users in Bengaluru.

The cab aggregator has offered the option of 30 rides within 30 days for Rs 99 per ride on UberGo for an upfront cost of Rs 299. However, the cost of each ride must be lower than Rs 250.

Any charge over Rs 250 is charged to the passenger at actuals, according to a user. There is a similar plan for 15 days as well.

The Uber Ride Pass is currently only available in the US. According to the Uber Global Blog:

A ride pass offers you a guaranteed price - or a guaranteed discount, for some passes - on qualifying rides in exchange for an upfront fee. The guaranteed price passes have a max redeemable value - for example, a pass may only cover the first $25 of a trip. So for trips where the actual fare would exceed that max amount, you'll pay the guaranteed price plus the overage. 

For those few trips that happen to fall below the price guaranteed by the pass, we'll charge you the lesser amount, but your pass will still be redeemed. 

Also, way before Uber piloted the Uber Ride Pass, Ola launched Ola Select, which comes with benefits like rides at lower rates, no surge pricing and a guaranteed service. Ola also has the Share Pass, which allows a rider to book a certain number of share rides under different price brackets. Apart from this, last week, Uber launched uberACCESS and uberASSIT wheelchair accessible vehicle.

The year has been tough for Uber. Beginning with #deleteuber to Susan Fowler’s damaging blog that revealed Uber’s sexist work culture, the blocks have kept tumbling. There was a certain sense of stability when Travis Kalanick resigned as CEO, and a few months later Dara Khosrowashi was appointed as the company’s new CEO.

However, globally, it has been business as usual for the company. While speculation is rife that the San Francisco based cab aggregator would be raising funding from SoftBank, Masayoshi Son, CEO SoftBank threw a curveball by stating it might invest in Uber’s rival Lyft.

This year, Ola has been giving Uber tough competition. Apart from raising $1.3 billion, Ola has been upping its game, and recently bet on the connected cars platform.