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When buying airfare, planning & buying in advance is preferable because of cost savings.

Is the same true with Uber? Apparently I can schedule a 50 mile trip to the Jacksonville, FL airport in advance, but I wonder if last minute pricing is better. I suspect that the same applies to a 90 mile trip to MCO

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  • Last I checked, you get no price guarantees for advance booking? Or any guarantees really.
    – lambshaanxy
    Commented Feb 23 at 3:53
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    Last I check you also pay an extra fee for advance booking
    – littleadv
    Commented Feb 23 at 4:24

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Based off my own testing the answer is No, it's not cheaper.

Normal price for tonight is $53.81 for regular UberX or $50.19 with Wait&Save, when going from downtown Seattle to Seattle airport:

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But if I schedule a ride for 4am in April, the price increases to $71.95:

enter image description here

I've tried times other than 4am too and they're even more expensive. You can try it yourself for your own destination but I'm pretty sure it would always be more expensive.

Also note that Uber doesn’t guarantee a driver will actually be available at the time you’ve pre-booked. I suspect that internally all they do is send out a ride request 10 minutes prior to your scheduled departure, without actually keeping a driver “on call” for your specific ride.

Uber doesn’t guarantee that a driver will accept your ride request. Your ride is confirmed once you receive your driver details.

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  • I have the same experience. Makes sense that blocking a driver so they'll be available at a specific time costs more than the dynamically-fill-every-availability strategy they usually have.
    – deceze
    Commented Feb 23 at 7:49
  • @deceze But do they actually block a driver? I thought they just delay the request and send it out automatically a few minutes before.
    – lambshaanxy
    Commented Feb 23 at 9:38
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    @deceze "Uber doesn’t guarantee that a driver will accept your ride request." uber.com/en-FR/blog/schedule-rides-in-advance-with-uber-reserve
    – lambshaanxy
    Commented Feb 23 at 11:22
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    @deceze there is no point, yes. Though I'm sure its useful to some people who prefer to pre-book things in advance.
    – JonathanReez ♦
    Commented Feb 23 at 19:38
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    @deceze That's exactly what I'm saying: there is no point, it's just marketing.
    – lambshaanxy
    Commented Feb 23 at 19:48

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