It appears as if Uber likes being in the credit card game. Their latest venture into the world of plastic involves the Capital One Quicksilver card, and sister card QuicksilverOne.
If you have either of these credit cards in your wallet you can earn a 20% statement credit for all Uber purchases made using said cards until next year.
The offer is good from now until April 30th, 2016. In other words, you’ve got an entire year of 20% off Uber rides.
The statement credit should appear within 1-2 billing cycles once the purchase has been made. As always, your credit card account must be in good standing at time of fulfillment to be eligible.
[There’s now an Uber credit card available!]
21.5% Off Uber Purchases
To give you an example of the potential savings, say you spend $100 on Uber this month using Quicksilver.
You’ll get $20 back, so it’ll only cost you $80. But wait, there’s more! You also earn 1.5% cash back on all purchases made using Quicksilver.
So in reality, you’ll earn $1.50 on that $100 purchase plus the $20 statement credit for total savings of $21.50, or 21.5% off Uber. It doesn’t get much better than that.
Looked at another way, you would need to spend $400 on Uber using a 5% cash back credit card to match just the $20. And even more for lower cash back categories.
I recently bought $500 worth of Uber gifts in advance using my Discover it card to get 5% cash back. That’s only $25 off, but still worth it to me because I use the service frequently and discounts are hard to come by.
If you don’t have a Quicksilver card but still want to earn cash back for using Uber, consider the Sam’s Club MasterCard, which offers 3% cash back on travel.
Or check out the Barclaycard Arrival Plus, which comes with double miles on all purchases, equating to 2% cash back when redeemed.
The Capital One Venture Rewards card accomplishes the same thing, though the Barclaycard is slightly better because you get 10% of redeemed miles back when used for travel, and Uber counts as travel.
Lastly, if you want to earn Membership Rewards points instead, use an Amex card that offers them and you’ll get two per dollar spent on Uber.
This is a good option if points mean more to you, perhaps because you want to transfer them to an airline loyalty program to get more bang for your buck.
Tip: If you are a new Uber user, you can link any Capital One credit or debit card and enter promo code CAPITALONE by June 30th, 2015 to get your first two rides (up to $30 per ride) free.