Use UberPool to get to and from work? You may be able to save some money on your commute.
Uber has partnered with commuter benefits providers Edenred, Ameriflex, Benefit Resource, and Navia so that workers in more than a dozen US cities can pay for their rides to and from the office using pre-tax earnings. The option is available to riders in New York City; Boston; Chicago; Washington, D.C.; San Francisco; Philadelphia; Las Vegas; Denver; Atlanta; Miami; New Jersey; Los Angeles; San Diego; and Seattle.
The announcement comes after Uber last summer first partnered with WageWorks to let commuters pay for their rides with pre-tax earnings. Since then "thousands of riders" have taken advantage of this option to save a little, Uber's Ronak Trivedi and Tala Akhavan wrote in a blog post Wednesday.
To start using this option, your employer will first need to opt in via one of the benefits providers listed above. Once that happens, you'll be able to add your commuter benefits card as a payment method on your Uber account. To add your commuter benefit card to your Uber account, go to Payments > Add Payment Method > Credit or Debit Card. From there, add your card information, and tap Save. Once you do that, tap the payment method before requesting your ride and select your commuter benefit card (as opposed to your credit card or PayPal).
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Note that you will need to decide how much of your pre-tax income you'd like to contribute to the account. The limit for 2017 is $255 a month, which should pay for a lot of UberPool rides.
On the down side, when using your commuter benefits card as the payment method, you may have to wait longer than normal, Trivedi and Akhavan warned.
"When requesting an uberPOOL with your commuter benefit card selected as the payment method, we'll automatically match you with eligible vehicles (6 or more seats)," they wrote. "As there are sometimes fewer of these vehicle on the road, this may cause a slightly higher wait time than usual."