Uber Changes Referral Program: No More $20 Off Your First Ride

My dad isn’t an Uber user, so I sent him my referral link the other day so he could create an Uber account. I had told him it would give him $20 off his first ride but was surprised to see the message the app actually sent him:

I’m giving you $5 off each of your first 4 Uber rides. To accept, use code ‘uberTheForwardCabin’ to sign up. Enjoy! Details: https://www.uber.com/invite/uberTheForwardCabin

Previously, Uber would give $20 off the first ride, which was nice, because for relatively shorter trips, this would pretty much cover the ride. Now, Uber has changed the benefit, forcing riders to take at least 4 trips before recouping the $20 savings. This encourages riders to take more than 1 trip, and I know several people that would create accounts every time they ride, just to save  $20, so perhaps this was changed to discourage this. I just discovered this when trying to refer another user so as far as I know, I haven’t seen any official announcement on this, but maybe some of you have.

In any event, if you don’t have Uber yet and want to save $5 off of each of your first 4 rides, feel free to use my link here.