A few days ago, MaxMilesPoints on Instagram revealed a shady Uber practice whereby the price of an Uber to the airport might vary based on which airline you choose for drop off. To be clear, his example (which is still happening at the time of writing) is for a drop off for two different airlines in the same terminal that show up next to each other on the map but feature a difference in price of more than 14%. This is really disappointing, but Max’s tip to check the prices to different airlines in the same terminal could potentially save you some money.
Uber from Manhattan to JFK Terminal 4 costs more if you select Delta than if you select Virgin Atlantic
Max’s reel on Instagram reveals a shady pricing tactic that Uber is taking in at least some circumstances.
In his reel, Max shows an example of requesting an Uber from Manhattan to JFK’s Terminal 4. Terminal 4 serves a multitude of airlines, two of which are Delta and Virgin Atlantic. Max even shows the two airlines coming up next to each other on the map to demonstrate that they are adjacent at Terminal 4.
However, the price to get an Uber to “Delta” at Terminal 4 can be significantly more than the price to get an Uber to Virgin Atlantic — even though the drop off for either airline is essentially the same area.
For instance, at the time of writing, I searched for the cost of an Uber from Beekman Tower (a hotel I recently reviewed) to JFK Terminal 4 for Delta and I found the following prices:
As you can see, an UberX came to $110.17, an XL is priced at $137.36, and an XXL would cost $161.38.
However, I then immediately tried pricing an Uber to JFK Terminal 4 with “Virgin Atlantic” as the selected airline. The pricing dropped significantly:
As you can see, an UberX rings in at $85.26, an XL is $96.85, and an XXL is $112.85. That’s a remarkable difference! The savings for an UberX to Virgin Atlantic is about 22.6% over requesting an UberX to Delta in the same terminal. The savings for an XXL is more than 30% when requesting an Uber to Virgin Atlantic at Terminal 4!
In Max’s original example, the difference was about $14, which while still significant isn’t quite as wide a gap. Interestingly, I noticed that the size of the gap in pricing seemed to at least somewhat depend on pick up point.
For instance, at almost the same time (within a minute of the timestamps above), I also searched the Andaz 5th Ave to JFK Terminal 4. The difference in price with the Andaz as the starting point was only about $5, so it seems that the pricing bias is somewhat influenced by both ends of the trip.
Is this a one-off, or is it widespread?
At this point, I’m not sure whether this is a feature or a bug. One would think that after days of bad press, Uber would have “fixed” the bug if it were one and at least made the pricing consistent to the same terminal. I’m surprised that this persists despite a TikTok with more than 60,000 views and an Instagram reel with thousands of likes, but the price gap persists.
I tested the same type of trick at Boston Logan Airport since I was staying near that airport last night. Unlike the price to JFK Terminal 4, the pricing at Boston Logan Airport seemed consistent for airlines within the same terminal in my experiments, so this isn’t going to be an issue all the time.
However, I’m curious as to how common this difference is. And I’m not only curious about the difference in pricing based on destination, but also based on starting point. I found it very interesting that the spread in prices seemed to depend at least somewhat on starting point since I saw a much more pronounced difference starting at Beekman Tower than I did from the Andaz 5th Ave (I also tested the Thompson Central Park and found the gap to be similar to the Andaz). This all makes me wonder whether I might be wise to test out requesting an Uber from across the street to see how pricing may change if I request pick up from a different hotel.
It is worth mentioning that I’ve occasionally heard reports of travel providers like airlines changing pricing based on the type of device used to access the site (e.g. charging a Macbook user more than a PC user). I don’t know how widespread that is either, but I could certainly see algorithms being deployed to guess the highest price point for various user segments.
Either way, I’ll be certain to keep this in mind the next time I’m requesting an Uber to the airport.
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You can also get different pricing for the exact same trip depending on the personal v business profile.
Let’s be real: fixing the bug means that once you’ve selected one airline, they lock in the price FOR YOU and your IP address and cookie history to make sure you keep seeing the same high price.
I don’t understand why people always have these 1-dimensional perspectives on a fix, the fix is to make the con more sophisticated so no one will be able to discover it. While still $$$ profiting from it.
Data point: I compared Virgin and Delta (T4 JFK) and Delta was about $30 less. This is coming from NJ.
In some airports terminals can be quite far apart and there can be significant time and mileage differences in getting to them depending on traffic, construction, etc.; and thus fare variations are well justified. But if it’s for two different airlines flying out of the same place, the price should be the same. Actually I seldom see Uber asking what airline I’m flying, just which terminal I want to go from, information that is readily available online.
For ATL — AA, DL, UA were all $24.92 and NK, AS, F9 all $23.91
This was uber
When I put my address to be around the corner from my home (like 25 steps away), prices can be less. I have my default to that address for privacy reasons, but when the fare was calculated with my actual address one day by accident, I noticed the price discrepancy.
I usually asked to be picked up or dropped off a block or two away from areas that can be too busy. Not only is that often cheaper, you may get picked up faster.
Just tried this with Delta and Air France, which are at the same terminal in Detroit.
Uber – 10% more expensive with Delta as compared to AF
Lyft – 1% more expensive with Delta as compared to AF
Uber was 50% more expensive than Lyft overall.
Yes, but I have a $100 Uber GC I bought from Costco for $75!
Given Uber’s history of shady practices, as well as the recent article on their unwillingness to address sexual assault in their vehicles (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/06/business/uber-sexual-assault.html), none of this is a surprise. Why people keep using them (or Hertz, for that matter) is beyond me.
there have been multiple cases in India where android phones had cheaper taxi, food orders, u should try that 😀
Well they must figure Apple buyers have more money to waste.
Yet another reason to avoid Uber, not that we needed one. I’ve gone back to taking cabs from airports where feasible because you don’t have to go to wherever the pickup area is, there’s no games with the driver saying they tried to pick you up, and there’s no wait.
I’ve noticed that pricing also varies significantly if you designate it a business trip versus a personal trip (assuming you have both types of cards assigned to your account). Personal for me has sometimes been as much as 20% less.
In a similar vein – also check the prices on longer rentals – we have a 6 day rental this week – with Avis (Presidents Clubs – Thaks VenX Hertx PC status match).
I will check for offsite rental locations- that are 3-5 miles from airport – its cheaper to Uber/Lyft RT than renting from airport lot – actually had good luck with multi-level upgrades at non- airport locations (2X this year from cheapest level to a Premium sedan, upgraded from entry level SUV to 8 Seater loaded SUV (had 5 pax so it was great).
Now with two CSR with $10 monthly Lyft credits (as well as Dashpass Discount – from free CSP/CSR/CIP Doordash Pass) – I compare both and 85% of the time LYFT is cheaper and we end up using $50 Amex credits for Uber/Eats food pickup -UE which don’t have dynamic pricing (like rides and the shady upricing for GC and Amex credits). Have Delta Biz Plat ($10 monthly Ride share credit that is only bankbale in $25 Lyft not Uber) P2 just got DL Gold Biz so I will PC to Gold Biz Gold (AF hits this monthnand have a ton of Hotel credits to the Delta Stray credit and PC isn’t interesting ATM – BTW the DL Gold/Plat get 6mo/12mo UberOne monthly credits.
We also have three Chase UA cards that get ride share credits as well – but they are super- flexible and can be used globally (I have been bank for UberEats credits.
Use the Obi app to check for the best prices- it’s really useful!
I’m reading this on my Android phone. Since yesterday I’ve been getting ads that pop up at the top of the page and cover several lines of text. Very intrusive. Could you please look into this? I know you guys don’t want things like that on your site. Thank you.
Had a flight on Cathay from SFO a couple of weeks ago. Booked the Uber indicating that I was flying on Jet Blue which yielded a lower fare. Uber estimates are also known to vary based on whether you have a premium credit card or a $0 AF card saved in your account profile.