Uber expands into hotel bookings with new app feature

Open Uber’s app today, and you’ll see the usual options: hail a ride, order dinner, or pick up groceries. Now, there’s a new tile in the lineup: book a hotel room. The ride-hailing giant is making its biggest leap yet into the world of travel accommodations, announcing at its annual Go/Get product event that users can now reserve and pay for hotel stays directly through the Uber app.

This marks one of the company’s most ambitious expansions in recent memory, but it’s a move that has been quietly in the works for years. Uber is partnering with Expedia, the travel booking powerhouse it reportedly considered acquiring back in 2024. At launch, the feature will offer access to over 700,000 hotel properties worldwide. Notably, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi previously served as Expedia’s CEO, giving the partnership an additional layer of strategic depth.

Sachin Kansal, Uber’s chief product officer, explained that many customers already use the app for travel-related tasks, from booking a ride to the airport to ordering food via Uber Eats once they’ve landed. Adding hotels felt like a natural progression. “I think there will continue to be multiple apps in this world, as there already are in the travel world and the hotels world,” Kansal said. “Our main goal is to be able to tie the experience together for our users.”

The hotel booking feature is powered by Expedia’s API, but Uber’s engineering team built the interface from scratch to ensure it feels native to the app. “It’s not just us putting a web view in there based on their UI,” Kansal noted. “We’ve actually built it from the ground up using pretty detailed APIs that we get, so it’s a great partnership from a development perspective and a technical perspective.”

Uber envisions a seamless travel loop: book a hotel, order a ride to the property, and then use Uber Eats for room service after check-in. Uber One subscribers will receive exclusive discounts when booking with select hotel chains and can earn points redeemable for rides or food delivery. Later this year, the app will also add home rentals from Vrbo, another Expedia-owned platform.

Expedia Group, which also owns Hotels.com, Travelocity, Hotwire, and Orbitz, is a major player in the travel booking space. Its biggest rival is Booking Holdings, the parent company of Booking.com, Priceline, Kayak, and CheapFlights. Both companies spend billions annually on marketing in a fiercely competitive market. Booking currently leads the pack, but Expedia is betting its partnership with Uber will help close the gap.

Of course, Uber’s entry into hotel bookings carries real risk. The company isn’t immediately associated with travel accommodations, and its app is already packed with features. Adding hotels could overwhelm users, leading them to simply ignore the new option. Kansal acknowledged the challenge, noting that Uber is tackling clutter through personalized homepages tailored to each user’s habits. A new “one search” function will also allow users to type in broad terms like “ice cream,” and the app will surface relevant ride destinations or takeout options based on preferences.

Uber is also rolling out a travel mode with indoor walking directions for navigating unfamiliar airports, plus city guides that highlight local favorites and popular tourist spots. Starting this summer, European users will be able to book boat rides directly through the app.

Not everything announced at the event was travel-related. Uber is introducing an on-the-go snack option for Uber Black and Uber SUV riders, who can request a snack or beverage waiting for them in the vehicle. Since many Uber drivers also work as Uber Eats couriers, Kansal said the feature effectively merges the two roles. “They will get paid for both the jobs appropriately,” he added.

Another new feature, “Shop for Me,” lets customers request items from stores not currently listed in Uber’s directory. Users specify what they want, and a driver or courier purchases the items at the requested store.

Finally, Uber is integrating AI-powered search into its app, enabling voice commands to book a ride. For example, a user could say, “Book a cheap car that can fit five pieces of luggage for a ride to the airport,” and the AI will handle the reservation. This joins existing AI tools, such as generating a grocery list from a photo. The company is also racing to add hundreds of robotaxis through partnerships with Waymo and Wayve, along with fleets of sidewalk delivery robots.

What about flights? Kansal wouldn’t confirm whether air travel is on Uber’s roadmap. “Not at this time,” he said. “I want to just make sure that we nail this experience. The amount of opportunity that we have to be able to create a seamless experience between rides and eats and hotels, there’s still a lot more to do.”