Uber is making its biggest push yet to become a travel platform. At its GO-GET event, the company announced U.S. users can now book hotels through an Expedia Group partnership, with the selection expected to grow to more than 700,000 properties worldwide. Uber One members get 20% off a rotating list of 10,000 hotels and 10% back in Uber One credits on bookings. Vacation rentals from Vrbo are due later this year, and restaurant reservations through OpenTable are being folded into the travel experience.
The strategy becomes clear when you look at Uber's numbers. In the first quarter of 2026, the company reported gross bookings of $53.7 billion. Delivery gross bookings hit $25.99 billion, while mobility gross bookings reached $26.39 billion. Delivery is now nearly the same size as the core ride-hailing business.
Uber One has become the connective tissue. With over 50 million members driving more than half of mobility and delivery gross bookings, hotel discounts give the membership program a new place to create value. The goal is not simply to sell rooms, but to make the app more habitual across rides, food, and travel.
The urgency is real. Waymo is now providing 500,000 paid robotaxi rides a week across 10 U.S. cities, up from 50,000 two years ago. While Uber has responded with autonomous vehicle partnerships, the consumer-side defense is just as important. If rides become commoditized, Uber needs more reasons for customers to open its app.
Airbnb is moving from the opposite direction. It recently launched a partnership with Welcome Pickups to offer private car services, keeping more of the travel journey inside its own app.
What looks like product expansion is really defensive repositioning. Hotels sit close to Uber's existing use cases, creating ride demand, food demand, and membership value. Flights remain a harder fit, being high-consideration purchases dominated by comparison shopping. For now, Uber is betting that making the app the operating system for a trip is the best defense against a future where rides are just one transport option among many.