It's ride service meets room service as Uber and Starwood Hotels have teamed up to bridge the two global companies with a benefits feature.
Starting Wednesday, Starwood preferred guest members who use Uber can earn points for every dollar they spend on a ride. It's pretty much as simple as that.
Of course, it’ll take a few rides before you earn enough Starwood points to use on anything — anywhere between 3,000 and 35,000 points are required for free one-night stays at various hotels.
Someone looking to earn points will also have to have stayed in a Starwood's hotel at least once in the year as well. Starwood chains include the Sheraton, Westin and the W Hotels.
This isn't the first time Starwood has partnered with a travel-centric business, either. Airlines such as Emirates have similar deals with the hotel chain, albeit a person may use Uber a little more often than they fly around in an airplane.
Still, a ridesharing car service teaming up with a hotel chain kind of makes sense when you think about it — both involve traveling to places where you may not necessarily have a car or house.
Uber and Starwood share 72 percent of the cities they operate in, meaning if you use Uber somewhere around the globe, there's a good chance a person can find a Starwood hotel to stay in.
But for as chummy as Starwood seems to be getting with one disruption service, they've certainly been wary of another — Airbnb. (Video via Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide)
That's because while Uber is cutting into the business of driving services like taxis, the home-sharing Airbnb service is giving hotels a run for their money in the lodging sector.
Airbnb is set to take part in a seminar at the International Hotel Investment Forum this March where the company's head of global strategy will face off with Starwood's CEO in a debate titled "The World is Changing – It Is Ours To Win Or Lose."
This video includes images from Getty Images.
