Uber helps riders avoid surge pricing with Surge Drop feature

Uber, the San Francisco-based car service that will find you thanks to an app on your smartphone, got a lot of ink and took a lot of heat around New Year’s Eve for its “surge pricing.” That is, the price of an Uber ride would go up if demand was high. Now, Uber is turning a tables a bit, announcing what it calls “Surge Drop,” a way to take advantage of a drop in the price of a ride. Essentially, it says that because of demand fluctuation, your ride might cost less than expected, and Uber can let you know via your iPhone if you can snag a cheap ride near where you are.

Want to hop in an Uber without paying surge pricing? It’ll be easier to find thanks to a new feature added to the company’s iPhone app. The company announced today that it is launching “Surge Drop” notifications that will notify users when surge pricing drops around them. The new feature arrives a week after Uber CEO Travis Kalanick announced it at the Launch Festival in San Francisco. Uber’s surge pricing strategy raises the cost of a ride when demand increases. When a user requests a ride during a surge, Uber’s app will notify them of the price increase, and offer them the choice to confirm that they want the ride. With today’s update, riders can request a push notification when the surge goes away by tapping on a button that says “notify me when surge ends.”