Technologies

Uber Revs Up New Discounts With Prepaid Ride Passes, Uber Eats Meal Deals

Eat and ride cheaper with prepaid and price lock passes, including for teens, and with lunches priced at $15 or less.

Alas, those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer are over. Autumn is here, and many of us are back to our routines — commuting to work and school and a lot more lunches in the office and the cafeteria.

Uber and Uber Eats are introducing several new features to take some of the economic sting out of all that eating and riding, including meal deals, prepaid passes and price-locked rides.

«As fall routines take shape, daily life shouldn’t feel like a daily battle,» said Amit Fulay, head of rider product at Uber. «With these new features, we’re making it simpler and more affordable to move through your day — whether that’s to the office, grabbing a meal, or getting your teen to practice.»

Meal deals at $15 or less

US workers are back in the office at the highest rate since before the COVID pandemic — nearly 80%, according to market research from Placer.ai — and they’re as hungry as ever. According to a 2023 survey by ezCater, an online marketplace that connects businesses to restaurants and caterers, workers in big cities spend a bunch for lunch per month, including Los Angeles ($432), New York ($418) and San Francisco ($416).

Uber Eats is rolling out Meal Deals, which will provide popular meals for $15 or less, including all fees. How it works: Participating restaurants will prepare popular lunches and dinners in batches, which will drive the prices down because of the volume. Orders might take a few minutes longer than usual, the company said, since deliveries will also occur in batches.

Meal Deals will be available first in New York City, Austin and Miami, and then Philadelphia shortly thereafter. Uber Eats plans to expand the program to more cities in the near future.

Prepaid passes on rides

Uber is offering discounts on rides you take frequently with Prepaid Passes. Customers can buy bundles of 5, 10, 15 or 20 rides. The bigger the bundle, the bigger the savings — up to 20%.

Prepaid passes will be available in more than 75 US cities, including Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami,Orlando, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Seattle, St. Louis and Tampa Bay. Uber said it will be adding more cities soon.

Wider reach for price lock passes

Uber rolled out this feature in a few cities in the US in May, and now it’s expanding to every major city, and also major cities in Brazil.

Riders can lock in a price from point A to point B for a 1-hour window each day on their selected routes with a pass that costs $3. The pass is good for 30 days or $50 in savings, whichever comes first. Riders can buy up to 10 passes at a time.

Uber says that if your locked-in price is higher than the upfront price at the time you take the ride, you will get the lower price.

Ride passes for teens

From their accounts, teen customers can buy price-lock passes or prepaid passes. They can use a personal payment method or a card connected to the family profile.

That could come in handy for busy teens going to and from many places, including school, sports and social events.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Sunday, Jan. 25

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Jan. 25.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? It might help to be a Scrabble player. Read on for all the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Some breakfast drinks, for short
Answer: OJS

4A clue: Ready for business
Answer: OPEN

5A clue: Information gathered by a spy
Answer: INTEL

6A clue: Highest-scoring Scrabble word with four tiles (22)
Answer: QUIZ

7A clue: Nine-digit ID
Answer: SSN

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Agree to receive promotional emails, say
Answer: OPTIN

2D clue: Second-highest-scoring Scrabble word with four tiles (20)
Answer: JEEZ

3D clue: Sketch comedy show since ’75
Answer: SNL

4D clue: Burden
Answer: ONUS

5D clue: Geniuses have high ones
Answer: IQS

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for Jan. 25, #489

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for Jan. 25, No. 489.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections: Sports Edition grid started with a funny message: SUPER BOWL ORR BUST. If you’re struggling with today’s puzzle but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by The Times. It doesn’t appear in the NYT Games app, but it does in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can play it for free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Bummer!

Green group hint: Add three letters.

Blue group hint: Noted hockey players.

Purple group hint: Not the moon, but …

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Disappointment.

Green group: Sports, with «-ing.»

Blue group: Hall of Fame NHL defensemen.

Purple group: ____ star(s)

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is disappointment. The four answers are bust, dud, failure and flop.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is sports, with «-ing.» The four answers are bowl, box, curl and surf.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is Hall of Fame NHL defensemen. The four answers are Bourque, Coffey, Leetch and Orr.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is ____ star(s). The four answers are all, Chicago, Dallas and super.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for Jan. 25 #959

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for Jan. 25, No. 959

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Really, New York Times? The paper noted for being rather sedate actually put the words SUB and DOM next to each other in today’s NYT Connections puzzle. Of course, they didn’t mean what they could have meant, and they did not end up in the same category, but still. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Like an understudy.

Green group hint: Delete is another one.

Blue group hint: Like penne.

Purple group hint: At the end of words.