Pro tip: Did Uber turn off "Gifts" in your account? Ask them to turn it back on!

Back in November I wrote about a trick I like to use now that the Barclaycard Arrival+ card allows Arrival+ miles to be redeemed against taxi purchases: buying Uber credit in "redeemable" $25 chunks, so that Arrival+ miles can be redeemed against Uber rides even when a single ride doesn't exceed $25 (which is fairly common in my experience).

A few weeks ago I noticed that the "Gifts" link had disappeared from the top-left corner of my Uber homepage. I remembered that back when American Express was offering $10 off any Uber purchase of $25 or more, many folks didn't have the option of buying gift cards, but that they were able to e-mail Uber to turn the feature on.

While I'd never heard of anyone losing the option to buy gift credit, I passed along that information to a curious reader, who reported back that Uber was able to re-enable the "Gifts" option in his account.

So yesterday I sent an e-mail to support@uber.com from the e-mail address linked to my account, writing:

"I used to have the option of buying electronic gift cards in my Uber account, but the option seems to have disappeared in the last week or so. Can that option be re-enabled?"

About 10 minutes later, I received the following reply:

"Thanks for writing in! I'm happy to set you up with gift card access so you can give the gift of Uber to someone special.

"If you log into your account on our website you will see a link at the top that says Gifts. From there you can purchase Uber credits in increments of of $25, $50, $100, and $250. You'll be able to purchase gift cards in USD that can be redeemed and used in the US. Please be careful to only hit the Place Orderbutton once."

So there you have it: if you're interested in buying Uber credit in "redeemable" chunks, but the option has disappeared from your account, just drop a line to support@uber.com and they seem more than willing to re-enable it.