OREANDA-NEWS. June 09, 2016. When you wake up for 3 a.m. for your next red-eye flight, Uber may have a system set so your ride is already waiting.

The ride-hailing app began rolling out a feature to book rides from 30 minutes to 30 days in advance. The "Scheduled Rides" booking system is available today in Seattle, Washington, but Uber said the feature will widen to other "top business travel cities" globally.

Don't assume all the advance planning will save you from surge pricing, though. The app will send reminders 24 hours and 30 minutes in advance of your pickup, and it will notify you if surge pricing applies. Surge pricing is a bump in cost that Uber applies when demand for rides is high or supply is low.

Rival Lyft beat Uber to the punch, launching a similar tool last month. Uber's CEO Travis Kalanick had previously said Uber's goal was to make its ride-request fulfillment so reliable that scheduled rides would be unnecessary.