Tinder waives Passport fee to help users connect virtually around the world

Dating may be proving next to impossible for many during this era of mass social distancing, but Tinder's hoping to leverage an existing feature to help bring people closer together. Virtually, at least.

The dating app is waving fees for Passport, a feature designed to let premium users connect with people outside of their dating radius. The offer kicks in next week for all users and runs through April 30. Tinder is hoping that it will be adopted for virtual socializing beyond dating.

Our hope is that you use the Passport feature to virtually transport yourself out of self-quarantine to anywhere in the world. You can check in on folks in their hometown, college town, or sister city, and find those across the world who are going through the same things. If nothing else, you can learn how to say "hey" in another language.

Users can "visit" one location at a time. The move comes as competing services like Hinge, The League and Tinder's parent company Match.com have turned to video chats to help maintain some sense of normalcy for people looking to socialize through dating.

"Within dating apps, users can still be active by matching and messaging without actually meeting up in-person," App Annie writes in a recent trend report. "The gamification of 'swiping' in dating apps slots into this behavior to find avenues to pass time and entertain, so we could expect to see a level of resiliency there."