jQuery UI tabs. How to select a tab based on its id not based on index

Accepted answer didn’t work for me either, however I found solution in a similar thread:
Switch to selected tab by name in Jquery-UI Tabs

var index = $('#tabs a[href="#simple-tab-2"]').parent().index();
$('#tabs').tabs('select', index);

With jQuery UI >= 1.9:

var index = $('#tabs a[href="#simple-tab-2"]').parent().index();
$("#tabs").tabs("option", "active", index);