Taxis in Manila can charge double over "Christmas Season"

[GeoffH]

5 minutes ago, Jollygoodfellow said:

I use taxis in Cebu quite often and dont recall ever a problem. Meter goes on and thats it.

 

I've used taxis in CDO and have never had a problem but my experience using taxis in Manila hasn't been as good.

 

More recently we've used Grab although in peak times it can be hard to get a car, sometimes we've had to retry for up to 20 minutes or so.

 

[Snowy79]

1 hour ago, Jollygoodfellow said:

 

I use taxis in Cebu quite often and dont recall ever a problem. Meter goes on and thats it.

My partner is from the Cebu area and she was shocked by Manila taxis as she says she's never had to tell one to put the meter on.  She's also been a victim of the 500 peso for a 120 ride or get out and has seen a few times where as soon as the taxi driver sees me after quoting her a price it suddenly rises due to " Heavy traffic".

[Jollygoodfellow]

1 hour ago, Snowy79 said:

My partner is from the Cebu area and she was shocked by Manila taxis as she says she's never had to tell one to put the meter on.

I was half way home from Ayala and I noticed the driver forgot to put the meter on. I told him and when we got home he only asked for what the meter said but I knew how much it normally is and gave him that. Must be different people in Manila. 

[LUFCinMakati]

3 hours ago, Jollygoodfellow said:

 

I use taxis in Cebu quite often and dont recall ever a problem. Meter goes on and thats it.

Cebu clearly different to Manila, most have cars with mechanical faults, dirty and they often won’t use the meter. 

[hk blues]

In Iloilo, for short distances they always use the meter.  For longer distances, we negotiate the price but after a period of time you get to know the fares for the places you visit regularly so no issue.  We don't suffer much from "big nose tax" here because we don't have many foreigners. 

[Jack Peterson]

4 minutes ago, hk blues said:

We don't suffer much from "big nose tax" here because we don't have many foreigners. 

 Same here and that is because we Don't have taxis but the Trike Drivers will try it on 

[jimeve]

7 hours ago, Jack Peterson said:

 Same here and that is because we Don't have taxis but the Trike Drivers will try it on 

one trike driver tried to make me pay double, okay I said here is 20 peso's and that's your tip included

[earthdome]

On 11/19/2018 at 10:14 PM, Snowy79 said:

I've given up on Grab in Manila.  The last 20 odd times I've tried it I always get the same message " Drivers are busy go back to booking screen" I'm also finding the majority of drivers will rdfuse to use a meter so I get back out of the taxi.  It's usually meter plus 50 peso these days or you don't get one. 

Hmm... I used Grab 15-20 times in Manila the last 2 months. I was always able to get one within 10 minutes. A few times I had to retry because there was no driver. The Grab cars and drivers are so much nicer than the taxi's. Perhaps it depends on where you are in the NCR. Most of my requests were in the Pasig area.

[earthdome]

Slightly off topic here but topical to Manila and attempts to overcharge.

On our recent visit I wanted to rent a van because we had so much luggage, I just didn't want to have to manage all that luggage while trying to take public transportation.

My SIL recommended ManilaRentACar, a coworker had mentioned they had good rates.

It was a total PITA to try to arrange a rental with them. They would only interact with you via their website or email. Once they realized I was a foreigner the Innova Van I wanted to rent for 2500 pesos per day was suddenly unavailable. They were so sorry and offered me a 10% discount to rent the only car available, the most expensive one they had at over 4000 pesos/day. When I replied to them thanking them for that generous offer but that my asawa thought it was too expensive. They replied back in a few minutes that another Innova Van had just become available. An obvious attempt to try and upsell me.

Then the employee who delivered the Innova to me tried to get me to pay him 500 peso's up front for the cleaning fee so I wouldn't have to get it cleaned prior to return. He pushed real hard to get me to pay him... that was until I asked for a receipt.

Prior to returning I was able to find a car wash to clean the Innova for only 150 pesos. Saving 350 pesos to use for a nice breakfast while waiting for the car to be cleaned.

[JJReyes]

2 hours ago, earthdome said:

My SIL recommended ManilaRentACar, a coworker had mentioned they had good rates.

My most recent experience (two days ago) is ManilaRentACar and several others wouldn't even reply to my request for a quotation.  My requirement is a car and driver for an out-of-town trip lasting 10 hours.  CarandDriverManila gave me a quote that included gasoline and toll road fees.  If the time exceeds 10 hours, the additional charge is PHP300 an hour.  Very professional.  They even have a US phone number to call if I had any questions.