Now that I travel with the intention of living in a new place instead of visiting, I like to see what the local apps are that people use in their day-to-day life. During this research, I discovered Grab. Grab isย everything Uber wishes it was ๐ .
On their one app, you can order a ride share, takeout, groceries, and more directly to you. During a pandemic or when I have just landed in a new part of Asia, this app is a lifesaver. Since I had never heard of Grab before booking a trip to Thailand, I wanted to write this review so I can let y’all know it exists, share my experiences, and give any tips I learned along the way.
App Caveats
Before we dive into my experience using each part of the app, I wanted to give a few tips that I learned through trial and error ๐ . The first is that you can download Grab to your phone in any country in the world, but you cannot add your credit card until you land in a country that has Grab services, which includes Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar, and Cambodia. So I downloaded the app while in the US in January, and added my credit card to it when I landed in Singapore after flight 1/2.
Another thing I learned was that Grab cannot pick people up at the Phuket airport (and possibly other Thai airports). Luckily this wasn’t a problem when we landed since Thailand’s Phuket Sandbox required that our hotel provide solo transportation for us from the airport as a covid precaution. On the way back to the airport, we had a month to find a taxi driver we liked and built a relationship with to take us back to the airport.
Lastly, this might be a personal problem, but I was not able to add my Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card or any of my debit cards – except for one – to the Grab app. And to add insult to injury, that one debit card I was able to add has a foreign transaction fee, so I was paying 1% a transaction, which for a short Grab trip was about 10 cents…not wild, but still annoying ๐ .
Has anyone with a US credit card had success using @GrabTH? It won't let me add my @ChaseSupport credit card๐ณ. I called Chase to make sure 3D secure payments are on (a Grab requirement), but I still get an error saying the card doesn't have OTP, which Support said it does๐ญ.
— A Purple Life (@APurpleLifeBlog) February 4, 2022
I called Chase about the issue and talked to Grab, but when they kept leading me to another company to talk to, I decided to drop it. An extra 10 cents wasn’t worth my time at that point ๐ .
@ChaseSupport can you help me? I'm in Thailand and the app Grab won't let me add my CSP credit card๐ณ. I called Chase to make sure 3D secure payments are on (a Grab requirement), but I still get an error saying the card doesn't have OTP, which Support said it now does.
— A Purple Life (@APurpleLifeBlog) February 4, 2022
Ride Sharing
I used the Grab app almost every day in Thailand and never had an issue with the app getting me a ride. The only thing I did notice was that at times, a car would seem to be down the street on the app, but actually roll up right in front of me. So the location of your incoming car in the app might lag a little, but I suspect that has more to do with the driver’s phone than the app.
Grab is $1-2 more expensive than a taxi, but I prefer it for several reasons. The first is knowing what I’ll pay upfront and the ability to order one on my phone and know it’s coming instead of walking around the streets searching for a taxi.
I also prefer it when I’m traveling solo as a woman so that I can easily share with others where I am, know the license number of the car, and feel a little more secure that the drivers have been vetted in some capacity. As I mentioned, the only caveat I would give is that, at least in Phuket, Grab cars cannot pick you up or drop you off at the airport, so in that instance I did use a taxi.
I called a Grab๐ & this fascinating 12 person van rolled up and THEN we saw 3 wild Elephants chilling in the trees across the road (Zoom in on the second picture to see one – I thought I was just taking a picture of the van๐คฃ! #ElephantEasterEgg๐) It's gonna be a good day ๐๐๐พ. pic.twitter.com/Tm3uwzkEfc
— A Purple Life (@APurpleLifeBlog) February 10, 2022
Food Delivery
Using Grab to order food is just as easy as ordering a car – with one exception ๐ : If the menu of the restaurant you want to order from is (understandably) in Thai instead of English. When we encountered this, I grabbed another phone and loaded up the handy, dandy Google Translate app to actively translate what I was looking at through the phone camera as I scrolled through the menu and it worked really well.
We actually ended up going to one of the restaurants that’s on the Grab app in person, and that’s how I got a hint into where the markup for this app resides – because I doubt it’s within the 15 cent delivery fee ๐ . Based on the prices on their in person menu and the costs listed on the app, the food is marked up about 30%, which sounds like a lot, but was surprisingly not even noticeable to us. For a giant meal for 3, that ended up being about $7 extra for us to not leave the couch – worth it ๐ .
Two things to note in case you’re ordering with this app in Phuket, Thailand: The first is that the food is delivered via motorbike and they were faster than the app estimated ๐ , so be ready to jump up to greet someone a few minutes before they’re expected to arrive.
The other is that we encountered a challenge twice during the month when trying to order food during the lunch rush around 12pm and when it was raining heavily since most people on a scooter understandably don’t want to drive in those conditions.
This app doesn’t accept your food order unless they have someone guaranteed to deliver it (which I appreciate), so during those two instances, the app would keep loading for minutes and then told us to try again later because they couldn’t find anyone to deliver our food. We tried about an hour later and had no problem. Overall, I was very impressed with the lack of issues I encountered while using a new (to me) app every day in a new country.
Conclusion
And that’s my review of Grab! It was a wonderful surprise to discover and a joy to use. I’ve been reading that Grab has even more services in other countries like finances and package delivery – wild. Anyway, I’m glad I found a way to easily travel around and get food delivered directly to my mouth in an easy and affordable way ๐ .
What’s your favorite app you learned about recently?
Thanks for sharing, I recall being in Asia in 2006 finding taxis and sharing the address I needed to go to, was incredibly difficult with language barriers. This is a total game changer while traveling in Asia!
Yeah – this definitely helps with the language barrier ๐ . So happy it was helpful!
Timely write up. We are heading to Malaysia in about 5 weeks or so. I downloaded the grab app app, but haven’t gone any further. You probably saved me a bit of confusion and time regarding the issues with the CSP card. I’ll also look into whether or not the go to the Malaysian airport. Thanks! Hope your are enjoying Merida.
Yes!! That’s exactly what I like to hear ๐ . Hopefully your CSP works and it was just mine that was being wonky. We are indeed enjoying Merida – thank you. Have a great trip!
Very cool! I love learning about apps used in different parts of the world, especially when said apps are well-designed and useful. ๐
I’m totally envious of your stay in Mexico – I live a couple of hours north of your former stomping grounds (Atlanta) and it was 40 degrees here this morning. In mid-April. Believe me, flying south (like a migratory bird) is looking very appealing right now…
Yeah it was cool to learn about and then use. I love anything that’s easy to use while making my life easier ๐ .
And wow – I hope it warms up soon. We’re having the opposite problem down here. 100F is a ‘cool’ day LOL. I still prefer it to the cold though so come on down!
That’s interesting that your CSP was not able to be added to the Grab App. One of the things when I was traveling to Mexico was afraid that the taxi drivers would rip me off and it was extremely inconvenient to do any taxis there. The only reprieve I got was when the hotel booked a taxi for us to get to the airport (for some reason, hotel-booked taxis are always fair pricing).
I am wondering if Thailand might have the same thing where the hotel-booked taxis have a better rate.
I’m doing a month in EU currently and it seems like the taxis going from airport to your hotel has a fixed rate. And a lot of times it turns out Uber is much more expensive (by about 2X). I haven’t been to Thailand but was wondering if you saw something like that as well where they had a fixed price list?
That’s interesting. I didn’t see any kind of fixed price list in Thailand, but the Grabs were so affordable I didn’t care to look very hard ๐ . I prefer to call cars on my phone instead of relying on a hotel and then not being sure what to do for the return trip.
Cool! I installed Grab, but never used it. I knew the food is marked up, but 30% is a lot!
In Chiang Mai, I was able to flag down the red shuttle car whenever I needed to go somewhere for around 30 baht. There were plenty of places to eat nearby so I didn’t order any deliveries. ๐ Grab sounds like a necessity in Phuket. They had a bus shuttle when we went, but that was a few years ago. Taxi was very expensive compare to other places in Thailand.
Haha it doesn’t seem like that much when I don’t feel like moving ๐ . That’s cool about the red shuttle car – I haven’t heard of that and will make note of it for when we go to Chiang Mai. They still have buses that go up and down the island in Phuket luckily.