Quote:
Originally Posted by second_one_64
Great . Thanks. If you have some friendly taxi drivers let me know. I can get him to pickme up at the airport, and give me some fees as well !
Will be visitng only on June 7th, so plenty of time.
Thanks in advane
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If you arrive in Manila, on some midnight flight, book a taxi through your hotel. About 1,000 per trip is the norm. I do know some guys who do this - they aren't taxi per-se, but private cars.
If you arrive at a day time, and not in a rush to go to the hotel: go and join the queue for yellow taxis. Avoid the touts who will say 'no taxi today, take private car' - as these cars can charge between 3,000 to 5,000 per trip (compare the cost for hotel / private car arranged in advance - no, don't be carrot head).
If you take yellow taxi, say Terminal 2 to Makati should be 200 peso or so. The yellow taxis have a coupon with the taxi number, so you can report is something fishy happens.
Under no circumstances should you allow the taxi to pick up a friend or another passenger - that's where things go wrong. That applies for street taxis too.
Now for regular travel: unless you are loaded and don't mind paying 3K or 5K per day, taking taxi for day use is a waste.
Alternate: if you are adventerous a bit and don't have luggage around: Take taxis, but avoid those taxis which are white. Flag down those which have stripes - red, or green or something.
Those with stripes with company name such as LBR, MGE are company owned, and 'rarely' those drivers try to play you out.
Those pure white ones are the scam kings. Or will always ask for big fare, or fare plus ..
Lastly, the best option;
Uber and Grab Car (or even Grab taxi is no Grab Car is available). And pay by Credit card, and cars are very new, and nobody even wanted to accept tips.
As usual, off peak fares are super cheap on Uber and Grab.
Just be a bit careful as once I ordered a Grab car and saw a Kia Piconto, no space for my luggage, but the driver said it's ok to put it on the rear seat- why would I complain ?
Sometimes, Uber or Grab data speed causes it to say Card verification failed, in those case, just pay cash ! No worries, it's all above the board.
If anybody asks who is picking, just say it's your friend, as some taxi drivers aren't happy with Uber and Grab
For Uber and Grab, you need internet connection, so get a data sim Card, ensure the network is on 3G, and for 50 Peso on smart, you can have 24 hour of surfing.