We recently took a train journey to Padang Besar. To KL Sentral at 10.30pm our Grab ride cost us RM11.00 and the journey took an easy 10 minutes or so. On our return from Padang Besar we arrived at KL Sentral at 12.15am (just past midnight) and as we took the escalator up to the main entrance of the station we could see most of the train passengers scrambling for their smart phones to book a ride home.
We waited until a few minutes until we arrived at the station main entrance and then got our smart phone out to book a ride.
What surprised us is the asking price from Grab. RM19.00 for the journey home (previous exact journey was RM11.00) and so we decided to try the EzCab app and we got a price of just RM12.00, and so we booked a ride with ExCab and saved ourselves RM7.00. Is Grab profiteering from Malaysians as we forget to use other ride hailing apps?
At the same time we went to the Taxi coupon counter to enquire the price for a Taxi and it was RM35.00 due to midnight charges (we think this is rather high even with midnight charges in place). There were people at the Taxi counter buying coupons and paying the asking high price.
So why is Grab marginally more expensive? Is it because they have become so popular that by default most of us use the Grab app and never compare prices with the other ride hailing companies? Have we become so used to using Grab that we have forgotten about the Taxi driver?
Look at the pricing available and the answer is simple.
They are just “pushing” you to use their e-Payment option.