Grab announces fee for cancelled rides in the Philippines

Grab Philippines has updated policies to curb unreasonable cancellations and announced plans to implement cancellation fees for passengers.

Photo credit: Grab

Under the new rules, passengers who cancel on their ride after five minutes of getting assigned a driver will have to pay a fee of 50 pesos or nearly US$1. Additionally, passengers who do not show up at the designated pick-up point within five minutes for GrabCar and three minutes for GrabShare upon the arrival of the driver will also have to pay the same amount.

The cancellation fees will go directly to the driver as compensation for fuel costs and the effort spent traveling to the passenger’s location.

The new policy also enforces completion rates for drivers. Drivers that go below their required completion rates will be penalized, while those who excessively ignore or cancel bookings will be temporarily locked out of the platform. Grab did not specify how the penalties will be carried out.

The Singapore-based company said the changes were made to control unreasonable booking cancellations by passengers and drivers – one of the key factors in the decrease in quality of transport network vehicle services.

To protect passengers, Grab also placed a system that would prevent customers from being charged the cancellation fee if the driver is not moving towards the pick-up point or is going in the wrong direction. Passengers will also not be charged if drivers indicate that they’re at the destination point when they’re not.

Grab, however, clarified that customers who cancel a booking when the driver takes 15 minutes longer than the indicated estimated time of arrival won’t have to pay any fees.

Other changes brought by the updated policy included passenger timeout, which temporarily suspends passenger accounts due to excessive cancellations. Grab specified that passengers who cancel two times per hour, three times a day, or five times per week are eligible for the timeout. Passengers can now also give tips to drivers with five-star ratings.

In March, Grab tried to implement a similar cancellation policy in Singapore, but it postponed the move to March 25 to give passengers “sufficient time” to adjust.