Grab’s New Cancellation Policy Has Been Postponed to 25 Mar 2019

Let’s get this out of the way, frequent Grab users (or Grab users who like to ghost then cancel on their drivers): if you haven’t heard the news on the Grab cancellation policy changes, may first I direct you to this article.

You can lso look at this infographic or stay on for a summary/refresher below.

The new cancellation policy mentioned was set to come into effect on 11 March 2019, which so happened to be today, but that has been delayed to, exactly 2 weeks from the initial launch date, 25 March, as announced by Grab yesterday (10 March 2019).

But Why?

Although the policy change was met with some grumblings from passengers about how it protects the drivers more than the customers whose woes remain unaddressed (more details below), the spokesperson from Grab claims that this is not the reason for the decision to postpone the introduction of the new policy.

Instead, there seemed to be some confusion among the riders about the details of the new policy. Grab opted for more time to explain the policy better, and to allow passengers “sufficient time” to adjust.

For example, Grab reiterated that passengers would not be charged for cancelling on a ride that is taking much longer to arrive at the pick-up point than indicated, since along with their ability to show customers their driver’s location, they measures to monitor if the driver is not travelling towards the passenger. Which sympathises with the customer on, for example, this extreme but remarkably entertaining case.

In other words, as long as you’re not in the wrong, you won’t be charged. Geddit?

New Cancellation Policy

Lest you’re still unclear, here’s the summary:

• Passengers who cancel their bookings after 5 minutes will be charged an extra $4 as  penalty (currently, passengers will be charged $5 only after the third cancellation within 7 days)
• For GrabShare, the grace time is shortened to 3 minutes. Cancelling the ride after 3 minutes incurs the charge of $4.
• If the passenger is late or fails to show up, the driver can cancel the ride after waiting for at least 5 minutes (or 3 minutes for GrabShare). The passenger will then be charged $4.
• If the passenger is late beyond 5 minutes (or 3 minutes for GrabShare) and the driver decides to wait instead of cancelling the ride, the additional waiting time surcharge of $3 for every 5 minutes comes into effect.

Cancellation fees will be deducted from users’ GrabPay electronic wallets, or credit or debit cards, and drivers receive the full amount. Passengers using cash will have the fee added automatically to the fare of their next ride and the driver will be told to collect the fee on Grab’s behalf.

The Backlash

While the Grab drivers largely welcomed the changes, some riders had a few points to make. Many were concerned about drivers failing to proceed to the pick-up point after accepting a booking. However, this problem, as we know, has been addressed by Grab, and we’ve talked about it few times in this article already.

The other issue raised is the fact that this policy caters to the Grab drivers who often get their booking cancelled, which is fair and just. However, a similar measure was not released to help Grab users who get their booking cancelled.

That said, after some digging around, there is a policy in place, and it did undergo some revisions as well.

But… those were made in favour of the drivers again. Currently, drivers can make up to 6 cancellations per week without repercussions, (an increase from 3 per week), and the list of valid cancellation reasons have increased.

This definitely makes things fairer on the Grab driver, but hey: it’s hard to please both the drivers and the riders.

But riders, just remember:if you like dumping your Grab drivers without reason, you have 2 more weeks and 4 more free cancellations before the policy changes.