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Grab and Bolt in Bangkok: what the price depends on

Both charge more when demand is high. Neither publishes how much more, and the multipliers quoted around the internet cannot be traced back to either company. Here is what can actually be checked before you tap confirm.

The number that does not exist

Grab’s own explanation of dynamic pricing names no multiplier and does not even list peak hours: it explains why fares rise, not by how much. Bolt’s page for Bangkok airport says the fare can change with traffic and that the final figure appears in the app before you order. That is the whole of the public record from the two companies. Anything more precise than that — a ratio, a percentage, a window in the evening — did not come from them, and there is nowhere to check it. Which is why you will not find one on this page either.

What you do get: the number before the ride

The fare is on screen before you confirm, and that is the practical difference from the kerb. You are weighing a figure against your alternatives while you still have those alternatives. If it reads wrong you close the app and walk to the rank, having lost nothing but the time it took to look.

Two different kinds of certainty

A metered taxi tells you the formula and not the total: 35–40 baht to get in, a rate that climbs with distance, 3 baht a minute in a jam, 50 baht for taking it at the airport, tolls in cash at the booths. An app tells you the total and not the formula. Neither of those is dishonest, and which one suits you depends on whether you would rather be able to check the bill or know the figure in advance.

The metered fare, part by part

Picking one up at Suvarnabhumi or Don Mueang

Where an app car is allowed to collect you is decided by the airport and the operator, and it is exactly the kind of detail that changes without the news reaching a page like this one. Take the pickup point from the app at the time you order rather than from an article, and leave time for the walk it sends you on.

When the choice stops mattering

If your problem is the clock rather than the fare — a flight leaving from the other airport — the badge on the car changes very little. The road between Suvarnabhumi and Don Mueang takes what the hour gives it, and that is the one part of the chain no amount of money shortens. What money does buy there is a price agreed up front and a driver who knows which flight you are chasing.

Working out whether the connection is possible at all?

The calculator adds up the parts you cannot skip — getting off the aircraft, immigration, baggage, the road, check-in closing — and tells you which one of them decides your outcome.

Open the connection calculator

The figures on this page come from the operators and agencies that publish them, checked on the dates below. Rates and timetables change without notice, and what you actually pay also depends on distance, traffic and the hour. Treat these as the published basis, not as a quote.

Where these numbers come from