---
type: Tip
title: Agree the price before it starts
description: Settle the number before you get in, get on, or let anything begin — not because the agreement will be honoured, but because it is the only thing you have to argue back from afterwards.
tags: [money, haggling, transport, negotiation, scams]
timestamp: 2026-08-06T12:00:00Z
---

# Agree the price before it starts

This is about timing rather than the number. Once the ride is over, the photo is
taken or the service is done, the price is whatever the other person says it is
and your only options are to pay it or have an argument in a language you don't
speak. Before it starts, you can still walk away — which is the entire source of
your leverage.

It is the companion to
[haggle with a reference price](/tips/haggle-with-a-reference-price.md), and the
two solve different halves of the problem: that page is about knowing what a
thing should cost, this one about when saying so still counts.

## How Harry applies it

**The version where he forgot.** On his first day in
[Karachi](/places/karachi.md) he and [Mac](/people/mac.md) got into a rickshaw
without discussing anything, and were asked 1,000 rupees at the end for a
five-minute ride. He paid 400 and blamed himself out loud rather than the
driver: they should have agreed the terms before getting in.

**The version where he didn't, and it still went wrong — which is the more
useful one.** At Clifton Beach the next evening, Mac agreed 200 rupees for a
horse ride. At the end the owner asked 1,100 and took 500. So the agreement did
not hold.

Harry's conclusion is not that agreeing first is pointless. It is that the
agreed number is the thing you argue back from — without it the ask was 1,000
and he paid 400 with no ground to stand on; with it the ask was 1,100 and it
came down to 500 on the strength of "we said 200". He then hired a beach buggy
and stated the price twice before getting on.

The amounts are small on purpose: two dollars, a pound. His interest is in the
attempt, not the loss, and he is explicit that being overcharged by a pound is
not the thing that spoils a place.

## When asking doesn't work

The hardest case, in [Colombo](/places/colombo.md), and the one that shows the
rule is not a complete defence.

Harry sits down for a shoe clean and **asks the price about ten times.** He is
never given one — each time the question is answered with something else, about
England, about the man's thirty-five years of experience, about his years working
abroad. Meanwhile the shoes are off his feet and the work has started. At the end
he is asked **3,000 rupees** for something he reckons costs 200, and pays 2,000.

**Refusing to quote is itself the technique.** The rule assumes the other person
will name a number if you ask; when they won't, the leverage the rule is supposed
to preserve has already gone by the time you notice — which makes this a close
relative of [the gift that isn't free](/tips/the-gift-that-isnt-free.md).

**The practical version is therefore harsher than "ask first": if you ask twice
and get no number, the answer is to stop, not to ask a third time.** Harry's own
verdict pre-empts the comments — yes, he should have had a price, and he tried
about ten times to get one.

One thing he does get right is the line he holds when the man asks for more on
behalf of his children: **he is paying for the work, and if help for the family is
wanted, that is a separate request made outside the price of the job.** He says it
twice, and it is what lets him refuse 3,000 without an argument.

## The failure mode that isn't in the rule: paying for an outcome

In [Ella](/places/ella.md) he does the right thing and it still costs him,
because of *what* he agreed rather than *when*.

Racing two friends to the [Nine Arch Bridge](/places/nine-arch-bridge.md) in
separate tuk-tuks, he settles the fare before setting off — 1,200 quoted — and
then **offers 1,500 to go fast**, and tips 2,000 at the end. He loses. Mac's
driver takes the direct route, arrives first and charges least.

Harry's own reading, said on camera: **the bonus bought him the long way round.**
A price agreed for a journey is a price for arriving; a bonus for speed is money
attached to an outcome the driver controls and you cannot see, on a route you
don't know, in a vehicle you are not driving.

**So the rule needs a second half: agree the price, and agree it for the thing,
not for how the thing goes.** The friend who simply took the quoted fare got the
better ride, the lower bill and the honest driver — and Harry says afterwards he
would have paid that driver double.

## The version where the agreement holds — and his own explanation why it nearly didn't

[Aqaba](/places/aqaba.md), on a boat trip out into the Red Sea, is the third
outcome the page needed. The price was agreed in advance by phone. At the end of
the trip **an extra 20 JOD was asked for**, and because they knew exactly what
had been agreed they refused on the spot; the original price stood.

**What makes it worth its own section is Harry's diagnosis**, which goes a step
beyond this page's rule: he thinks it happened *because they hadn't paid
upfront*. His advice is to try to pay in advance, or at minimum to make sure the
terms are nailed down and not just the number.

So the page now runs across three outcomes — no agreement and no ground to stand
on (Karachi), an agreement that didn't hold but gave him leverage (Clifton
Beach), and an agreement that held outright because it was clear and they said so
immediately.

**One thing he is careful about, and the page keeps it.** He goes out of his way
to say the boat's captain did nothing wrong, was struggling with English, and was
good company throughout — the extra 20 came from one other person. He adds that
he doesn't think a visitor would normally meet this. An entire cluster in which
he calls Jordanians the most hospitable people he has met is not overturned by
one attempt at twenty dinars, and he refuses to let it be.

## Demonstrated in

- [First Impressions of KARACHI, PAKISTAN 🇵🇰](/videos/sYjgR4oZQAQ.md) — the
  rickshaw boarded without a price, and his own verdict that the mistake was
  theirs.
- [Craziest Pakistan Beach 🇵🇰](/videos/mUvYGPa6A7w.md) — 200 agreed for the
  horse, 1,100 asked, 500 paid, and a buggy priced twice over before he got in.
- [The Most BEAUTIFUL place in Sri Lanka 🇱🇰](/videos/CHfoPiIeL-U.md) — the fare
  agreed and then a bonus attached to speed, which bought the scenic route.
- [Avoid This Sri Lankan SCAM!🇱🇰](/videos/Wpt_7rQ5Feo.md) — asked about ten
  times, never answered, and the work started anyway.
- [$180 Boat Scam in AQABA, JORDAN 🇯🇴](/videos/bX-3z2aREZE.md) — the agreement
  that holds, and the refinement: pay upfront if you can.