If you have a China issued debit card (ie a Union Pay card) then you should link this to WeChat pay and link WeChat pay to Didi. That way you can pay for anything in China no matter how trivial the cost and all journeys are simply charged to your card via WeChat.

I use the English version and it actually functions great. Search is good for location and destination. Text chat auto-translates between your English and the driver's Chinese so some communication is possible even if there are no teenagers around to speak to the driver on your behalf when he inevitably phones.

You can also pay cash.

Ah. My version of WeChat is the non-China version. Is there a China version that comes in English and can use WeChat pay?

There's a simple workaround for this.

Somebody must send you a Red Packet. It can be for RMB1. If you PM me your WeChat ID then I can send you one.

Then, magically, the Wallet function will appear in your Me menu and you can add your Union Pay card and you're good to go.

This trick was told to me when I moved to China six months ago with the "international" (ie English) version of WeChat that didn't apparently have the Wallet function. It worked. I've since done it for others.

Just watch out entering your Union Pay card details. The application is very particular about the name you enter matching the name on the account to the exact upper and lower case letter and spaces between names etc. People have tried and failed because their helpful Chinese bank has entered invisible spaces in the account name between names and after the name. If it fails for you then it's almost-certainly because your account name is not exactly what you think it is.

I am leaving PVG today and although my hotel resisted me using Didi and a friend suggested I would have to use a Chinese telephone number, the two times I used Didi yesterday went well.

I plan on using Didi this morning to return to the airport. However, I noticed that unlike Uber I have not received an email receipts.

When I go into settings, I get stuck when trying to get an invoice because I am asked for the "TaxPayer ID". I click on this and see a window that says this must be 15, 18, or 20 number with caps.

What are they looking for? If this is distinct to China is there another way to get an electronic receipt?

I never registered for invoice on Didi. I hailed taxis only, but never a personal car. Taxi drivers can still give me receipts.

This was a short stay so only 2 taxi rides, 3 Didi rides, and a bit of walking. I far and away prefer the Didi cars and drivers.

The driver that took me to the airport this morning had a very nice clean car with a/c. He was courteous and took me to the entrance for DL at T1 (pvg).

The Marriott downtown almost forced me to use taxis but never again for me. This will also encourage me to try Lyft to see how they compare to Uber where both are available.

Anyway, I prefer to use my office credit card in the Didi app rather than always converting cash but my office demands a clean paper trail so I need to solve the mystery line.

How does one contact Didi customer service when they cannot login to their Didi account?

When asking Didi CS how to get an invoice, they suggested I log out and then login again. I did that while still at the Shanghai airport. However, I never received a verification code via SMS despite several attempts.

Now back in the USA I still am not getting a verification code by SMS or any other means. Since I cannot login to my account I am also frozen out of CS chat. So how do I contact Didi to seek a solution?

This is just an update to say that Lyft sent me to the Didi FB page which allowed me to send an email to Didi support. They responded this morning and hopefully we are on a path to recovery of my account.

In Wechat, for those that are still unable to see the Wallet option in their Me menu -- I was able to search for "Wallet" using the magnifying glass/search icon. Once in the Wallet screen, it let me add my US credit card and now the Wallet option shows permanently.

Only thing now is figuring out how to link WeChat Pay to my Didi account -- it keeps saying it's successfully linked but then it doesn't show active in Didi...

Has anyone been able to sign up for Didi recently? I keep trying but I cannot get the text message confirmation. I change the country code to US (have also tried Canada) but never get the text message.

Did you get this to work to actually do a transaction or receive / send money?

Though you can add it I think with the new restrictions in China around currency, unless you have a valid China based bank account your account isn't really active. Both my US and Chinese phone have wallet active but I can't receive nor send anything.

If you can secure a Chinese bank account then everything is possible, the first step is finding a bank that will give you an account with just your passport. I hear most now require forms of residency.

No luck with my US phone, but with my Chinese SIM card no issue, just no Ali/WeChat pay. Didi is a must unless you get Taxi from Hotel or Airport, getting anywhere else is a total challenge.

I don’t understand why Chinese’s drivers always call. Back in the Uber days the Chinese Uber drivers always called as well. Over the summer I spent some time in Malaysia, Vietnam, and Thailand, and last winter I was in several European countries, the Uber drivers never called, they just turned up. With Didi, I almost always select the Chinese option that translates to I am at the point I say I am at on the GPS. Yet about 50% of the time they still call, leaving me either saying “Nihao Chifu, ding wei, ding wei, ding wei” the driver sounding confused and repeating the same thing I couldn’t understand, me repeating ding wei, and after a few seconds he says “halla” and I say “xie xie” and hang up.

Then about 2 minutes later as I am walking to my pick up point, and I see on the GPS he is waiting where he should, he will call me again, and I will say Masheng, Masheng Masheng, and he will repeat everything as if now I understand Chinese, and I will repeat Masheng, masheng, he will sa Halla, I will see xie xie, hang up, get in the car about 30 seconds later, and he will laugh about how confusing it all was.

This leaves out the 10% of trips where the driver just drives clear past the pick up point, and I see him blocks away, and he calls me and yells at me, and I don’t have the Chinese to fix the situation, and eventually he cancels and my Didi rating gets dinged.

Also, I never use Didi to leave the airport. I find that the taxi lines are never that long. It just is not worth the hassle. Once, last summer when I was with my girlfriend who is also foreign, but studied Chinese in university but she is better at reading and writing than speaking, we took a Didi out of PEK. It was a bit of a nightmarish experience, we spent like 10 minutes trying to find eachother in the parking garage.

"Nihao Chifu, ding wei, ding wei, ding wei.”

For very simple Chinese to use in this situation, I'd suggest instead:

Wei? Shifu? Wo deng ni!

That is, "Hello? Driver? I'm waiting for you!"

Thanks, I’ll give that a try the next time.

I still wish that they just wouldn’t call me at all.