We shockingly had a lot of trouble getting taxi drivers to use their meters. Perhaps it was because it was New Years and the drivers wanted and expected a little bit more for working on a holiday. I might have been to happy to oblige, but it was literally our first few hours in Bangkok so I had no price gage for anything and didn’t want to get ripped off. Every driver that refused to use the meter wanted 200-250 baht for a 60 baht trip.
If you have several people, taking a taxi is more economical because the sky train ranges from 20-50 baht per person depending on where you are going, but in order to get that economical metered rate, you may have to hail several taxis until one agrees to use the meter. So basically, if you need to take a taxi to catch a flight/train/bus, give yourself some extra time.
Our second time in Bangkok, we took a taxi from the Mochit bus station to Khaosun road in the old town. We were first offered 500 baht and considering we just drove across half the country for 600, that’s pretty ridiculous. A metered taxi took us for 85 baht. And when we left, we didn’t even bother trying to get a metered taxi because of the protest, transportation was really difficult so I knew that in addition to us being foreigners and the protest, there was very little chance of getting a metered price. We did manage to haggle though.