Lyft and partners make it easy to get a ride in Asia

If you're taking a trip to China or Southeast Asia, Lyft could be a valuable addition to your arsenal of travel apps. Starting this week, it will be able to access rides you can hail through its partners Didi if you're in China and Grab if you're in SE Asia. You won't have to download a separate app or set up a new account, and you can even pay in dollars with the credit card you already have on file. It also works the other way around: folks from those regions can simply fire up Lyft whenever they visit the US and pay in their own currency.

Both of Lyft's partners are big ridesharing companies in the continent. In fact, Didi has a larger share of the market than Uber in China, while Grab has been around longer in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Lyft says it's linking its app with additional partners' applications in more countries later this year -- the WSJ once said it's hashing out a deal in India -- so expect its global ridesharing network to continue growing.