| The article which this was a follow-up to showed that by spending $19.05 you can get one more full ride than if you spend $19.00. The charge for a new card is a dollar, so if you show up with $20.00 and get a new card, you wind up with $2.45 left on your card when you've used as many rides as you can use without refilling the card. I think it was also said that the cards are really flimsy and won't be likely to make it through more than one or two "top-ups" unless you handle like eggs. Every trip is $2.50, so getting stuck with $2.45 in credit when you followed the default purchasing options is at least a little slap in the face when they are already purporting to give you a "bonus". They are in reality probably going out of their way to sell you an uneven number of fares. If you are seriously asking what's the difference between $2 and $0.05, I suggest you contact the MTA and see if they are willing to adjust the bonus percentage to give away $0.05 to card payers (where making change is not an issue), as extra on top of the existing 5% bonus on $20 purchase, so it comes out to a round number. (Hint: they won't.) If you refill with $20 and use all of the fares, you wind up with a balance of 0.95, then next time it's $1.95, then $0.45, then $1.45, and finally $2.45 again, rinse and repeat. If I've done the math correctly, it's not a case of "almost never" having a perfect leftover amount. You will never get all of the value out of your card unless you do some math and make it happen for yourself every time. Granted I'm sure this is not the first time in history people who won't sit down and do some math are getting screwed, or for that matter the largest amount ever. |
I appreciate that this might be bothersome to some tourists, but my experience is that most tourists who buy MTA cards don't calculate exactly how many rides they're going to take in a several day visit to NYC.