New York Metro Card question
 

I will be in New York for two days as stopover enroute to London. I will be staying at a friends who lives near a bus stop, and I plan on taking the bus and then the subway to Manhattan. My friend drives and will be working when I visit so I will visit Manhattan in the morning/afternoon and spend the evenings with my friend. I knwo you cannot buy a day pass (fun pass) onboard buses, I would like to know if I buy a fun pass on the first day, if I can validate it on the bus the second day to use, or if I need to buy the pass the same day I use it. I will only need transit for two days. Would this work:-

Day 1, board bus, pay for bus, get to subway station and buy fun pass for teh day. On return buy a fun pass for the following day.

Day 2, validate fun pass bought yesterday on bus route to subway station.

Any advice will be appreciated. Thank you.

Others on this forum will be able to answer this more confidently than I, but I don't think there is any validation in the subway system in NYC like there is in Europe. The passes are good for the day you buy them, so you would have to buy them on separate days.

That said, last time I was in NY, about 3 weeks ago, they weren't selling one day passes. I don't know if this is a permanent change, but I do know that the system needed to drastically increase fares, and that bonuses on multi-ride tickets have declined.

So what you may need to do is just load a card with some money - say $20 - and you can use it until the money runs out, then just get another one. You still get a bonus, but as I recall it's only something like 5% or 10% added to the amount you pay for.

Fun passes are no longer sold.

Each ride is $2.25. You can transfer from the bus to the train or vice versa with two hours for one fare.

Just go to the clerk and tell him/her how many trips you need multipled by $2.25.

There is a seven day unlimited card and a bonus for amount purchased for $20 or more.

It sounds like your friend may not live in Manhattan and her bus may be an express bus which costs more ($5.50) than a regular bus or subway ride. http://www.mta.info/metrocard/mcgtreng.htm All the metrocard info is available on that website.

" but I don't think there is any validation in the subway system in NYC like there is in Europe. The passes are good for the day you buy them, so you would have to buy them on separate days."

For the unlimited passes that are still available (and the one day fun pass was indeed discontinued) you can purchase them, hold on to them for as long as the expiration date the card says, about one year, and "validate" them, starting the clock by just using them.

For Pay per ride cards (not unlimited for a certain number of days) the money stays on the card until the expiration date, and even then you can turn in the card for a new one for up to one year after that

One more thing, as you noted, you cannot buy any MetroCard on a bus, so if your first trip is by bus, you'd need to pay cash, coins only, for the initial trip.
Why not just ask your friend to buy a card with the amount you might need ($10, 12,whatever) before you arrive, Surely he/she will be near a subway stop at some point.

(I also wondered about bus vs Express bus. but if the plan is to take bus and then the subway just to reach Manhattan, it must be a regular bus. The express bus would go all the way to Manhattan, that's the whole point of the express buses.)

No more fun passes? I didn't notice that. I keep loading up my metro card these days and didn't pay attention to the other options. I liked the fun pass and bought one for a visit this past summer.

I do not pay attention to the options either. I heard that fun cards did not exist and double checked on the MTA site.

I'm glad you did!

Just ask your friend to get you a $10 metrocard before you arrive. That way you wont have to drop $2.25 in coins on the bus, then buy a card. You'll have a free... yes FREE... transfer unto the train. Yes, you do have 2 hours; however, you get 3 bus transfers. Hand the card back to your bud if any $ is left over on it. Just today, I took 1 bus, then 2nd, then went shopping, ate, went home on 3rd bus all on one fare!

"Yes, you do have 2 hours; however, you get 3 bus transfers. Hand the card back to your bud if any $ is left over on it. Just today, I took 1 bus, then 2nd, then went shopping, ate, went home on 3rd bus all on one fare"

POMAH, there must have been a glitch or you miscalculated. YOu get only ONE free transfer within 2 hours bus to bus, bus to subway, subway to bus (you can take a dozen subway transfers if you want as long as you don't leave the subway system)
I definitely take one bus or subway somewhere, do errands,and can get home on a single fare using a different bus.

No glitch at all. You could take 3 bus Xfers, say B1 to B68 to B37; however, 1 xfer from bus to subway. Try it, it will work. But you wont get a free xfer from B68 then subway then M1. Only works in a single borough.