Let’s talk about impulse ticket buying. You’re late, the machine is beeping, and you shove a fiver in the slot to avoid human interaction. That ticket? It costs 10 to 30% more than a tap, because you’re paying for the convenience of a paper rectangle that will be obsolete in 90 minutes. I did a personal experiment over a month: tapping cost me $87. Buying single tickets for the same trips? $113. That’s $26 I could have spent on three hot dogs or one themed candle.
And don’t get me started on “return tickets”. Many cities offer a return ticket that’s cheaper than two singles—but only if you buy it at the machine. Guess what? Tapping automatically calculates a return fare for you after the first ride. You just tap, and it’s smart. You are dumb for walking past the tap reader. Embrace your dumbness and tap anyway.
Tickets are getting easier with Tap On Tap Off - morebus
The one exception (of course there’s an exception)
There is exactly one scenario where buying a ticket wins: if you’re using a contactless card from a different country. Foreign transaction fees can eat your savings like a piranha in a goldfish tank. If your bank charges 3% per tap, and you take ten rides, you’ve just paid an extra fee that could cover a kebab. In that case, buy a paper ticket—or better yet, buy a local stored-value card (like an Oyster or MetroCard) that avoids the fees entirely.
Also, note: some small towns have “cash only” buses that reject contactless like a snooty cat. In those rare cases, buying a ticket is your only option. But let’s be real: if you’re in a town where the bus accepts cash and only cash, you’re either in a Wes Anderson movie or a place where the tap machine runs on hope and a single AA battery. Just pay in coins and move on.
