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2019 Public Transport Fare Subsidy

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  1. #21

    Join Date
    Jan 2018
    Posts
    1,492

    How complicated is it to stop at one of the 242 points within transport hubs and tap your card? You can even do it at 7/11... It's as complicated as buying a can of soda... Now that's a real challenge in HK

    East_coast likes this.

  2. #22

    Join Date
    Dec 2004
    Location
    Hong Kong
    Posts
    6,734

    Got $80 back approximately, on a spend of $720ish. Used the app on my phone. App is pretty cool, actually, but the beeping is LOUD. Sounds like you're tapping your card at an MTR turnstile.


  3. #23

    Join Date
    Jan 2018
    Posts
    1,492

    Exciting stuff, you can even get an extra 10$ if you get your rebate at the convenience store now that they've worked out the glitch. Sounds like most people managed to sort out this very complicated system available through 1800 collection points.

    https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/...heme-commuters

    So terrible of the government to give a little bit back and perhaps encourage more people to take more public transport.


  4. #24

    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    猴山
    Posts
    23,652
    Quote Originally Posted by Golem:
    So terrible of the government to give a little bit back and perhaps encourage more people to take more public transport.
    Surely it is just a populist policy. The government giving money away in a very noticeable way.

    I am still not clear what the purpose of the policy is. It looks like it will make poor people discount their travel time more and spend longer commuting.

    As for taking public transport I would suggest ease and reduced transit time are the bigger factors to get people to get out of their cars. If you are poor you must use public transport and making long distance cheaper will as previously stated encourage more long distance commuting for the poor. I am not sure that is a good thing and there are much better ways to break the cycle of multi-generational poverty than throwing cash at hairbrained schemes for short term popularity.

  5. #25

    Join Date
    Nov 2005
    Location
    Cramped island
    Posts
    5,585

    based on some members of this site, if you do something you are overdoing, if you never do something you are underdoing.. there will never be anything right as long as its decided by the hk government

    shri and Golem like this.

  6. #26

    Join Date
    Feb 2009
    Posts
    8,280
    Quote Originally Posted by MABinPengChau:
    Genuinely curious …how do you get a higher subsidy this way. Thought it's just a flat 25 percent over 400 spent? Unless they need to do that just to reach 400? My ferry pass is 597 so I will qualify every month but maybe their monthly passes are under 400?
    It depends on individual curcumstances. But if you take the Peng Chau ferry 22 days a month, then you will be $12 per month better off by purchasing a monthly ticket every second month rather than every month. Here's how:

    - If you purchase a monthly ticket for $597, you will get a rebate of $49.25. So total monthly cost $547.75.

    - If you purchase a monthly ticket every second month, within the 7 days BEFORE the month begins, then during that month you purchased the monthly ticket you will purchase 22 return trips at $31.8 ($15.9 one way), then your total monthly expenditure every second month with be $1296.6 ($597 + $699.6). This will entitle you to a subsidy of $224.9 every second month, so your total expenditure will be $1071.7 every second month, or $535.85 per month.

    - So by buying a monthly ticket every second month, and paying for 22 return trips every second month, you will save $11.9 per month.

    You may not think it's worth to do this to save $11.9, and you may make more or less than 22 trips per month which affect the maths. But this is just the Peng Chau route. I hear this trick is a lot more lucrative for those living on East Rail/Ma on Shan line (from Sheung Shui/Ma on Shan to Tsim Sha Tsui) where the monthly pass is somewhere around $440 which means the subsidy is tiny, but if you do the second month trick becomes a lot more.
    Elegiaque likes this.

  7. #27

    Join Date
    Oct 2011
    Posts
    871

    i got $270 + $10 circle K vouchers

    MABinPengChau likes this.