Everything You Need To Know About Using Public Transportation In Sydney, Australia!
The above map is perfect to save on a device or to print a copy to take along.
Everything You Need To Know About The Opal Card
The most convenient way to pay for travel on Sydney’s Metro is to get an Opal Card. It is a reloadable card that can be used to tap on and off at any station, metro, trains, buses, ferries and light rail in Sydney, the Blue Mountains, Central Coast, the Hunter and the Illawarra. You can purchase an Opal card online, at any train station or convenience store.
The first big change is that you don’t really need the Opal card any more. While the Opal card is still convenient and can be really useful, you don’t really need to buy one. The card readers have been updated to use a number of contactless credit or debit cards that include Visa, Mastercard, and American Express along with Google and Apple Pay and you do not need to register your card or create an account. You will need to use the same card for daily travel in order to take advantage of the caps.
There is no charge for an Opal card, however a minimum top up value of $20 for an adult card, or $10 for a child or concession card, applies at retailers or when using top up machines. Top up amounts of $10 for adult and $5 for child or concession are available when topping up online.
Please Note: Charges are placed against your card once at the end of each day. If you’re visiting Australia and use your tap credit cards it may be more expensive than the Opal Card depending on your cards transaction fees and exchange rate policy.
The discounts built into the system don’t require you to do anything to take advantage of them. The system automatically calculates the charges as you use the system and applies the daily cap before making charges at the end of the day. All you have to do is ride, making sure to always use the same credit card or an Opal Card to take maximum advantage of the system.
Opal is a ‘pay-as-you-go’ system, so you only pay when you use a train or bus or ferry, including private ferry operators like Manly Fast Ferry. There are rewards for frequent travel and daily caps on fares that can save regular users and even visitors on short trips.
UNDERSTANDING OPAL TRAVEL DISCOUNTS
The biggest benefit of Opal is the benefits you can gain by using the same opal card or credit card for every trip. The system has built-in maximum daily charges called caps.
Daily Travel Cap – A maximum A$17.80 per day for adults and A$8.90 a day for a child to travel anywhere in the network.
Weekend Travel Cap – A maximum of A$8.90 for adults and $A4.45 for kids for unlimited travel on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and some public holidays.
Weekly Travel Cap – A maximum of A$50.00 a week for adults and A$25 for kids when traveling on all modes of Opal enabled transport calculated from Monday through Sunday
Transfer discount – You receive a $2 discount for every transfer between metro/train, ferry, bus or light rail as part of one journey within 60 minutes from the last tap off.
For payment the system will also allow you to use a digital wallet from Apple Pay, Samsung Pay or Google Pay provided an American Express (AMEX), MasterCard, Visa or debit card is added to your Pay account.
Opal cards are available at Central, Circular Quay, major stations or over the counter from Opal retailers that include most convenience stores and newsagents. There is no charge for an Opal card, but there is a minimum top up value of A$20. Be sure you click the map below to save or print a copy before you going to Sydney.
The above map is perfect to save on a device or to print a copy to take along visiting Sydney.
The Intentional Travelers 