Airport Express Travel Pass or Octopus Card

Hi. Am gonna be in HK from 11-14Jun09, but will crossover to Macau on the 12th. Which type of card should I get?

How much is the Octopus Card? Any balance left I can have it refunded correct?

Airport Express Travel Pass or Octopus Card

Buy an Octopus Card! Yes, you can get the refund of any balance as well as the deposit. Meanwhile, it can be used in HK only, but not Macau.

Airport Express Travel Pass or Octopus Card

You get your money and deposit back, minus a $7 handling fee.

Hi, just get the on loan Octopus Card. you will not be able to fully utilise what you have paid on the AE Travel Pass.

The cost of the on loan Octopus card is HKD150.00. Your card will have a stored value of HKD100.00.The HKD50 is refundable deposit which you get back when you surrender the card.Any balance left on the card shall be refunded,after subtraction of admin fees of HKD7.

To illustrate,at point of surrender of card,there is HKD20 balance,so you will be refunded the amount of :-

HKD20 -HK7= HKD13.00 + HKD50(deposit),so you will get back HKD63.00.

However - if you buy the card at the airport and plan to use it on the Airport Express, that costs $100 so you will need to add more money to the card immediately. Also you can ';overdraw the card'; once only so if the card gets down to say $4 and you make a $10 trip your card will have a balance of -$6 so your refund will be $50-$6-$7= $37.

If you have more than one person and plan to ride the Airport Express, you should use the group promotion offer instead of just the Octopus to save money:

mtr.com.hk/eng/鈥romotions_4persons.html

In order to asnwer your question properly, you need to provide ALL the necessary information.

Which AE station will you be alighting?

Will you be taking the AE from the city back to the airport on departure?

No. of travellers in the party on identical itinerary?

How much do you intend to spend on the MTR lines that accept the AETP for any 3 consecutive calendar days during your visit, i.e., June 11-13, or 12-14?

Once you have jotted down the above information, you can work out your breakeven point to see if the AETP will be worthwhile for you. It all depends on each individual%26#39;s travel itinerary. There is no one size to fit all. Some will find the AETP extremely valuable.

thanks to everyone for your inputs.

the octopus card sounds a better option for me since i plan to visit macau on friday, june 12. i understand that the airport express travel pass should be used on 3 consecutive day; hence, is not applicable for me

Go for the Octopus Card -- the service is the best. You just thwack it down on the scanner on any public transit, and away you go.

There is an Octopus kiosk right in the arrival hall of HKIA.

Have fun!

Yes the Octopus card is really great and worth getting, we used it on everything, Ferry, Metro,Bus, Peak Tram, especially as you get any unspent money back, less $7.But we also bought 2 x 2 Single Airport express cards at $160 each way ( 2 of us, 2 trips). This was cheaper than using the Octopus card for a return journey I think this would have been about $300 each. We felt very smug, bypassing some of the queues, because we had a card, and also watching people scrabbling around looking for loose change :)