How to pay for subway with phone?

There are a couple of methods available here. You can add an existing transit card to your phone. Each time you purchase your travel fare, the money is taken from that card. But this means you have to keep purchasing or topping off your transit card to add more funds to it. An easier option, and one increasingly supported by more mass transit systems, is to use your default payment method to purchase the fare. This means you don’t have to fiddle with transit cards as the money is taken directly from your credit card, debit card, PayPal account, or other payment method already set up on your phone.

To pay for your fare, you simply tap your phone on the scanner in the bus or train terminal, and the money is automatically taken from your account. In a subway, you then enter through the turnstile. On a bus, you can then simply take your seat. This tap-and-pay process works on iPhones, Android phones, and Samsung phones through their respective payment and wallet systems.

To do this on an iPhone, you first need to set up Apple Pay if you haven’t already done so. On your iPhone, open the Wallet app and tap the plus (+) sign in the upper-right corner. Then choose Debit or Credit Card and tap Continue. Add your credit or debit card either by scanning it with your phone or by manually entering your name, number, and expiration date. Enter the remaining details, such as the CVV code. You then validate your card through email, text, or a phone call to the bank. After you enter the validation code, your card will be approved and added to the Wallet app for use via Apple Pay. Use the same steps to add more cards if you wish.

If you’ve added more than one credit or debit card, you now need to select one to use as your express transit card. This means that you’ll be able to use this card to pay for transit fare without having to authenticate the transaction with Face ID, Touch ID, or passcode. To do this, go to Settings > Wallet & Apple Pay. In the Transit Cards section, tap the entry for Express Transit Card and then tap the card you wish to use.

With Apple Pay set up and a specific card selected as the Express Transit Card, you can now pay for your fare. Place your iPhone on or near the scanner on the bus, at the subway turnstile, or at another associated transit spot. The transaction should automatically go through with visual and audible confirmation on your phone as the payment is taken from your card.

To check your recent mass transit payment as well as other transactions, open the Wallet app on your iPhone. Tap the card used as the Express Transit Card and swipe down the screen to view the latest transactions. Tap a specific transaction to see its history and other details.

The mobile payment situation on Android has been a confusing one. That’s because Google has revamped and renamed its payment process over the years to the point that three different apps have been floating about—Google Pay, GPay, and Google Wallet. So, which of these do you use for mass transit payments?

Google Pay, or GPay, is still available in the US and Singapore for peer-to-peer payments and to view your recent transactions. Otherwise, GPay has essentially been replaced by Google Wallet. US and Singapore users will still see both apps on their Android phones, though Google Wallet is the one you’d work with directly to set up your payment methods.

Google Wallet should already be installed on your phone. If not, grab it from Google Play(Opens in a new window). Open Google Wallet and tap the button for Add to Wallet. At the next screen, select the option for Payment Card. Next, line up your credit or debit card in the frame to scan it or tap the option for Enter details manually to add your credit information yourself. Fill out the remaining details, such as the expiration date and CVV code. Confirm and save your card details. Accept the bank terms.

Once you verify your identity to the bank through a text or email, your card is ready to use.

The card is automatically enabled for Tap to Pay so that you can use it at mass transit scanners without having to authenticate the transaction with facial or fingerprint recognition or passcode. Tap the link for How to tap to pay to see how the process works. When finished, tap Done.

Now that your credit or debit card is set up in Google Wallet and Tap to Pay is enabled, you can pay for your fare. Place your Android Phone on or near the scanner at the bus or subway. The transaction will automatically go through with confirmation on your phone as the payment is taken from your card.

To check the recent payment and other transactions, open the Google Wallet app. Select the card you use to see its most recent transaction. Tap the Details button at the bottom and select Activity to see the latest transactions. Tap a specific transaction to view more information on it. You can also view the latest transactions through the Google Pay or GPay app.

Similar to Google’s payment methods, Samsung’s process and app has undergone some changes. Originally known as Samsung Pay, the app is now called Samsung Wallet. Incorporating all the features of Samsung Pay, Samsung Wallet is designed to handle all your payment transactions.

If the Wallet app isn’t already on your Samsung smartphone, download it from Google Play(Opens in a new window). Open the app and tap Continue. Sign in with your Samsung account and then grant the app the necessary permissions.

Next, set up your verification method, such as fingerprint recognition.

You’ll then be asked if you want to use Samsung Wallet for contactless payments. Select the option for All the time and then confirm that you want to replace Google Pay with Samsung Pay as your default app for contactless payments. After that, you’re deposited at the Quick Access screen. Tap the Add button to add a payment card.

At the next screen, choose the option for Payment cards and then select Add payment cards. Add your credit or debit card by scanning the card number or entering the numbers manually. Fill in the expiration date and CVV code and then agree to the terms of service. Verify the card through text message, email, or phone call to the bank.

The card is added. Make sure the option is checked for Set as default transit card. Tap Done. Tap the card to view its details.

With your payment method now set up and a card set up as the default for transit, you can pay for transit fare. Place your Samsung Phone on or near the scanner at the mass transit location. The transaction will automatically go through with confirmation on your phone and the payment taken from your card.

To check the latest payment and other transactions, open the Samsung Wallet app on your phone. Select the card you use for mass transit to see the most recent transaction. Tap the entry for Recent Transactions to view your transit history.

There are three ways to pay using OMNY:

All three payment methods generally work the same, in that you have to hold the payment method against a special OMNY reader to unlock the turnstile.

A digital wallet Your smartphone or smartwatch likely already supports a digital wallet like Apple Pay, Google Pay/Wallet or Samsung Pay. With these digital wallets you usually set up one or more credit/debit cards as a payment option(s) and select one as the default payment. Depending on your phone/watch settings, you might have to unlock the device before you can use it at the OMNY reader. On Apple Pay, I recommend you set up your card as a Transit Express card, which will allow you to tap your phone/watch without unlocking your device. With most digital wallets, as you tap your device against an OMNY reader it will vibrate indicating successful payment.

A contactless bank card Many credit cards, debit cards or prepaid cards already support contactless payment. Oftentimes, on the back of these bank cards you will find this logo: Wireless logo  which indicates that the card supports contactless payment. You might have to call your bank to activate contactless payment if you have never used it that way. If you bank card does not support contactless payment, you can still pay with it if you add it to a digital wallet discussed previously.

The OMNY Card The OMNY card is a physical, plastic card. It is shaped like a credit card with the word OMNY in the front. It has barcodes both on the front as well as on the back of the card. The back side also has a magnetic stripe as well as an expiration date.

These cards will carry a monetary value/balance similar to the old Pay-by-value MetroCard. Each time you use the card to pay for a ride, the cost of the ride will be subtraced from its balance. OMNY cards are not yet sold in subway stations, but you can buy them at local convenience and neighborhood stores (like 7-Eleven stores) with cash or credit. If you have trouble finding a store, the New York Transit Museum Gallery & Store at Grand Central Terminal also sells them. They come in a black gift-card like sleeve like so:

It costs $5 to purchase an OMNY card, which does not go towards the balance of the card. When you buy the card, the retailer will ask you how much money you want to put on the card. The minimum amount to load is $1, which is a bit useless given that a single fare costs more than that. You can return to any retailer to reload your card when its balance is low or do so online at omny.info. Inside subway stations, you will also find OMNY readers where you can tap these cards to find out how much value you have left, but currently there is no way to recharge those cards inside the subway station yet. New OMNY-card capable vending machines to buy and recharge OMNY cards inside subway stations will be introduced some time in 2023.

As noted the OMNY card has an expiration date printed on the back of the card after which the card becomes unusuable. Newly issued cards don't expire until 7 years from issuance. You can transfer any remaining value on the card to a new card up to two years after the expiration date.

A word of caution: the OMNY card has a bunch of details in the back including an 18-digit card number, a CVV number and an expiration date. Using these information, anyone can register the card online and see the card's entire past usage including all the subway stations you have swiped in. As such, be careful about posting pictures of the card on social media.

Once you are set up with any of these three payment methods, you are ready to use it to pay for your subway ride. You will find OMNY readers at every turnstile at every subway station and on every MTA bus throughout the entire system. The readers look like this:

Note that the reader is slightly angled to the left, because each reader always unlocks the turnstile to the left of it.

In order to use OMNY, first make sure that the reader has the four blue corner lights and says "OMNY TAP HERE":

As you approach the turnstile, simply tap your payment method near the reader (you don’t actually have to touch it). You will hear a beep and the digital screen will display "GO" with green corners:

At this point, the regular single-ride fare of $2.75 has been deducted from your payment method and you should proceed in going through the turnstile to the left of the reader. You do not have to hurry as the turnstile will remain unlocked until you go through it (but don't hold up other commuters behind you for that matter). If for some reason the tap is not confirmed, an error message will appear with one of the following reasons:

Besides using OMNY to deduct $2.75 for each ride, the MTA also supports a weekly Unlimited Ride mode. This is how it works:

In any given calendar week, starting on Monday 12am, once you use OMNY more than 12 times, all remaining rides are free until the end of the calendar week (midnight on Sunday 11:59pm). This is known as fare-capping and basically sets the maximum amount you have to pay (12 * $2.75 = $33) to use the subway for a week.

In order for this to work, you must use the exact same OMNY payment method each time. The system will deduct $2.75 for each of the first 12 rides. Starting with the 13th tap within the same calendar week, all remaining rides will be free.

For those familiar with the old yellow MetroCard system, you might recognize that $33 is the same cost in both systems, but there are two key differences:

First, with OMNY you don’t have to commit to paying the full $33 for the week pass right away. You might not know ahead of time if you use it more than 12 times, so with fare-capping you get the best of both worlds and the system decides on what will be cheaper for you. With the previous MetroCard, you pay $33 up front even if you end up only using it for a single ride.

Secondly, with OMNY the counting for the Unlimited Ride week window always starts on Monday at 12am, whereas the previous MetroCard 7-day Unlimited Ride window can start on any weekday. For instance, if you arrive in NYC on a Friday and stay for 7 days to leave on the following Thursday, the OMNY system will treat those as two separate calendar weeks. This does mean that in that scenario – assuming you using the subway a lot for those days – it might be cheaper to buy a single 7-day MetroCard for $33 to span Friday to Thursday rather than relying on OMNY’s fare capping which will cap you at $33 for the first week (Friday -> Sunday) and an additional $33 in your second week (Monday -> Thursday).

Here are some other things to know about OMNY:

• On your iPhone, open the Wallet app.
• Tap the Add button .
• Tap Transit Card to add a new transit card or tap Previous Card to add a transit card that you previously added to the Wallet app.
• Choose a transit card from the list, or search by location or card name.
• Tap Continue.

The Big Apple is hardly the first to adopt this transit technology, as other U.S. cities like Chicago and Portland beat them to it (which will annoy New Yorkers no end), but it will be the biggest deployment of the new payment system, by far. Eventually.

To start, the system is rolling out slowly, and there are a lot of important details to note. That’s why Fortune is providing this Q&A to navigate the new transit options. (But you’re on your own when it comes to navigating the New York subway and avoiding its famous rats!).

The Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) installed the new contactless fare payment system, called OMNY—short for One Metro New York—at the turnstiles of 16 stations on the 4/5/6 subway line, spanning from Grand Central Station in Manhattan to Barclay’s Center in Brooklyn. The buses on Staten Island are also part of the first phase launch.

The 16-station launch is part of a pilot program, and it will be a while till the rest of the system gets the tap system. A person close to the project told Fortune that the MTA will be begin expanding the number of stations in December, and that the “whole system will be lit up” by October of 2020.

You can use any credit or debit card, but there is an important catch: The card must have the tap-to-pay symbol (it looks like a WiFi logo) for it to work. According to Linda Kirkpatrick, an Executive Vice-President at Mastercard, banks and credit card companies are in the process of issuing new cards to many of their customers with the tap-to-pay feature. She says most consumers will have such a card in the coming months.

For those who don’t want to wait, one workaround is to purchase a pre-paid Mastercard or Visa (one with the tap-to-pay logo of course) from a local drug store. Also note that, for the next few months, Mastercard is offering “Fareback Fridays,” which means the company will refund you for up to trips you make on Friday if you use one of its cards.

Not yet, and don’t hold your breath. The MTA actually wants to persuade users to stop using dedicated transit cards, and instead rely on their own credit/debit cards and mobile devices. So while MTA tap-to-pay cards will eventually appear at kiosks (similar to the yellow swipe Metro cards used by millions of New Yorkers), this likely won’t happen for months.

If you have an iPhone or Android phone, your device will have a “Wallet” icon for the payment systems known as “Apple Pay” or “Google Pay.” These let you store digital versions of your debit and credit cards, and use them to pay merchants—including the MTA.

If you want to use this approach, you first have to set up Android Pay or Apple Pay, by adding the credit or debit card to your digital wallet—typically by scanning it through the app, or manually entering the relevant numbers. Setting up Fitbit Pay works a little differently, since their smart watches are not fully integrated into the phones’ operating systems.

After adding your payment card to your digital wallet, it’s easy to access. To use Apple Pay on an iPhone, simply double-click the home button, and your wallet will springboard to the the screen, with your default payment card ready to be read by the MTA’s contactless card reader. (You’ll need to use Face ID or Touch ID to unlock the iPhone before you can pay, so pull up your digital card before you hit the turn-style.) To pay with an Android phone, simply unlock the handset and place it over the reader to initiate the transaction. Paying with Fitbit Pay is similar, just hold down the button on the left side of the watch, and your digital card will appear, but you may need to enter a pin code, depending on your Fitbit app’s settings.

Yes, this will become available in later stages of the roll-out. According to Fortune’s MTA source, the app will not only let the rider add his payment card to refill it (like you do with a Starbucks app), but will also collect data about his or her subway rides. Users will then be able to see how often they used the app and where they have traveled. (Riders concerned about privacy may wish to avoid the app).

No, or at least not yet. While the MTA will introduce weekly or monthly options eventually, they are not expected to be available till at least 2021. This means that the new tap-to-pay option will be an unappealing one for the many New York commuters who buy weekly or monthly passes for a flat rate, rather than pay $2.75 for every single ride.

Eventually, but you will be fine for a while. The MTA is aware that some people lack the banking options or tech tools necessary to make the switch, and that some are just resistant to change. This means that both systems—the new tap-to-pay and the existing swipe system—will be offered until at least 2023.

Yes. However, the MTA noted that you must use the same payment method throughout each individual trip to qualify.

"If you tap your card to ride the subway, you must tap that same card to obtain your free transfer to a local bus," the MTA said in a statement. "You cannot switch between your card and other payment methods and still obtain your free transfer."

The transfer window will remain at two hours.

The MTA said the same pass-back rules used with MetroCards apply to OMNY as well.

You can tap up to four times within an hour with your phone, card, or OMNY card. Meaning you can tap yourself, and three others, too. So if you are a family of five or more with just one device or card, you will need to acquire another.

Note: Only the first of the four taps counts as the calculator to 12+ for unlimited weekly conversion on OMNY.

The MTA recommended contacting the company that issues your commuter benefit card to ask for a card with an NFC chip. Most companies will send you one. If yours does not, there is a workaround — you can add the commuter benefit card to your smartphone’s wallet. Once the card is in your phone, you never need to pull the physical card out again. When you pull up to an OMNY reader just bring your phone close to the reader, and it will automatically appear and deduct the cost of the trip.

Welp, you may want to get a portable charger in the era of OMNY, because if your phone dies and you are using your phone to pay, then it's not going to work. You will have to use something else like a debit/credit card, or a physical OMNY card.

If your phone dies in the middle of your trip and you need to transfer, alert the MTA bus operator or subway station booth attendant know and they may let you through.

Note: While subway stations do not have charging stations, new buses have charging ports.

A customer can use OMNY anonymously and in that case there will be no personal data collection, the MTA told us this week. However, if you choose to make an online account, OMNY’s website will collect information, and the OMNY Privacy Policy states that information includes "name, age, photograph, email address, password, mailing address, phone number, payment information, geolocation information," and more.

Yes. You can register for an OMNY account, where you'll be able to access a personalized dashboard that will feature your activity.