Opal Card hack - get free trips

[Chieflets]

Let's go over the published basics of the Opal system (I've simplified them so that they aren't as obfuscating as the official publications):


Trip - A trip is travel between a tap on and tap off.

Transfer - A transfer is made when there has been less than 60 minutes between the last tap off and the next tap on.

Journey - a journey is a collection of trips and transfers which ends when 60 minutes has elapsed from the last tap off. You can't end a journey manually - you must wait one hour from the last tap off in order to begin a new one.

Once you spend $15 in fares per day, the rest of the day's travel is free

After 8 journeys in a week, the rest of the week's travel is free

For journeys involving transfers from bus to bus, the fare is combined so that you do not pay a separate fare for each tap on and tap off.

One unpublished quirk with the Opal system is that the card itself stores the previous 8 trips transactions. This is to give information to the Opal readers to give them a general idea of what fare to apply, and so that inspectors can see what you've been up to.

Because of this, the Opal developers decided to limit a journey to four trips. This isn't officially acknowledged on the Opal website, but it is definitely there in the system.

Another thing to note is that after you reach the daily cap, which is $15, journeys are no longer counted for that day.

Now, onto the <$20 weekly. Most people would consider it an arduous task to undertake, so be warned. You will need to do this at the beginning of the week to enjoy maximum savings because the Opal week goes from Monday to Sunday, and weekly travel rewards are not carried past Sundays. The main difference of this technique over the other widely discussed fare minimisation technique is that instead of waiting an hour between tapping off and tapping on to add a journey, you catch three buses instead, which can often take less than 20 minutes in high frequency bus corridors.

For your information, the absolute minimum you can do this with is $16.80. That's 8x $2.10 (Opal <3km fare). In order to actually do this, I think the best way is to find a major bus corridor like Elizabeth Street in the CBD (prime roaming ground for Opal enabled buses at the moment) with buses coming very frequently and travel between, say, Circular Quay and Martin Place back and forth.

You can also do whatever route you want to take, but make sure that the combined straight line distance of your four trips (i.e. straight line distance from stop 1 to 2 plus straight line distance from stop 2 to 3 plus etc.) adds up to less than 3km or else you'll pay a higher fare. Circular Quay to Martin Place 4 times is 2.7km, so keep that in mind.

You'll need to tap on, ride at least one stop, and tap off. 29 times. Yes, 29. That's how many hops you need to do in order to invoke this loophole. As to whether it's worth wasting your Monday morning to potentially save $30 a week, I don't know, but you might find this information useful if you're interested in doing this spread over one or two days.

Anyway, after the 7th journey (25 taps) when you've spent about $14.70, you can stop the hopping. Journeys aren't counted after you hit $15, so you can enjoy unlimited travel for the rest of that day for 30 cents. The next day, keep hopping and you will hit the weekly travel reward once you finish your 8th journey.

I was insane enough to try this myself today and I got up to the 7th journey. I did most of my hopping at Circular Quay and around Bondi Junction (down the road from Waverley Depot, where most, if not all, the buses are Opal enabled) with a separate ticket to travel between Circular Quay and Bondi Junction - I would have hit the daily cap had I used the Opal card to go from the CBD to Bondi.

Tomorrow I'll be trying the 8th journey and will report back with my findings. Here's my Opal card statement if you want proof of this 4 trip limit on a journey. Note that there's a tap on reversal and default fare there - those are either equipment failures or delayed updates and if anything's going to #### this idea up, it's those, so watch out and keep a count of how many trips you're doing because I didn't know when to stop.

[Chieflets]

Tempe to Wolli Creek - 437 mtrs
Erskineville to Macdonaldtown - ~450mtrs
Clyde to Granville - 564 mtrs
Rosehill to Camellia - 530 mtrs

[VroomVroom]

do those short trips on a pushbike real fast

[gordon_s1942]

Obviously chieflets doesnt have other pursuits to allow him to push the Opal system to its limits as he is doing.
While I give absolutely no credit to the possibility that State Transit are aware of this 'quirk' overall, I feel one or more involved in the setting up of the Opal system saw the possibility of it being rorted but most likely came to the conclusion that doing what chieflets explains does mean that while your doing it now, what about next week and the week after?
Do you have the time, energy and available services to do this over any length of time before the needs of life like working, shopping, appointments intervene and slow you down?
I base that thought on the fact that its cost million and taken over 10 years to implement so why would it be perfect???
While reading the Pensioner concession side of the Opal system, if we read it correctly, a Pensioner isnt charged the full $2.50 fare if they only do a short trip under a certain distance and only that amount is deducted rather than the full $2.50.

[lsemmens]

Sounds like a lot of hard work for too little gain. Why can't "governments" make public transportation free. It would save the enormous cost of administering such a "paid" service and have the benefit of reducing traffic on the roads as more people would be inclined to catch the bus instead of driving.

[Bibliophile]

While reading the Pensioner concession side of the Opal system, if we read it correctly, a Pensioner isnt charged the full $2.50 fare if they only do a short trip under a certain distance and only that amount is deducted rather than the full $2.50.

That is my understanding also.
You only pay for what you use but you can travel as much as you like on any day and your expenditure is capped at $2.50.

[Bobby Slogger]

Or you can catch the light rail between Pyrmont Bay and the Star.


My son (he is "Special" spends a lot of times with trains and noticed work people at 10am last Monday tapping on up to 8 cards and then walking to the next stop (about 300m) and doing it again.

You could pay some one $5 per card and in the space of half an hour, have many cards done - nice little earner for someone with time while office workers don't have to do the work and reap the benefits.

[best4less]

Get a cab and do a runner

Cheaper but a lot more dangerous LOL