Adding transit cards direct from the Wallet app is a traveler’s delight

I said a few years ago that Express Transit is a tiny feature that makes a huge difference, and planning a last-minute trip revealed the same is true of another Wallet feature. The ability to add foreign transit cards direct to the Wallet app before you even leave home is a traveler’s delight … A growing number of cities around the world have adopted prepaid cards as their standard way for locals and visitors alike to pay for their public transit journeys. Examples include OMNY in New York, Oyster in London, Suica in Tokyo, SUBE in Buenos Aires, Opal in Sydney, Octopus in Hong Kong, and many more. (Though ironically, London now discourages the use of an Oyster card in favor of contactless payment cards.) Most of them work in a similar way. You can have either a physical card or a digital one, and in either case can use an app to load cash onto it. You then tap the card or your iPhone or Apple Watch onto contactless pads when you travel, with the fare deducted from the balance. In ... Read full article.