AT HOP card & HOP money

• The AT HOP card is a reusable prepay smart card for travel on trains, ferries and buses around Auckland.
• HOP money is pre-loaded credit on your AT HOP card.
• You need to top up your AT HOP card with HOP money or load a monthly or day pass before you can travel. Unless you buy a prepay card, cards must be topped up at the time of purchase.
• The AT HOP card provides at least 20% discount off single trip cash bus, train and ferry fares (excludes SkyBus and Waiheke ferry services). Check out AT HOP fares.
• If eligible, you can load a concession for discounted fares.

How long the credit lasts

The AT HOP card will expire and the HOP money will be forfeit If not used for a continuous period of six years. In this instance, you will need to purchase another AT HOP card and contact us to put the HOP money onto the new card.

Negative balance

If your HOP money balance falls below zero into a negative balance, your card, including any monthly or day pass loaded on the card will not work.

You will need to clear the negative balance (or IOU) by topping up your card.

Protecting your balance by registering your AT HOP card

By registering your AT HOP card, if it is ever lost or stolen, your balance is protected within 24 hours of its loss being reported to us and your balance can be transferred to a new card.

There are no refunds or balance transfers available on a card that has not been registered.

How the AT HOP card system works

Information is stored on the card

The AT HOP card system is 'card present'. That means all information is stored on the physical card itself rather than online. The card must be shown to card readers (at a train station, ferry terminal or on the bus) for the card information to update.

Card readers update by uploading and downloading stored information from the central AT HOP system.

Updates to the card (may take 24 to 72 hours)

Because everything is stored on the card itself, online transactions won’t show on your card until it’s next presented to a HOP device.

The online transactions go through the system overnight and are picked up by the buses (at the depot) ready to go on your card when you tag on.

Example of how the update is processed:

1. You top up your card online, which will then sit under pending in your online account.
2. It goes through the system overnight and the next morning your bus (while at the depot) has picked up the latest information to update your card with a top up.
3. You tag on with your card at an AT HOP reader or go through the electronic gates and it updates the card with your top up.
4. In your online account the top up is removed from pending and shows in your account balance.

In most cases, if you add funds via your online account before 10pm on any day, those funds should be available on your card the next day when you tag.

In some cases, if your bus doesn’t return to the depot to pick up the latest information (described in step 2 of the example) it may take up to 72 hours.

Using the card

• The AT HOP card uses Near Field Communication (NFC). Any other device or card with the same technology in the "near field" will also try to "communicate" but in a different language.
• Remove the card from your bag or wallet so there are no arguments.
• It's tap and go not pay wave - hold the card flat and still in front of the reader for a second, rather than swipe or wave across the front. Find out more about how to tag on and tag off.

Online transaction expiry

Online transactions sit in an action list waiting (i.e pending) for you to tag. To keep the action list manageable, online transactions expire after 60 days but if you give us a call we can reactivate it.