Originally Posted by
moondog
For subways and buses, I prefer using stored value cards to apps because this obviates the need to pull up qr codes on my phone. Recharging at machines is almost as fast as buying single journey tickets/tokens.
Indeed, I asked the hôtel about possible options in Beijing. There's the traditional, physical IC card you can top off, so I use that. As of this writing, cost of 20 RMB plus whatever value you wish to store on it. So that sped things up considerably.