helosc

A report back on the Rav-Kav card :
I asked for Rav-Kav cards at the ticket booth at the train station in the airport : The woman looked at me like I was stupid and told me no Rav-Kav cards...
So after a bit of an argument, I bought normal tickets.
Managed to get the cards at Arlozorov Station next day. There is a special ticket booth for getting Rav-Kav cards ( personal and anonymous ). After that you go to the normal ticket booths for loading them.
I loaded the cards with local Tel Aviv bus tickets on a bus ( driver got very angry with me for wanting to load 10 tickets on three cards at the same time ).
Worked well on the Tel Aviv busses.
For the bus from Tel Aviv I couldn't be bothered to load the cards and just bought normal tickets from the driver.
In Jerusalem I got by on a mix of normal tickets and the Rav-Kav card. I loaded the cards in the self-service kiosks at the light-rail stops ( notice that the kiosks only accept a maximum of 10 coins per transaction - so that is not the way to get rid of all the accumulated 10 Agorot.....). And also notice that when you choose English, the screen reverts to Hebrew at some point in the transaction
( when you are asked to choose how you want to pay ) and that there is often a long queue impatiently waiting behind you. So in hindsight it is probably preferable to load on the busses.

RedChili

Although I've visited Israel numerous times, I usually rented a car, so I never really needed a rav kav card after they became commonplace.

But two weeks ago, I stayed a week in Tel Aviv, and I decided to use public transportation and looked for information about the rav kav card in this thread and other places on the Internet. But I found that there's not really any updated information on the rav kav card on Flyertalk at all, which surprised me.

So, for anybody searching Flyertalk for information on the rav kav, here's some information for you:

There's now (June 2018) a desk in the arrivals hall of Ben Gurion Airport where you can get a rav kav card. Just head for 1 o'clock when exiting from customs. The desk was open when I got there at 04:00AM. I got an anonymous rav kav for 5 shekels and charged it immediately with a ticket valid for 7 days for 94 shekels. That includes unlimited travel within Tel Aviv and suburbs as far away as Rehovot, Herzliya, Kfar Saba and the Ben Gurion airport. So, for that amount I could go as much as I pleased with the trains, Dan buses, and Egged buses all over the city and its suburbs, including round-trip from/to the airport. It was a really good value.

joshwex90

Unfortunately, the system is not very tourist friendly nor is there enough information in English.

Here is the official site which lists the prices based on the "new" metropolis pricing system: ?????? ???????? ??????? ???????? There is an English PDF at the top and the site may work with Google Translate, not sure. However, the benefit of the site is putting in towns/cities or stations and it tells you the price for an unlimited daily/weekly/monthly pass. The options cover basically the whole country. 60 shekel gives you an unlimited daily pass for the entire country (except Eilat and Arava area). These ticketing options work only on the Rav-Kav though.

You can fill up your Rav-Kav on your phone if you have an NFC-enabled Android. However, the app is only available in Hebrew. https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...avonlinemobile

You can also fill up on most buses. HOWEVER, you can no longer fill up on buses in Jerusalem. So if you're in Jerusalem, you'll need to fill up at light rail stations, Rav-Kav points, some ATMs, Cofix branches, etc.

awayIgo

joshwex90

Do you have a link? I found this by searching, https://www.tripadvisor.com/SearchFo...rael__2E__html , but there seems to be a lot.

awayIgo

joshwex90

Cool, thanks!