Public Transit Amsterdam & outer towns

My plan was to just use my credit card to tap in and out of trains, buses, and trams. It works just like the OV Chipkaart, or at least for what needs a visitor has. If you like, you can also download the OV Pay app, with that, you can see you tap ins and tap outs. It is not needed to use tap to pay, just provides more info and tracks your activity.

OVPay and tap is good for second class travel, you would still need an OV Chipkaart if you want to load some type of discount.

Thank you for that info. So to be clear, we can use our credit card to just tap & pay, similar for what we do for the NYC subways. That makes things much easier to manage.

Yes, from my understanding, I have not used it, but plan to, and have done similar in London. Maybe others have recent experience. Here is some information https://ovpay.nl/en Note that some of the info stresses using a Debit Card, but that is only because Debit Card use by the locals is more prevalent than Credit card usage. I would at least try it. You get the standard rate, if you buy a ticket you pay additional for the paper ticket, same with the OV Chipkaart, you incur a fee. However, if you are planning on some discount or pass, for that you may need the Chipkaart. The same system works for all second class NL trains (Not on Thalys or Eurostar), plus buses, trams and metro in Amsterdam, as well as local buses (public services).

Thanks, Paul! Enjoy your travels.