How the pass math works

Where the prices come from

Pass prices come from the seller's page for that pass in that city. Gate prices come from the attraction's own ticket page. 55 passes and 174 attractions in 10 cities, each with the day we read it. A page shows the oldest month among its figures, so it never claims a newer check than its oldest price. The data page lists every city with its month.

• Where an attraction publishes two standard adult prices, such as a door price and an online price, we use the lower one. A cheaper gate never flatters a pass.
• Passes count at their regular price. We leave out promotions, codes and sale prices.
• Every price stays in its own currency: USD in the United States, GBP in London, EUR elsewhere. We never convert.

What you enter

City

one of 10the tick list belongs to the city

Trip days

1 to 10

Adults

0 to 6aged 18 or over

Children

up to 6each with an age from 0 to 17

Pace

relaxed, 2 visits a day, or packed, 4 a day

Ticks

the attractions, tours, buses and rides you plan to do

The plan lives in the page address, so a shared link opens the same result. A value out of range falls back to its default, and a group of nobody becomes 2 adults.

Gate prices, person by person

1. An attraction free for everyone costs nothing.
2. An adult pays the adult price.
3. A child under the age the attraction names for free entrance pays nothing.
4. A child inside a child or youth band with a price pays that price.
5. A child older than the top of every band the attraction publishes pays the adult price.
6. Any other ticket is price not published. It stays out of every total, the card lists it, and it never counts as zero.

We never use senior or student rates, because the plan carries no age for adults. Sales tax and booking fees at attractions never go on the gate side.

Pass prices, person by person

An adult pays the adult price of the pass option. A child pays the child or youth price when their age is inside that band, or the adult price when they are older than every band the seller publishes. A person the seller publishes no price for is left out of that pass entirely, from the pass cost and from the gate tickets alike, and the card names the band that left them out. Other passes still count them. When nobody in the group has a price, the card reads no price for your group and gives no verdict.

A fee the seller adds per ticket at checkout goes on the pass side for every person counted: USD 2 a ticket on New York CityPASS, New York C3, New York C-All, San Francisco CityPASS, San Francisco C3 and San Francisco CityPASS + Alcatraz.

Which option of a pass

1. When the options of a pass differ in the days they stay valid, we keep those valid for no longer than your trip. An option with no stated limit counts as fitting. If none fits the trip, we keep the shortest.
2. Each option left gets the full math below.
3. Among the options whose visits fit your days and pace, the one with the highest saving wins. Ties go to the lower pass cost, then the shorter validity, then the order we list them in.
4. When no option fits, the longest one wins, then the higher saving, then the lower pass cost. Its card carries the fit warning.

The card names the option chosen and lists the others in its details.

What a pass covers

The ticked attractions on the pass list are the candidates; the rest you pay at the gate. Each candidate is worth the known gate tickets of the people the pass counts.

• A candidate free for your whole group takes no pick and is not counted as covered. It costs nothing either way.
• On a choice pass, fixed entries every buyer gets are covered when ticked. The picks go to the priced candidates, highest value first, ties by name. Picks still free then go to ticked attractions with no published price; those show as covered with value not counted.
• Day passes, bundles and city cards cover every candidate.
• Seller rules come first on every kind of pass: when a rule is full, the next candidate takes the pick.

Highest value first gives the largest covered total the rules allow, and it does not depend on the order you tick in.

The totals

Gate total

the known gate tickets of every ticked attraction, for the whole group

Pass cost

the pass price of each counted person, plus any checkout fee

Covered

the gate value of what the pass covers

Paid at the gate

the gate total minus what the pass covers

Real cost

the pass cost plus what you still pay at the gate

Saving

the gate total minus the real cost; below zero it is a loss

On the home page example, Boston CityPASS for 2 adults: gate total USD 321.90, pass cost USD 168, paid at the gate USD 116, real cost USD 284, saving USD 37.90. Prices checked October 2026.

A child a pass publishes no price for gets no pass and still visits, so that child's tickets count as paid at the gate on that pass. Every card of a plan then shows the same gate total, and the saving is still what the pass covers minus what it costs.

The three verdicts

• Nothing priced ticked: no verdict. The card still shows the pass price for your group and the break-even line.
• The lines sit at exactly 10% of the gate total, worked out in whole cents. The percent on a card is cut to a whole number, never rounded up, so it never shows 10% for a saving under the line.
• Go City New York Explorer Pass for 1 adult with four New York tickets in one packed day saves USD 16, 9.6% of the gate total, just under the line: Close call. The card prints 9%. Prices checked October 2026.

The 10% lines are our choice, not a seller figure. Under 10% either way, a change in plans, a closed day or a missed booking can turn the result, so we call it close.

Days and pace

Each covered attraction counts as one visit. The usable days are your trip days, or the days the pass option stays valid when that is shorter. The visits fit when they come to no more than the usable days times 2 at a relaxed pace, or times 4 at a packed pace. Those two numbers are our assumption, and you choose the pace.

A pass whose visits do not fit still gets its full numbers. A saving of 10% or more then reads Close call, with the line "The saving holds only if you fit them in", so you see the money and the catch together. When your ticks alone come to more than your days times your pace, the result says the plan is a full trip.

Break-even

• Each card says how many more of the attractions the pass includes would turn its saving positive, adding the cheapest first. Because the cheapest go first, any others of that count work too, and the card says "any".
• A seller rule such as one viewing deck per pass can leave an added attraction uncovered. On those passes the card names the attractions the count was worked out with instead of saying "any".
• Each added attraction must add a priced visit to what the pass covers. Swapping one pick for a dearer one does not count.
• When no number of cheap additions gets there, the card gives the count with the dearest first, the fewest that can work.
• When neither gets there, the card says no further included attraction with a published price makes the pass pay off for your group.

The order of the passes

Cards line up by verdict: Worth it, Close call, Skip it, then passes with no verdict, then passes with no price for your group. Within a verdict, the higher saving comes first, then the lower pass cost, then the name. Whether a seller pays commissions never enters the order.

Labels and what we leave out

• Price labels next to a gate price: from for a price that moves by date (we store the lowest standard price), varies by date, online price, before tax (every US gate price), plus fees and non-EU rate.
• For a cruise or tour priced per departure (varies by date), we store the standard price of one dated departure in the month we read it; other dates can cost a little more or less. A city whose pass attractions mostly price by date only stays off the site until we set a dated price rule.
• City cards with public transport count it only through the rides you tick, at their single fare.
• A pass that includes attractions we have no price for lists them. For a visitor who goes there, the pass is worth more than our figure.
• Reduced rates a pass gives after its free sites, where the seller publishes no figure, are not counted.
• Seller claims about savings are not shown. Our own figure is the only saving on the site, and it is always for the things you ticked.
• We make no claim about queues or time saved, and we have not used the passes.

Our own assumptions

Where a rule has to choose, it chooses against the pass. The guides work these rules through real plans: how sightseeing passes work and when a pass loses money.

Corrections

To report a changed price, send the page that shows the new one to info@worththepass.com. We check each report against that page and update the month.