<p>What is the difference between the two? They both rollover, but can you use them at the same places?</p>
<p>yes, but flex you can use at more places, like the bookstore or off campus in a few places, but dining dollars has no tax, so if you are eating some sushi at ferris, you should pay with dining not flex.</p>
<p>i wouldn't be so sure about dinning dollars rolling over from year to year, although i know they do from semester to semester.</p>
<p>in my opinion flex is, for the most part useless...and here's why....</p>
<ol>
<li><p>off campus flex has been a flop. Hamdel dropped it after no more than a month and its a hassle everywhere else. I've heard (since it only happened after I graduated) that you have to sign for each transaction and the swiping machine uses dialup to authenticate your card. There were several articles on bwog about the horror of off-campus flex.</p></li>
<li><p>you still have to pay tax on the transactions </p></li>
</ol>
<p>There are only two reasons for flex, in my view.....one is laundry....it is soooooooo much better than quarters.... its true the machines do screw up every now and then but its much better than having to hunt for change to do laundry. The second is when you are getting funds for your college education that would cover those transactions (this is very rare but i've heard of it). Otherwise, the people who usually used flex instead of say a credit/debit card or cash were those whose parents didn't trust them with money and wanted to keep a close eye on their finances. </p>
<p>As for dining dollars, food on campus isnt great but it is convenient and it is comparably priced to off campus places. Dining also used to give a 10% bonus on dining dollars if you bought them at a certain time...not sure if they still do this but i would be surprised if they didn't. Combine that with tax free purchases and you're getting a good deal for on campus dining compared to using cash.</p>
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i wouldn't be so sure about dinning dollars rolling over from year to year, although i know they do from semester to semester.
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<p>dining dollars (note: NOT first year points) roll over until you graduate!</p>
<p>flex also comes in handy to buy stuff from vending machines, if you don't have quarters or small bills, and it's helpful / needed to photocopy in the library, basically putting $50 into flex will serve you well for a very long time.</p>
<p>yeah i was thinking id use mainly dining dollars and some flex cash just in case. are meal plans necessary beyond freshman year?</p>
<p>they can be helpful if you're not going to cook all the time, but they are not per-se required. I got a 30-meal-a-semester plan my sophomore year, which helped.</p>
<p>i think $11 or $12 for a john jay meal is absurd....when you can walk a few more steps and get something much better and equally filling for the same price.</p>
<p>I disagree. You learn to eat healthy on your own by going to john jay. the conveneince of having an enormous salad bar and reasonably healthy options to choose from every night, with no wait, and no real walk off campus, is absolutely huge. plus parents will often pay for a meal plan whereas they may not always pay for a mad-money slush fund, which is what my off-campus eating came out of.</p>
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i think $11 or $12 for a john jay meal is absurd....when you can walk a few more steps and get something much better and equally filling for the same price.
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<p>Totally agree. </p>
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plus parents will often pay for a meal plan whereas they may not always pay for a mad-money slush fund, which is what my off-campus eating came out of.
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<p>My parents did some simple division and couldn't believe a dining hall was charging $12/meal (this was in 1999) and concluded that it must have been an enormous ripoff</p>