<p>I actually went to housing and asked exactly the question posed in this thread to them last year but in a much more polite way. Basically I said: </p>
<p>Based on the prices put up on the housing website, unless I’m mistaken, it’s much cheaper to just put money on your bruin card/student account than to actually use a meal plan. Is this true? And if it is, why is it that buying in bulk is more expensive than buying as you go, usually the trend is the other way around. </p>
<p>First I’d like to add that not only did I ask the above question, you’ll notice that I didn’t specifically point out that it was for the non-resident meal plans that I am posing this question to. So their answer was basically that yes it is indeed more expensive, almost $3-$4 per swipe depending on the meal plan you buy than to just use your student account. Their reasoning was it is more convenient to use meal plans so the extra cost is for the convenience of having a plan vs. having to always deposit money into your account. I personally think that is a horrible reason and it’s not really that inconvenient at all, but to each their own. So the second part of my question was that if this is true, does that mean that the meal plans that are forced onto you when you apply for housing are charged at the same rate as non-resident meal plans. Their answer was yes, indeed they are.</p>
<p>So basically, they are forcing you to buy meal plans at a much more expensive rate than just using the “easy pay” option on your bruin card. If you notice, nowhere in the housing contract payments does it explicitly state how much the meal plans are being charged. You only know the price difference between different meal options, that doesn’t show the actual total price of the meal plan which are indeed identically priced to the non-resident meal plans. I found this pretty disingenuous of them to force you to buy the more expensive option, they hide the reality of it very very well. In fact, when I told my friends that had 14P meal plans, most of them refused to believe me that housing meal plans were more expensive than easy pay - some sort of weird denial complex. </p>
<p>But according to what the people at housing pretty easily told me, the non-resident meal plans are indeed much more expensive than just using “easy pay” per swipe, the reasoning for this increased charge is for convenience. In addition, the non-resident meal plan prices are equivalent to the housing meal plan options that are forced on you; the housing meal plan costs are just never explicitly stated in the housing contract and are just added into the payment subtotals so it is impossible to notice this unless you ask housing.</p>
<p>In summary, it would be the cheapest financially to always buy the 11 cub meal plan (basically the least amount forced on you), and load money onto your card for any extra trips to the dining hall or when you want to swipe people in. Not only does “easy pay” not have any limitations and allows you to swipe as many people as you want, it is $3-$4 cheaper per swipe depending on if you are buying breakfast or dinner.</p>