questions about Pla$dCash and mealplans

KrazyKow
Wed, 07 Jun 2006 12:56:35 +0000

There are places off campus you can use Plaidca$h, but you can’t use it everywhere. As a student, I found it easier to simply have a bank account linked with my mom’s; if I needed money, she could transfer money in. In addition to that, I also had a local account (PNC) that my parents put money in, so that I would be able to withdraw money from ATMs without fees.

Get the cheapest meal plan, definitely. I eat regular meals, unlike many people, and went out to eat once or twice a week (cheap places, like Panera and Boston Market and take out Chinese food) and only ran out of meal plan once or twice.

The meal plan runs in two week periods. Two blocks in each period can be used only at Schatz for dinner (they don’t count for breakfast and brunch, which have much better food). If you don’t eat at Schatz, they disappear at the end of the plan. I’m not sure if they expire one per week or two every two weeks. Thus, you don’t have to eat at Schatz, but you waste blocks, which is what many people do.

DineX can only be used to buy food. It works like cash and is accepted at all places on campus, Subway, Eat n’ Park, and Vocelli’s Pizza. With the exchange rate on meal plans, blocks give you more value. There are several meal block periods in the day (Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Late) and you can only use one block per period, so it is better to have DineX if you eat irregularly or order lots of pizza. You can change your meal plan once per semester to a different block/dineX split during the second two week period, and it goes into effect for the third. However, the first two weeks of the semester is not very representative of what you actually need, since there is tons of free food during that time.