Just make sure you do a bit of math before going out and buying a pass.
I remember when I was taking summer school I opted to buy strips of tickets because it was cheaper than the city bus pass (they did not have this discount back then) because I only rode the bus 8 times a week.
Having a student card bus pass has some convenience factor to it...you'll never be like "Damn, I just used my last bus ticket" but make sure you check the HSR bus ticket rates and recalculate how much you expect to spend...it may be cheaper than even Mac's discounted pass!
EDIT: I'll do the calculation for you, I'm bored and can't sleep haha.
HSR says their ADULT tickets cost
$1.85 each, according to (
http://www.myhamilton.ca/myhamilton/...nditions.ht m). To see how many times you must ride the bus to break even, we divide
$252.00 by
$1.85. This yields 136.2 ish rides...which always rounds up, since you can't take '.2' of a ride. So 137 rides.
Now simply counting your calendar shows that in May, June, July and August, there are a total of 18 weeks, and one Monday...which presumably you won't be going to Mac on that day, so let's leave it out to make calculations easier.
Now we divide 137 by 18 to see how many bus trips we must take per week, and we get 7.61 which rounds up to 8 rides per week...or 8 rides 3 out of every 5 weeks, and 7 rides the other 2/5 weeks.
Now you should note that summer school does not run for most of August...so for that entire month you will not be coming to Mac regularly as you did before...but to get a good deal with this pass, you still need to ride 8 times a week! (Or have taken the bus more than 8 times per week in the other 3 months)
To me this seems like a lot of bus riding...and isn't really worth it unless you have a secondary use for your bus pass (like commuting to work).
So this is situational...but if you're _just_ getting the pass to come to McMaster and go to school...you're getting screwed even though the 20% discount seems like a good deal.
(**Note** Taking 2 busses in a single trip does not count as using two tickets since you get a bus transfer and the 2nd bus is free of charge with an ADULT ticket, even though you must show your student pass twice)