Three subscription passes. No advertising on any of them.
QPass Museum Cards & Reviews is paid for by readers — never by tour operators, hotels, cruise companies, ticket resellers or advertising platforms. There are three subscription passes. Open Pass gives full access to the card archive online. QPass Plus adds the printed half-year visit-letter, posted in March and August. Editor's Pass adds the half-year planning hour with an editor and the Cairo backstop call — a phone line you can use while in Egypt for time-sensitive trip questions. All three include international postage of the printed material.
There are no introductory rates, no founding-subscriber discounts, no annual deals beyond what is published openly, and no upsell prompts inside the cards. The Open Pass and QPass Plus rates have been stable since the spring 2024 cycle and we do not expect to change them in 2026. The Editor's Pass rate was set when the tier launched in 2023 and has been stable since. Subscriptions can be cancelled at the end of any billing cycle by writing to the desk; the cancellation takes effect immediately and a pro-rata refund of any unused months is issued automatically.
Open Pass
- Full access to the 118-card archive online, dated and rotation-stamped
- The Sunday-morning new-card email (the only email we send)
- The Wednesday correction-and-rotation alert
- The right to write to the reader-correction column for the next visit-letter
- Working access to the comparison tables and the side-door tips
- International access — no region restrictions
QPass Plus
- Everything in Open Pass
- The printed half-year visit-letter — 24 pages, posted in March and August, to a Cairo or international address
- The seasonal supplement (a one-page foldout with the season's ticket adjustments)
- Priority access to the corrections workflow for cards on your subscriber-flagged sites
- The closed editor-correspondence archive (rejected first drafts, named with permission)
- Two-business-day reply window from the desk on subscriber questions
Editor's Pass
- Everything in QPass Plus
- The half-year planning-hour exchange — one fifty-minute call or letter exchange with an editor on your specific trip, twice a year
- The Cairo backstop call — a phone line you can use during your trip for time-sensitive questions
- Same-business-day reply window during your trip dates
- Two reader-flagged corrections per year converted into named card additions
- Named acknowledgement in the printed visit-letter (opt-in)
The three passes, compared
The marketing-page version of the passes is above. Below is the practical comparison side by side for readers who want to confirm before subscribing. Postage on the printed visit-letter is included on QPass Plus and Editor's Pass; we do not charge by region.
| Feature | Open Pass | QPass Plus | Editor's Pass |
|---|---|---|---|
| Online card archive (118 cards) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Sunday morning new-card email | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Wednesday correction alert | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Reader-correction column rights | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Printed half-year visit-letter | — | 2 copies / yr | 2 copies / yr |
| Seasonal foldout supplement | — | Yes | Yes |
| Closed editor-correspondence archive | — | Yes | Yes |
| Half-year planning-hour exchange | — | — | 2 / yr |
| Cairo backstop call during trip | — | — | Yes |
| Same-business-day reply during trip | — | — | Yes |
| Reply window (general) | 5 working days | 2 working days | 1 working day |
| Quarterly cost | $18 | $48 | $84 |
| Annual cost (one-month discount) | $64 | $172 | $300 |
How billing actually works
All three passes can be paid quarterly or annually in US dollars through a Cairo-based payment processor that supports international Visa and Mastercard credit and debit cards as well as Apple Pay and Google Pay. Egyptian-issued cards (Banque Misr, NBE, CIB and the major retail banks) are supported in EGP at the prevailing CBE rate. The processor is PCI DSS Level 1 compliant and we do not store card numbers on our servers; the processor tokenises each transaction. We do not currently accept PayPal or cryptocurrency for the personal passes, though we can accept a bank transfer for an annual Editor's Pass.
Receipts are issued automatically by email after each successful payment. The receipt is suitable as a business expense voucher in most jurisdictions and the legal entity on the receipt is QPass Museum Cards & Reviews L.L.C., with the Egyptian tax registration 195-738-426 printed at the foot. Renewals are billed automatically on the same date each cycle unless you have asked us to cancel the auto-renewal; we send a renewal-notice email two weeks before the charge.
Cancellation, refunds and pauses
Subscriptions can be cancelled at any time by writing to the desk or through the account settings page. We do not require a reason and we do not run a retention call. If you have paid annually and cancel mid-year, we issue the pro-rata refund within five working days. Subscribers can also pause for travel or other reasons; the pause has no proration penalty up to three months a year, and any missed printed visit-letters are held in storage and posted on resumption.
Pass upgrades and downgrades are handled at the desk on request. Upgrade from Open Pass to QPass Plus mid-year produces a pro-rata top-up for the rest of the year and the next printed visit-letter is added to the dispatch run. Upgrade from QPass Plus to Editor's Pass triggers an immediate scheduling email for your half-year planning hour. Downgrade takes effect at the end of the current billing period — we do not refund the unused print letter or planning-hour component within a paid period because they are already produced or scheduled.
For libraries, schools and groups
QPass does not currently run a formal institutional licence. Libraries and university departments that have asked for institutional access have been served on a case-by-case basis with a multi-reader Open Pass arrangement at USD 240 a year for up to ten named readers. The arrangement covers the online archive only; the printed visit-letter is not included in this rate because the postage logistics to a single coordinating address with multi-reader use are not yet resolved. Institutional readers who want the printed letter add it at the QPass Plus rate per coordinator.
Press use of the cards by working journalists is free and unrestricted with attribution. We do not require advance permission for press citation and we do not charge for it. Academic citation with proper attribution is routinely granted; the editorial desk will provide direct written quotes on request. Image-rights inquiries are handled individually by Nadia because the photographs in the cards are taken by editors during fieldwork and the rights are managed per piece.
Reader FAQ on passes
Does the Open Pass lose features over time?
No. The Open Pass is the complete online reading experience. Every card published is in the archive at the Open Pass tier from day one. We do not move older cards behind a higher paywall, and we do not hide cards from Open Pass subscribers. QPass Plus and Editor's Pass add formats (the print letter, the seasonal supplement) and services (the planning hour, the backstop call), not access.
Is there a student rate?
Yes. Students with a valid institutional email get the Open Pass at USD 32 a year instead of USD 64. QPass Plus and Editor's Pass are not discounted because the print and the planning-hour production costs do not change with the reader's status. Write to the desk from your institutional email and we will send the discount code within two working days.
Can I gift a subscription?
Yes. All three passes can be gifted in single-quarter, half-year or annual blocks. The recipient receives a welcome letter with the first quarterly access details on a date you choose, and no further billing happens at the end of the gift term unless they choose to continue. Write to the desk to set up the gift.
What is the Cairo backstop call exactly?
A phone line monitored by the duty editor during Egyptian working hours (Sun–Thu 10:00–17:00 EET), reserved for Editor's Pass subscribers currently in Egypt. You can use it for time-sensitive questions — a tomb that was open this morning and is closed now, a security adjustment at a site, a corniche restaurant we previously recommended that has changed hands. We do not use it for general trip questions; the planning-hour exchange is for those.
What happens if QPass closes?
In the unlikely event that the publication ceases to operate, we will write to all paying subscribers with at least one cycle's notice, refund pro-rata for the unused portion of any annual subscription, and post a final compendium PDF of every card in the archive as a free download. The cards are written in plain HTML and printed on archival paper; both formats will outlive the publication if necessary. We have no expectation of closing in 2026.
Why don't you offer a lifetime pass?
Because the cards are a service, not a product. A lifetime pass sells a one-time payment for an ongoing editorial obligation — that is a structural mismatch and it almost always ends badly for the publication and eventually for the lifetime subscribers when the service degrades. The annual rate (one-month discount on the quarterly billing) is the closest we will come to a discount, and we think it is the honest one.
Still deciding which pass?
For one Egypt trip a year, Open Pass is enough. For frequent visitors, QPass Plus pays for itself through the print letter and the seasonal supplement. For ground-truth subscribers travelling regularly, the Editor's Pass backstop call usually pays for itself the first time it stops you queueing at a closed tomb.
Ask the desk