Just to clarify, the 'MetroCard' is just a new name and look for the old Walrus card, so far, nothing works any differently and you can still use the old Walrus cards in exactly the same way - if you have a Walrus card, you do not need to replace your Walrus card with a new Metro Card.
You can buy Saveaways on it for today and pre purchase for tomorrow, however don't forget the Saveaway tickets are still using 'Zones', so you need to make sure it covers the zones you will be using.
You can also load bus only Solo tickets (Day, Multiday (I think?), week, month and term time on them- however you cannot buy them on board a bus - it was rolled out for on bus purchases last April, however lasted acouple of days before it was withdrawn due to teething issues and hasnt returned since - you have to buy Solo top ups in newsagent, travel centre or various other retailers. Not sure about annual Solo tickets, last I checked they were still the old photo card with date stamp style flash passes and not available on the Walrus/Metro cards. The zones for solo tickets were scrapped, so you can only buy All Zone Solo passes now. For a daily solo pass, you can also buy them in paper form onboard all buses in Merseyside
You can also purchase Stagecoach and Arriva Merseyside zone weekly tickets onto both Walrus and Metro cards.
The Trio passes still havn't transitioned onto Smartcards yet (must have been at least 5 years since they rolled them out for Saveaways now? Trio passes are only available on the photo card flash passes and only available in Week,Month,Annual and Term time form,and zones do apply.
Be aware, if you are still using one of the early roll out Walrus cards ie 5 years or so old, the cards themselves do have an expiry date - you can have a valid product on it - be it a daily,weekly,monthly or annual pass loaded onto it and on the expiry date of the card, all machines just refuse to read it and it says invalid card! I believe in this instance you can use the receipt as proof of purchase and exchange it free for a new card.
Regarding the pay as you go Oyster style use of the Metrocards - I drive buses in Merseyside, we have had no update on this being rolled out - but knowing Merseytravel in their usual half job approach to the Walrus/Metro card system, it will probably only be rolled out on Merseyrail for the next 10 years before getting rolled out everywhere else - lets be honest, Walrus has been out for at least 5 years now and they still havnt managed to get all their original products onto smart cards letalone new ones! For a while the only people who had use of the Walrus was Merseytravel Staff - who have a Staff Trio loaded onto it - and still do to this day. They eventually rolled out Saveaway on the card and left it at that for years. They then rolled out certain solo products onto the card however as I have already mentioned it took them another year at least to get the Solos topped up on bus, which lasted 2 days and hasnt been back since! For the first time that I know of, this September they finally rolled out Term Time Solos onto the smartcard, but still no news as to whether Trio will ever get added, or when this pay as you go thing will ever kick off!
