Hold on there, who said anything about paying to get to the strip?
I've never "paid" to get there, only a "credit check" is mandatory.
Closely monitored my cap count while going through gates, and never lost 1 cap.
Perhaps I misunderstood the other person. My point was that you don't have to enter the Strip from Freeside and that the (free) monorail way to the Strip is not blocked off for me. I think it could be/was blocked off
because of a quest bug (that's supposedly fixed now) - it never was blocked off for me even doing that quest, tho, but...
I got my backside handed to me AFTER disarming the "(not telling)", so that wasn't an alternative transport method.
the other point I was making was that you could use the monorail to get to the Strip
before you've done any quests at all. I've never even had a credit check. The OP didn't make it clear what point in the game they were in...if they haven't done that monorail/spy quest yet & they aren't hostile towards the NCR, the terminal shouldn't be blocked off or require any permission.