MTA officials are backing the hiking of the MetroCard’s base fare and increasing the bonuses on pay-per-ride cards in March — rather than keeping the fare the same and ditching the bonuses, The Post has learned.

The MTA board will vote on fare and toll increase proposals next Thursday, but its members are overwhelmingly leaning toward raising the MetroCard from $2.50 to $2.75, sources said.

To ease the pain, the hike will be accompanied by an 11 percent bonus if riders put $5.50 or more on their cards — an increase from the current 5 percent they would get.

The other proposal that had been under consideration was keeping the base fare the same but eliminating the bonuses.

Cards with bonuses are more popular among subway riders than single-ride tickets, which are used for less than 1 percent of trips and typically in stops with a lot of tourists.

The weekly MetroCard will go up from $30 to $31. The monthly will be hiked from $112 to $116.50.

Most board members also prefer to raise tolls more on drivers who use cash and give drivers with E-ZPass a smaller toll hike.

Under that proposal, tolls for E-ZPass car and truck drivers would go up 4 percent. Car drivers paying cash will be hit with an increase between 6.7 and 10 percent, and truck tolls would rise between 6.4 and 8.3 percent.

Under that proposal, the Verrazano would go up from $15 to $16 for cash drivers, and from $10.66 to $11.08 for those with E-ZPass.

“Only way we’ll know how the board votes is to attend next week’s board meeting,” said MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz.