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If your panties were in a bunch about your Chicago card expiring, you may now partially un-bunch them. Your card will still expire, but you'll no longer lose your balance.
Customers voiced their complaints about having to renew their own cards, and CTA officials heard them. They are now offering a new option for riders whose cards are set to expire — sit around and wait until a new card comes to you! Well, if your card is registered. If it's not, you'll still have to go to CTA HQ or call them.
If you are one of the cardholders whose card is hitting the 4-year expiration date, the agency will be sending you a new one, good for another 4 years, before the old one kicks it on October 17. “Chicago Card doomsday” averted.
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thanks alicia dorr!
I'm glad about you, matty
check it. west side!
I wonder how many people are going to be surprised by getting a new Chicago Card in the mail, considering less than 40% of the cards are registered are used in an average month.
Also, I know the CTA normally charges $5 for them, but it costs them $10 each. Had they planned this earlier, they could have simply mailed everyone with an expiring (registered) card and then given them some sort of easy option to renew. This new option seems like a waste of money. The person in the article compared them to credit cards, how you get a a new one in the mail automatically, but those are just pieces of plastic with a magnetic strip. These are $10 smart cards.
just make sure they have the right address on file for you. i lost mine recently (chicago card, not plus), put in a request online to have a new one sent to me, typed in my address on the form...and still got it sent to my old address. thank goodness whoever lives there now returned it to the CTA.
I don't even understand how anybody could have one of those cards for 4 years. Every time I try to keep mine in my wallet, it de-magnetizes and I have to schlep my butt down to Lake Street to pay $5 for a new one. How can these $10 "smart" cards be so dumb?