London Banter - View Single Post

Roland Perry · December 12th 08, 04:14 PM posted to uk.transport.london

In message
, at
09:05:39 on Fri, 12 Dec 2008, remarked:
On 11 Dec, 15:30, Roland Perry wrote:

Or they may pass a new law saying that all credit expires a year after
it's added - I think the New York equivalent has that rule.

New York Metrocards expire on a date which is printed on them, it
generally seems to be just over a year after they're issued, but they
are made of thin plastic with a mag stripe, so a year's worth of heavy
use would probably wear one out. You don't loose any credit left on a
card when it expires, you just transfer it to a new card. You can
even do this yourself, just insert it into a ticket machine, and it
will offer to transfer the balance to a new card. This can only be
done for a certain time, I think it's two years, after the card
expires.

So the money does expire, and quite quickly too!

As a tourist, I have a Metrocard I used for about three days in 2004.
Any balance is now toast. That's what worries me, not a debate on
whether it's precisely 12, 13, 24 or 25 months.

I believe it's also illegal to sell/transfer the cards, so someone else
who happens to be visiting NY can use up the money.

(FWIW, the words I read at the time made me believe the money was lost
after 12 months, but it wouldn't be the first time a transport agency
issued imprecise advice.]

--
Roland Perry