Where to purchase chicago card plus

Ventra Cards are good for five years. Your card can be hold any pass you like. All the same pass options you have today will be available with Ventra—1-Day, 3-Day, 7-Day, Day—and you just load it onto your card.

You can even load them online or by phone. The days of a store that sells farecards running out of the pass you need are over!

Your card can also store value for regular fares. You can even add value and pay for others while riding on an active pass, or have extra value ready and available for when a pass runs out. You can set up autoload on your account for more passes. Previously, this was only available for Chicago Card Plus users and only if you wanted a Day Pass. You can set up autoload on your card to work with more passes or value for regular fares. If you lose a pass today, you lose its entire value.

With Chicago Card, you could add value only at select retailers or at two of the three potential kinds of vending machines at train stations. Ventra Cards can be loaded with unlimited ride passes at all vending machines, retail locations or online.

You can set up autoload. You can also just turn it off at any time, unlike with Chicago Card Plus. The limitations with Chicago Card Plus fare options will be gone. You can load any pass onto your card—either manually or, with some passes, using the autoload feature.

You can check your account balance at machines. In addition to online and telephone account management options, you can also walk up to any vending machine and see remaining balance, active passes, passes that are queued up for use, and more. You can switch between autoload and manual loading any time. Unlike Chicago Card Plus, you can turn off autoload and switch to loading up your account in person—at machines, online and hundreds of retail locations around town, etc.

Following verification, a replacement card will be mailed to the cardholder. The CTA will not send a replacement card unless the address is confirmed by the cardholder.

If a customer's old card has a remaining balance, the balance will be automatically transferred to the new card. Customers are encouraged to update their Chicago Card Plus account online now by clicking the "Time to Renew? Approximately 4, of the blue on blue Chicago Cards are expiring through July In addition to checking online at www. Lake St.

Balances cannot be transferred when ordering online. Customers will need to use the remaining balance on their expiring Chicago Card prior to its expiration date. To avoid deactivation or loss of their remaining balance, registered Chicago Card customers must obtain a replacement card. Only registered cards may have the balance transferred. Critical bits of info about the transition process are missing or easy-to-miss on the CTA and Ventra web sites, and the opportunities to use existing fare media continue to dwindle.

Yesterday was the last day to buy new reloadable magnetic stripe cards. An event staffer records the balance on a form, then sends you to another station to transfer the balance to your new Ventra account.

I saw a few cases where cards were unreadable. You may have to buy another Ventra card elsewhere. It took several conversations with staffers for me to find someone who was aware of the difference. She appeared to be a supervisor. It is in the info about balance transfer events, but I missed it. Therefore, this turned out to be a wasted trip, except as a learning experience about the Ventra transition.

Several groups of riders won't need the tips below: College students with U-Passes were the first to get Ventra cards in early August, and Chicago Card Plus customers cards tied to an online account have starting getting Ventra passes in the mail, for which balance transfers occur automatically with activation.

One is online at ventrachicago. Jefferson St. Ventra machines are replacing CTA vending machines at rail stations. Gone by Sept.