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Yesterday, the MTA started spending the giant surplus they revealed Wednesday by selling the holiday Metrocard, their holiday gift to New Yorkers. While riders can purchase the cards now, the special Metrocards can't be used until next week. The special card can be used from November 23rd through January 2nd, but there are only 250,000 cards that allow for 41-days of unlimited subway riding fun. In addition to being limited in numbers, the cards can only be purchased at token booths (if they're still open) with cash or a TransitCheck.
While NY1 says it might not be a good idea to buy the card if your current card overlaps with the usage dates, there might be one way to get around that. If you purchased your Metrocard with a credit card, you could "lose" that card and get a refund. It's almost like two gifts from the MTA in one!
For those that don't buy the special card will get an additional, it's not all bad news. If you activate a montly card, you get four bonus days and if you activate a weekly card, you get one bonus day. Finally, those using a pay-per-ride will pay just $1 per ride on weekends between Thanksgiving and New Year's and $1 for the last week of the year. Whew. If that was too confusing, there's always the MTA website for the holiday bonus.
Has anyone out there bought their holiday card yet?
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As much as I dislike the MTA, your suggestion that people "lose" cards to get a refund is horribly unethical.
I would have to agree with Emily Post, as it is horribly unethical, but it is horribly unethical for the MTA to spend $50 million on some silly PR stunt instead of taking that $50 million and spending it on fixing crumbling stations.
Two wrongs don't make a right, as the ancient proverb goes.
proverbs schmoverbs. and it's probably credit card fraud too. i was just pointing out it could be done.
FYI, not all booths will have them -- yesterday, I asked the boothworker at my normal station entrance at Court St. & Joralemon for one but was redirected to exit and go to the main booth at Borough Hall.
Also, realize that because these holiday cards cannot be bought with credit cards, there is no protection plan for these should you lose your holiday card.
The only good thing about this stunt is that it establishes the precedent that prices should be lower during off peak times, when capacity is available, by having the discount on weekends.
Hopefully the MTA will follow this up by limiting future fare increases to weekday peak periods only, until a sufficient differential (one similar to the peak vs. off peak fares on the commuter railroads) is established.
Ever ride the subway on the weekend? It's packed and slower than usual.
1. It is wrong to do the "lost MetroCard" thing.
2. The whole holiday fare thing is just a big PR thing, so the MTA can say look how nice we are, now if you subway station is falling apart we don't care.
3. The holiday period tends to be busier on weekends on the subway.
4. Peak/off peak subway fares seem like a good idea, but how do you structure it?
Did anyone find out if MTA sold out of all the 250,000 cards that were available? If so, I missed that story....