The STM has launched its Opus subscription program, which allows people to register for automatic Opus card renewal through pre-authorized credit card payments or direct deposit.
Though the service offers no financial incentive (like a 12th month free), it does come with a replacement guarantee, which means that if you lose or break your Opus card, you can get it replaced, with the fare on it, for only the cost of the card itself.
The Opus system was supposed to offer this for all card holders, but for some reason it has been delayed. So far it is only offered for cards that come with photo ID.
(I had written a long comment but your server ate it)
The gist:
People have vacations, and there are holidays. If you have three weeks of holiday you don’t need 12 monthly CAM passes.
3 week passes are $62.50 while a month pass is $70. You can save quite some money if you don’t buy a pass when you don’t need one. And apart from holidays you might want to use your bike some days in the summer. Or even better, every day.
I saw your tweet on this. Sadly this isn’t useful for me since I don’t take public transport during mild weather, I use tickets then. Too bad we can’t renew the pass on a month by month basis. Also, it would be nice to no longer have the weekly and monthly passes tied to the calendar: You should be able to buy, say a weekly bus pass that starts on the Thursday and ends the following Wednesday.
I had some problems with my card (OK, it cracked and didn’t work) I went to Cote-Vertu and the exchanged it and gave me a new one for free, and registered it in my name. He said if I lost it I could get it replaced and have the fare transfered.
However, he didn’t read the fares I had on the broken card, so it’s lucky I hadn’t bought my monthly pass yet (the machine wouldn’t read it)
It is the same program than what the STM offers with Vélo-Québec. The thing is, if you only skip one month, the deactivate your card and you can no longer reactivate it. Which is, I think, completely stupid since no one I know buys a full year of STM passes.
Although I do not have an ID on my OPUS cards, I had both them both registered at the Cote-Vertu OPUS service centre. It saved me actually… I lost it in November and all I had to do was go to Berri’s main service centre for replacement. All I needed to do was show them my driver’s license, answer the password, and give them 3.50 for a new card.
well I subscribed for the new service.guess what,they lost my bank info the first week.a nice girl called me and I gave her the info.the amount was deducted on the 15th as expected with no problems.
yesterday I checked my account and another 70 dollars was removed.
when i called their service line,another prompt response was given by their staffer.she kind of knew why i was calling as she said a few other people were having the same problem.
she promised me a cheque for the refund was on the way next week.
Iasked her when was my card coming,she said the will be mailed Monday.I am starting to wonder.stay tuned for an update.
got my card today,still no refund for the double billing.stay tuned.
sent an email requsting status of my refund for the double billing.they reply by saying i will get a cheque for the error at the end of February!!!!!
what a joke.they are quick to take my money(twice)but I have to wait 6 weeks for a refund for their error.i am very disappointed.