Picture the scene: Last Monday, I hurried into the Metro station to start my commute to work. My rolling backpack somehow didn't make it through the gate with me, and in frustration, I picked it up to lift over the gate without putting my SmarTrip card away first. And then I hear the loud crack of cheap chintzy plastic...
The whole thing didn't seem to bode well for the rest of the day, or even the rest of the week. I was also bummed because I had had my previous SmarTrip card from 2007 until 2021 when they started replacing the fare gates and everyone had to get new cards. At that point, I was already inside one station, so my best hope was to ride to my destination station and hope my broken card would let me out. It wouldn't, but I guess the station manager decided that I didn't look like a fare evader because he let me just walk through the gate when I told him what happened. I bought a new SmarTrip card for my trip home and stewed about the amount of money that was left on my broken card.
Then, it occurred to me. I had registered my previous SmarTrip card in order to receive transit benefits. I wasn't sure if I had registered this one, but since I had the pieces with the identification number still on it, I probably still could register it and then recover the funds. This took some time since, of course, I didn't remember any of my log in information. But I managed to register both the broken SmarTrip card and the card I bought to replace it. (Public service message to anyone riding DC Metro or any other transit system requiring a fare card: Make sure you register your card. You never know when your card will be lost--or broken--at the critical time when you've just reloaded money onto it).
There didn't seem to be a way to transfer the funds from the broken card to the new card. I ended up calling the SmarTrip card customer service line. I'll admit that I wasn't very optimistic, but the person who helped had the funds transferred from my old card to my new card by the time I went home in the afternoon. All's well that ends well for this mass transit first, but I'm being much more careful with my chintzy plastic SmarTrip card now...
