CTA Tattler: Don’t put $30 on your Chicago Card
If you’re using a Chicago Card, do NOT select $30 (or $10) as your refill amount. You’ll be giving up free money if you do.
Back when I got my Chicago Card, I selected $20 as my refill. After a few months, I decided that resulted in too-frequent charges, so I moved it up to $30. Today, I finally noticed on my account history, that I was only receiving a $2 bonus for those $30 refills. Wait a second…isn’t it supposed to be a 10% bonus? That’s what I thought all the ads and marketing said when I signed up…current marketing says $2 bonus for every $20 value added. Maybe that’s what it’s always said, and I didn’t realize it. Who knows…
So, the options are:
Refill $10 Bonus $0
Refill $20 Bonus $2
Refill $30 Bonus $2
Refill $40 Bonus $4
Refill $60 Bonus $6
How is $2 for every $20 different from 10% when they don’t stipulate anywhere on their website that the $20 must be loaded at the same time? Seems to me, it ought to work out to the same thing, unless they plan on clarifying their wording.
And this is still fucking pissing me off. No, really. How is $2 / $20 different from 10%? I mean, the only thing I would assume from reading that is maybe they would wait until, say… you put $10 on your card twice. Not that they meant they’d give you a $2 bonus for every literal chunk of exactly $20. But if you load $10 twice, guess what bonus you get? A big, fat zeeeeero. Fuck, shit, piss. Yeah, this probably means I lost out of a whole… not very many dollars before I caught it. But, still.
Pretty lame, Milhouse.