On August 4 the NSW Government announced further changes to the Public Transport Opal Card. From January 1 next year, if you want to use public transport (trains, ferries, buses and light rail) in Sydney, the Blue Mountains, Central Coast, Hunter and Illawarra then you must have an Opal card. Paper tickets will no longer be available.
Now if you live in North Arm Cove, your opportunities for using Public Transport on a regular basis are rather limited. But just once in a while you may choose to take the train from Broadmeadow or catch a bus, train or ferry in Sydney. If you have plans to do that any time from January 1 2016 you will need to get an Opal Card beforehand.
Seniors and Pensioners can get a Gold Opal Card. This allows the same benefits that are currently available to those groups. You can't get these benefits with an unregistered Opal Card.
If you are willing to order the Gold Opal Card over the Internet you can visit https://www.opal.com.au/ordercard and follow the instructions. Alternatively you can phone 13 67 25 (13 OPAL). In addition to your personal details, you will need to supply a payment method to add value to you card once the funds remaining on it drop below $5.
But we discovered that there is a small snag.
Before our recent overseas trip we decided that we would travel to the Sydney airport by train. We ordered our Opal Cards and put $20 on each. But the ordered cards failed to arrive before we left the Cove for Sydney. That meant we had to resort to acquiring some of the soon-to-be-superseded paper tickets. There was nobody selling these tickets at the station anymore. Ticket machines were the only option.
On our return, two Gold Opal Cards were wating for us. "Activate them on-line" the accompanying letter said. So I logged on to my Opal Card account to discover that both cards were already activated but the balance remaining on each was zero. What happened to our two lots of $20?
The response from Opal Customer Care said
When you Top Up online or over the phone you must present your Opal Card to a card reader within 60 days of activation otherwise the value is reversed and credited back to your nominated credit or debit card account.
As you have not used your Opal card within 60 days, the funds were sent back to your financial account.
Sure enough, the next day the refunds appeared in our bank account. So "what do we do now" I then asked Customer Care? We don't know how long it may be before we need to travel on public transport again. They replied
To start using your Opal Card again you will simply need to Add funds onto your Opal Card at least one (1) hour prior to traveling. Once the card has been used these funds will remain on the card with no expiry date.
Hopefully I will remember to do that just before we need to use Public Transport again. Whenever that may be.
So if you plan to use Public Transport and don't yet have an Opal Card, make sure you order it at least 7 working days before you leave home but (if you put any money on it) less than 60 days before your intended travel!
