Figures.

[bjarvis]

I keep a reserve of Canadian money, Toronto Transit tokens, a chequing account and a credit card from a Canadian bank for my infrequent trips home. My US credit cards now charge a 3% service fee for non-US dollar transactions and the rates by the money exchange houses at the airports and border crossing points are obscene so this is my favourite way of saving a few dollars.

Alas, the TTC is ditching their old transit tokens in favour of a more counterfeit-resistant version. I'm keeping two of the old standard tokens as memorabilia but that leaves me with 10 transit tokens which either need to be used by January 31 or exchanged in person before the end of the year.

I guess I have yet another business side trip to make when I return to Toronto in April.

Comments

[brunorepublic.livejournal.com]

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you can only exchange them until the end of February. The TTC is very anxious to get rid of them; they lost a lot of money as the counterfeit tokens are almost impossible to distinguish from the real ones.

[moofedct.livejournal.com]

bikerbearbmw has an account at RBC that has a "US side" and a "Canadian side" to it. Every so often we send money to RBC (I think they charge us $0.20 to process the deposit) there is no fee or surcharge to move money between the two currencies, we pay only the current exchange rate.

Otherwise, we'd be subject to an extra couple of cents to convery the currencies between one another.

TTC tokens

[trawnapanda.livejournal.com]

mail your old tokens to me. I use TTC tokens all the time, and I'll send you new ones in return. They'll arrive easily in time for me to use them, or at least be able to trade them at an easily accessible (read: I travel through it frequently) station.

[I've only once knowingly had a counterfeit token - and it was a blank disc of aluminum. since it was sold to me by a TTC operator (where else do you normally get 'em?), I blithely and without qualm used it in a subway turnstile. But most of the counterfeits were professionally made - by some company in the States - Massachusetts, I think - which in good faith thought they were making them for the TTC, and sent 'em to some address in Toronto that -er- wasn't the TTC address at Yonge and Davisville]