Ventra Reviews

Reading all of the reviews online I definitely took more than a few pauses before downloading Ventra. I was trying to plan a weekend trip for my family and wasn’t sure the most effective way to be able to get around. After spending some time to learn about the CTA system, I decided to download Ventra . Turns out it was actually pretty easy. I was able to purchase Metra tickets for the whole party easily through Ventra and it works seamlessly. I was able to purchase a one day CTA pass for myself and all I had to do is simply set my phone next to the turnstiles and it worked perfectly letting me through. I understand if there are some daily commuters that have some problems with Ventra about transferring over to the Apple wallet, but for me it was a pretty smooth process. Would encourage people in the future that are visiting for a weekend to check it out. Only feedback I would give is that it would be nice if I could combine passes for several people to get through the turnstiles. It would have made it easier when travelling with my wife and kids. Instead, my wife has to download Ventra herself to get her own daily pass.

Ventra has always worked fairly well for me (the bus/train times are usually far more accurate than google maps). However, I recently decided to add my this app card to my apple wallet, just in case I ever forgot my physical card. Lo and behold, as soon as the card was added my physical card quit working. I even tried disconnecting the card from my wallet, and the physical card still didn't work. This has made my attempt at convenience very inconvenient (it takes more time to open your phone then just pull put a card). It seems like if linking to Apple wallet is going to have such an effect that this app should at least warn you before you do it (how hard is it to program a pop up?). The fact that they essentially just made my card useless without my knowing such a thing would happen is shady as well as inconvenient (and totally unnecessary). Hopefully they fix this, but if you haven't yet connected your card to your apple wallet, be forewarned!

When I heard this app would be updating and you'd finally bw able to have your this app card in your Wallet app, I was excited. That excitement dissipated the minute I set it up. For starters, once you put it in the Wallet app, your physical this app card will not work anymore, which is idiotic considering how buggy and half tested the digital card is. There were times where it would take way too long to read my card, and now it just flat out will not work. I've had several people tap me onto the train today because I was standing at the turnstile just aimlessly trying to get the reader to sense that my phone was right on top of it. I remember when this app was first announced how excited I was to have a contactless card instead of the old magstripe bus cards of the past, and when it worked seamlessly, I knew this app was gonna be the way of the future for traveling on the CTA. This new way to use this app needs to be worked on some more before I recommend anyone try it.

-stars
This had to be developed by a team that never used public transportation. It’s not convenient and trying to navigate quickly is impossible. I liked the past app had the drop down menus, and I could see all the stops the train was going to make so I could also decide which was express. That also allowed me to see which stop I might use if I was walking in the city. I also don’t like that it automatically gives me the metro I’m closest to at that point. That makes me have to navigate around to the stop or line I actually want to use. There’s a lot of unnecessary information presented to me that I have to process and that’s not what I need to be doing when I’m trying to not miss transportation. I don’t want to have to add favorites because I don’t always know where I’ll be. So trying to find a metro line on the fly is not intuitive. I can’t help but think this development was created by some company owed a favor or vs versa in typical Chicago corruption style.

It’s unacceptable that you can’t use Ventra if there’s an update. So if I’m in a rush and can’t use it until I update, I just miss my train because I can’t get in until update is done?
I have never seen that with any other app ever in the 12ish years that I’ve been using an iPhone.

*update*
I received this reply from the developer:
“Sorry for this unavoidable inconvenience—we definitely don’t like to force an update to occur, but it has been necessary both in retiring the old app (which is no longer supported by its makers after several weeks of transition), and sometimes in updating to a new version for security and/or stability reasons. Though we, like others, do plan to keep this very rare, it’s occasionally necessary require an update sometimes in apps like this or a banking app, where you can manage money stored in an account, to ensure stability and/or account security."

I did not have the old app, I had already upgraded to the new app and this still happened. I also don’t believe I have ever been forced to update to use an app. An email or notification should have proceeded this forced update so we users/customers could have updated when convenient instead of being surprised and caught off guard. This reply does not convince me to change my review.

I just missed a train because Ventra told me the next one wouldn’t arrive for another five minutes, so fortunately I now have some time to leave a review while I wait on the L platform in the middle of freaking winter in Chicago.

Ventra is garbage. When you get to an L station, the screens there list arrival times with pretty decent accuracy. So naturally, Ventra doesn’t work on the same system as the station does, listing times that are completely arbitrary.

Adding to the fun is the fact that Ventra will list a train as arriving in, say, eight minutes. Then you check Ventra two minutes later and that train has completely disappeared. What happened? Did it get hijacked? Did Mayor Lightfoot sell it to try and cover our pension debt? Who knows, it’s gone now, and the next train is listed as arriving in twelve minutes. Then you look up at the tracks and your train is merrily passing overhead, with no chance of catching it.

This is the Fisher Price steering wheel of apps. You think you’re getting accurate arrival times for Chicago public transit, but you’re just flipping plastic switches and turning a rubber wheel while your Uncle Charlie swears he wasn’t drinking while he was supposed to be watching you.

Terrible value for your money, and Ventra is free.

I don’t understand why this app created an app from the ground up rather than using the old app as a model. This new app is impossible to use. The bus times are no longer accurate, trying to establish a favorite stop is virtually impossible, and needing to go to a train stop just to reload my card. For someone that uses the bus, this is EXTREMELY inconvenient. So I have to walk 10 blocks to the train station and 7 blocks back just to use a bus that is only 3 blocks away? I wanna be patient and supportive but it appears as though the designers of Ventra are in over their heads, never use public transportation, and never used the the old app outside of sitting in an office so have no “real world” understanding on how people use Ventra .

I use Ventra every day. It hasn’t logged me out in a year- I didn’t recently update it, I did not restart my phone - all I did was buy a Metra ticket and as I went to show my ticket to the person outside, before the tracks, it decided to log me out. Now, we all know that we have multiple log ins over the years, endless passwords and being logged out as I’m trying to catch a train is infuriating. Tried 3 different usernames and passwords only to have my phone rescue me because the info was saved elsewhere. this app doesn’t have a “save log in” function so it would’ve missed my train if not for my phone OS. Please fix it and if you need the name of a good programmer, I know several.

updates to include the transit card in apple pay are great.... that’s about where the helpfulness of Ventra end. the favorite stops section is buggy showing an “no information” for some stops… this would be the fault of the CTA if it were a breakdown between this app and CTA however a simple search of a stop outside of the favorite section yields accurate arrival times. why the discrepancy? the use of two different “favorite location” and a “favorite stops” section is.... pointless adding to the confusion of Ventra . eliminate the “favorite location” section.

Whomever built Ventra should be fired. It’s not intuitive and not easily accessible. I have been trying to get new password for two months because all of the sudden they require a security question. This would normally be totally fine (added security is appreciated as I’d be glad to simply assign a question and change my password) - but no. They literally won’t let me in to the system online and when I call, they have an influx of calls so I request a call back that sometimes/sometimes does not come.

The CTA webpage has reliable arrival times but Ventra doesn’t. Some stations (I’m looking at you Sheridan Red) don’t show live arrival times at all on Ventra . Favorite bus stop moved or doesn’t show arrival times anymore? Good luck deleting it without uninstalling/reinstalling Ventra . Want to split payments with transit benefit account and credits already on your account? Too bad, it doesn’t work (it does work with transit benefit money and card payment). Interface is okay but arrival times and other features need fixes/improvements.

Purchasing the tickets was confusing because when I bought the cta day pass it was not clearly stated what the difference is between cta and the pace buses. I was charged an additional $2 because I didn’t understand that pace buses were different for some reason. Purchasing a pace pass was nonsensical because I was only in the city for 2 days and you can only buy pace passes for 30 days at a time. At one point there was a huge delay with the buses but I was not notified through Ventra . Other cities seem to have these kinds of features figured out. It makes me hesitant to use this city’s public transportation again.

Ventra has never been great, but the updates are making it even worse. I can’t even get into Ventra now because it says there’s an update but it won’t let me update it. Last time I was on Ventra I hadn’t used my card in a while and they closed my account. I was able to use my card a couple of times after but it was hit or miss. I had money on my card and when I scanned to get on the bus it kept saying insufficient fare. So not only is Ventra terrible and not working, but apparently now I need a whole new card and account and I’m out $10 from the money still in the closed account.

In my “favorites,” on my Home Screen, I have two Metra routes, the inbound and outbound for my daily commute. The visual design fails to make it clear which one is which. It should be as simple as: Rogers Park >>> Chicago OTC (and the inverse Chicago OTC >>> Roger Park). I have also found that the schedule sometimes lies. A delayed train will sometimes list as “departed.” Perhaps, if the delay is long enough to overlap with the next train, they think they can save face by pretending the earlier one didn’t exist. I just can’t help thinking how genuinely valuable Ventra could be, which only makes me more disappointed with how bad it is.

Ventra has generally worked well ONLY failing about 1/10 tries on the bus. Tried to add to Apple Watch today for a workout and it says once I add to Watch i automatically remove from phone?! I use apple wallet for lots of things (store loyalty cards, airline passes, in addition to credit and debit cards) and have never heard such a thing!

Started to read the comments and Nie I’m hoping I can get it back on my phone later without losing the initial card as others have experienced. Ugh, please fix

Occasionally Ventra won’t let me purchase fare or passes. It will say every card I have is declined even though they all have money on them. And it also takes the money out of my account despite claiming the card is declined. And STILL DOESNT GIVE ME THE PASS. Monthly passes cost $105. This last time it charge me for two monthly passes after saying it was declined and never gave me the passes.
It hasn’t let me load fare in a week now so i keep having to walk all the way to the nearest station to just load money… That on top of my money floating around in no man’s land..

The this app app is incapable of accurately reflecting arrival times and accurately tracking bus/train progress. Buses often disappear with the next one in 20 minutes. This makes it completely impossible to schedule when I should leave. Using Ventra is no better than randomly arriving at the bus station. Would encourage the PM to prioritize this fix because really the only value prop of Ventra over Google maps is the ability to more accurately schedule routes.

Just recently got back on the this app app and purchased a ticket for a one day cta. The payment did go through but for someone reason something glitched on their end and my payment was stuck in pending yet reflected that my purchase was made. The money was taken from my account. I had no ticket and customer service couldn’t do anything for me.

I asked to speak to a manager and I’m sure we all know they were busy. Then I was gonna go down to the office and guess what else l, they aren’t open supposedly because of Covid. How convenient right??

Definitely not a fan of Ventra basically can take your money and you get no ticket, no help, no refund, nothing. The most you get is a sorry. I feel bad for their customer service reps but I also don’t understand how they can get paid and not be able to help?

This is the world we live in.

Thanks

If Ventra actually followed guidelines and was tested on anything modern they would realize that they are using too much of the screen. The bottom bar is under the action bar on any modern iPhone without a home button. The metra ticket overflows into the clock and battery status area. Once you use a ticket it’s basically impossible to close it unless you tap the 1 pixel out of 4 million that lets you by pure luck. I appreciate modernizing everything and using an app like this for tickets but at some point the bare minimum isn’t cutting it.

I downloaded this last, ironically, because the reviews were the lowest. Ventra is quite literally the ONLY app that allows me to book tickets to Chicago online. Nothing else worked except this. Not sure why the reviews are so rough, you show your ticket one time, stop crying if you have to go to your email to pull it up.

Lost out on $15 because of this stupid app! I have two cards attached to Ventra because the first one I had expired and they will not let you remove any, you can only add more.. So I originally added $5 on Friday and after getting on the train I seen it said my working card was in negatives and I thought how is this possible? I just added $5. So I look and it’s showing that I added the 5 to the wrong card which I thought was weird because I never add money to the wrong card. So Monday morning I know I have to add even more because I’m in negatives from Friday. This time I make sure I’m on the correct card and add $15. It shows it it the right place so I go ahead and scan my this app and get on the train. While on it I get an email that my account is low.. how?? I think to myself, so I go and check Ventra again. Now it’s showing the $5 I put in on Friday went to the correct card and the $15 went into the other. This is when I realized the stupid app moved my funds from one card to the other. I let this app know through email and they ask me to call them from 8-5 which is the time I’m at work so I can’t. So I basically lost $15 because of Ventra which is something I can NOT afford to just throw away.
UPDATE: this app closed the non-working account and place the fund back into the correct card. I guess emailing eventually worked.

I deleted Ventra completely and reinstalled it because no content would load last night when trying to update my balance and pay my bus ride. I spent another 25 minutes this morning resetting my password and updating my balance. The temporary password was complicated with multiple capital letters and symbols. You have to re enter this password on almost every screen to confirm any transaction. When I finished, I received an error that the transaction wasn’t processed because I didn’t have connectivity (I was on WiFi at home). Then Ventra logged me out, so I had to re-enter this temporary password multiple times to do another transaction. Only for Ventra to tell me: error duplicate transaction. Third time I logged in I was able to change the temporary password before being logged out. I didn’t get an email confirmation about the first transaction, but the FOURTH time I logged in I was able to see an updated balance before receiving another error and being asked to log in again. At this point I’m late for work and walking to the train hoping for the best. Please get it together.

I don’t usually ride the train, but every time I have, I utilize Ventra because I never carry cash on me...ever. Never having issues in the past, I hop on the train, and pay for my ticket with the previously stored credit card info (which is still up-to-date). Got and error message, so tried Apple Pay and selected one of my cards from there, same error message, tried several of my stored cards on Apple Pay and none of them worked. I then even entered a new payment method and added a new card in order for this payment to go through. No luck. THANKFULLY, I dig through my laptop bag and managed to find a $10 bill out of pure LUCK. Don’t know what I would’ve done if I didn’t have any cash on me. Knowing this error could happen again on the way back, I grabbed some cash just in case and sure enough! Same thing happened. Just going to go back to carrying cash like the old days and free up some storage on my phone by deleting Ventra because I don’t want to be thrown off a train because of its unreliability.

I’m editing my old review. Ventra has gotten WAY better. Not design. But it always loads fine. I have no issues of logging in. It’s easy to add money and buy tickets (Although I wish they would actually STORE on your device. You need a connection to download your ticket).

And their customer service is way better. I lost my this app card (had $20 on it). Bought a new one at CVS. (When you register your card online, the $5 it costs for the card gets put into your account as useable Fare). But I couldn’t figure out how to transfer money from my lost card to my new one. I sent them an email explaining which card to cancel and where to move the money and IT WAS DONE THE SAME DAY. major improvement.

OLD REVIEW

I’ve seen this in a few different reviews and they really need to fix this.

Ventra was working great (I used it mainly for metra) but then I moved downtown and got a this app Card. I registered my this app card and now Ventra won’t load and I occasionally lose my metra tickets. Extremely frustrating.

If I do ever get Ventra to load (extremely rare), 95% of the time i can’t login and it shows no registered this app card. But when I can login, I try to re register my this app card and it says already registered.

The only fix for this is I keep the this app website loaded on my phone and I add money and such via there. That works fine but Ventra does not work.

I have no complaints with connectivity... I have great service provider to thank for that! And I haven't had to reset my password or anything like that, so this is good! CTA (bus and train) estimates are pretty accurate, which is a major plus! I also love how I can add value to my card via app, and not have to physically go up to a this app box, this makes my commute so much easier. Especially when I'm running behind schedule.
My troubles come in with the PACE buses. The tracking isn't accurate at all. In fact, it's set and stone with the times. It'd be much better if it was tracked by GPS, similar to the CTA. (Ex. There's a stop at my job scheduled for 5:36 - EVERYDAY, EVERYTIME I check it around 5pm it says the same thing) and the bus is RARELY there at 5:36. Usually within ten minutes before or after.
Secondly, I have a card that I can't register on Ventra, apparently because it's registered somewhere else. It'd be nice to register the same card on multiple accounts for shared users.

For weeks, I’ve been unable to move past the blue screen with the this app logo on it. No log in, nothing else available to click, just the blue screen with the white V. So I can either sign in online (which doesn’t work consistently either) or try to use a machine in the station to reload my card. This also proved difficult this morning when even after trying to use cash and two different credit cards, the machine still says it cannot complete the transaction. So I give up and call an Uber from the Belmont station. The Uber gets confused trying to pick me up on the wrong side of the street, gets honked at by two different busses, and when I finally get in the car, the song “Because of U” by Kelly Clarkson is playing, aka a song that came out when I was in middle school, is somehow still played on popular radio, and is absolutely cringeworthy to the average listener. Long story short, Ventra will destroy any hopes of a smooth morning commute. Fix it.

Before I write my second review I request this app team and metro team to please read their App Store reviews. There is no point in writing reviews if they don’t read. I’m willing to write a handwritten letter if I know the address where to send.

Every time I need to go to city my heart pounds because of the this app app. Finally I overcame my laziness to carry cash so I can be less anxious.

Why on earth does Ventra need a password to make a purchase? Am I buying an aero plane worth of billion dollars?

If I forgot my this app password and user name why is there no automatic way to reset those?

I can assure that this is not a friendly app for people who don’t travel to the city daily.

An app is just an app these days it is an experience. Please make meters ride experience pleasant again by addressing your reviews.

I spent 20 minutes in Ventra trying to buy a metro ticket. I tried atleast 5 times. I even killed Ventra few times to see if it works. Lesson for the day is not to rely on this dumb app. Some small train stations have no people to sell tickets at the train station and the tc inside the trains needs cash. So if you are a one time rider t the city once a while make sure to have cash to purchase tickets inside the train.
For me app got constantly stuck after adding a card with an alert confirm purchase. The alert is not dismissable in anyway. Please fix the bugs in Ventra .

Update to my original review:

Their customer support gets 5 stars. I decided to call with the issue I had below (see original review) and surprise, surprise they were able to resolve my issue and allow me to see my card inside five minutes. Apparently Ventra does not like special characters as part of the card’s name. (Mine had an apostrophe).

For those having issues syncing your card and the card has special characters trying going to the full website and changing the card’s name. It may work.

ORIGINAL REVIEW:
Ventra worked great for a year, then a stupidly lost my card. I went through the motions of ordering a new one and registered it on the web sight.
BIG MISTAKE!!
When I went to use Ventra and signed it it showed no cards. I tried syncing... nothing happened. I tried registering it again and I received the message saying the card was already registered. I tried deleting and reinstalling to the same effect. Ventra is now unusable which means instead of being able to breeze pass the ticket line I now have to join the masses in the wait.
Ventra is broken. It works great for first time users but if the primary card is lost or stolen Ventra will become useless.

What the hell is wrong with Ventra? A year ago, I got on the metra train with my this app ticket ready to go, the guy comes over to check my ticket and the SCREEN FREEZES 🤦🏽‍♀️. Do you know how embarrassing that is to have someone standing over your shoulder for 4 mins, other passengers staring at you while you have to try and get your ticket to show up?? Another time I get logged off randomly and the ticket I had saved DISAPPEARS along with payment info!!! And TODAY I payed for my this app ticket, all ready to go and as soon as someone comes over to check my ticket Ventra randomly FREEZES and LOGS ME OFF! It would have taken me a while to re-log on and use the ticket! I was CONNECTED to my data too! I had to end up paying for a ticket with cash on the train. Not only does it freeze in-app it keeps freezing when you close Ventra 🙄 PLEASE FIX this garbage! You’re causing an inconvenience for MANY people with your mediocre app-development ‼️

I’ve had 2 bad experiences which caused me to discontinue using Ventra for my Metra monthly pass. First, when I got a new phone, I had to call to get my monthly pass switched over to my new phone. It’s not as simple as downloading Ventra on your new phone. Since I didn’t know this and since I take the train so early, I had to buy a single ride ticket on top of the $180 I already paid for my monthly pass, until I could call customer service to manually move my electronic ticket to my new phone. Then, for whatever reason I wasn’t able to purchase my monthly ticket for October, even though I have been using Ventra for years with no problem. I got 2 error messages and the customer service reps couldn’t figure it out. Again I had to buy single ride passes until they could figure this out, which they never did. They also never called me back as promised. Would never recommend this company or app to anyone.

Poor user experience, work flow, and overall very hostile to users trying perform tasks on a mobile device App is not updated for modern devices and screen form factors. Design of system stores your “ticket” on device but if your phone breaks, you get a new one or try to access ticket on a different device it is impossible in app to access your tickets. The function on the mobile website to recall and move the ticket to a new device is broken and doesn’t work forcing a call to their customer service which, surprise, is unpleasant and difficult. Accessing your account requires constant entering of password entry which encourages using weaker passwords. I get security but this doesn’t have to be this bad. Overall, a poorly executed, poorly thoughtout and incredibly frustrating app that riders are forced to deal with if they don’t want to manage paper tickets.

As I’m sure everyone has pointed out already, your app DOES NOT WORK. While that is annoying enough, what is even more annoying is that it seems like a continuously ongoing problem and yet its not been fixed. I’m looking back in these reviews and people have been complaining FOREVER about the functionality of your app. Or should I say, the lack of functionality. When going to open Ventra , it stays stuck on the opening screen, that big V glaringly reminding us that ‘no our commute won’t be easy this morning’.

I mean for real, there should be no learning curve for the engineers working on the this app App. At this point, apps have been around forever. Pretty much all of them function correctly, except yours. There’s no excuse for lazy coding or whatever. You need to fix this or hirer a better team.

I think I speak for everyone when I say, BE BETTER AT YOUR JOB. Thank you.

Fix your app! I use Ventra twice a day, 5 times a week because Metra forces me to by doing away with ticket-by-mail. However, Ventra constantly freezes and even worse, at least twice a month, WILL NOT LOAD! When it doesn’t load and stays and that awful blue screen, one must delete Ventra , re-login, then MY TICKETS ARE GONE!! Why?! After purchasing a Metra pass at over $225 a month, the least that can be done is ask us to use a trustworthy, fully-functional app! Then I have to wait until 6 am to call CS and give my full name and phone # in front of a cart full of passengers! OH BUT WAIT, my train is BEFORE your CS department opens!! And I come home AFTER IT CLOSES!! What then?? Oh, right, BUY ANOTHER ONE WAY TICKET! How about you charge $1 for each app user and hire an app developer that knows what he or she is doing! FIX YOUR APP!! Too many people depend on Ventra for it NOT TO WORK!!

I moved away from the great city of Chicago, but in back often. I still use the buses, L, and trains, so I’ve never let my this app account die.

Today was the first day I actually had to use Ventra (not just the card). It still makes me think of the disastrous roll out this app had. Ventra makes life more difficult than even the same app for SF (which believe me is no great shakes). Ventra doesn’t know how to interact with the most obvious features of iOS. Putting in a new credit card resulted in a $1 charge against my account without warning. Buying a Metra ticket crashed Ventra . While these problems aren’t exactly the problems I’ve had before, they are the same genre, same life-sucking annoyances. C’mon people, there are a lot of well designed transit apps. Get your act together.

I got on the train. Ventra wasn’t working. I couldn’t load my ticket. I IMMEDIATELY approached the conductor asking if he’d seen it before.

He didn’t even stop walking, just blew past me and mumbled something about needing a ticket.

I pay 240 for the monthly pass.

He comes back and I’m searching my pockets. I tell him I’m going to Chicago (Kedzie). He tells me the ticket cost. I admit it, I panicked and froze up. Not enough cash. He blows off. I realize there’s nothing for it, hes not going to work with me, but it’s not his responsibility to. I get up to get off the train. The conductor comes back around before I do. I tell him I don’t have any way to get a ticket so I’m leaving.

As I get off the train the conductor shouts that this is where I wanted to go, anyway. He called me a liar. He waited until I was off the train and couldn’t reply, the coward.

I have restarted my phone, enabled airplane mode, and flushed the cache. No effect. This whole scenario was initiated by my trust that using the recommended means of purchasing a ticket would be enough to see me to my destination.

Don’t use Ventra. It will let you down, sooner or later.

Still, what I really object to? I tried to do the right thing and was insulted for it, by an alleged professional.