Ventra App Reviews

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This app is still broken and no one wants to fix it.. Once again, Ventra has a new issue that needs to be fixed. I haven't been able to reload my Ventra card via the app for the last two days despite updating the app in between tries yesterday. What makes it worse is every time I tried to load it, my cards were charged without a single cent being loaded onto my card. What makes it even worse is the app is NECESSARY to have because there is no alternative for loading your Ventra card outside of a station or store. This app needs a major overhaul before I rate it anything over one star, and I don't even want to give it that. FIX THE APP!

App failed to load a 3-day CTA pass and Ventra refuses to refund.. Downloaded the VENTRA app and should have noticed the 2 stars that the app had. Great concept if it worked. Poor execution as they charged me for the CTA pass but didn’t load it onto the Ventra account. The pass is shown in the app as “In Queue” and has remained in this state for almost a week! I was forced to purchase a paper CTA pass to travel during my stay in Chicago. Called Ventra Customer Service twice and was looped into the endless phone loop. Finally got a person to answer the phone and was told they will NOT refund the pass fare and would only transfer it to a physical Ventra card. I explained that I did not live in Chicago and would have no need for a Ventra Card. She told me that they WILL NOT issue refunds to NON-ILLINOIS residents. What?! When I told her that the CTA agent told me to purchase and paper pass and ask for a refund from Ventra, she replied “Don’t ever listen to a CTA agent.” She refused to escalate the call and basically did nothing to help even though the problem was with the Ventra App. Beware.

Horrible, frustrating app. I’d give it zero stars if I could. Wanted to take advantage of the daily pass rate so tried to set up my account. Won’t let me add payment, so Ventra rep had to manually add and it still wouldn’t let me purchase a ticket. Tried making purchases, but didn’t go through - however my credit card was charged each time with pending charges and thankfully reversed. Ventra said it was my credit card, but it wasn’t. All on their end. Rep wiped my account, started over and same issue persisted. Was supposed to escalate my issue and guess what, I never heard back. Absolutely ridiculous that this can’t be fixed and function properly.

Great when it works…. Helpful when the app works and the tracking is actually accurate. I appreciate being able to reload my fare via Apple Pay. That said, the “Favorites” seem to be reset anytime there’s an update or something…they never stay for longer than a few weeks. There’s also seems to be connectivity issues where the app can’t reach the server (even tho I have service and/or Wi-Fi). Decent app for a public organization but plenty of room for improvement

Unable to close tickets. If the app 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.

3 day bus/“L” pass. This app made taking public transportation so easy and cost effective. We bought a 3 day pass for $15 (it’s good for 72 hours from first ride, so we actually used it over 4 different days). It worked on all city buses and elevated trains (blue line to O’Hare). After purchasing your pass, simply add to your Wallet. Then, click on the card to “pay” until you see the “hold near reader” icon. I will definitely use this again when visiting Chicago

Bad communication. I normally wouldn’t write a review like this but just had an awful experience. We just wanted to go across town before our flight in the evening after checking out of our hotel. Instead we have to wait at the airport for 5 hours more than needed because bus service was canceled and we had to stand at a stop for almost an hour before we gave up. Poor communication of service and actual bus times. I’m used to taking public transit across the USA and this is the worst experience I’ve ever had with traveling.

Awful app, doesn’t work and deceitful. This app works maybe 50% of the time. For something as critical as a commuting tool, that percentage is abysmal. You bring it up and the app just doesn’t load. Or you try to buy a ticket and the app hangs. Also, the layout of this app is made to dupe you out of money. One example is that you can’t re-buy a day pass, which is a discount to a single way ticket. You have to navigate through a very deep set of screens to buy another day pass, rather than a single tap, which is how a single ride ticket works. Another example is that it defaults you to your credit card, even when you have a transit benefit. I’ve had multiple instances where I used the default payment of a credit card when I NEVER want to use that. You can’t change a setting to make this happen, though. Questionable scruples from the creator of this app.

Glitchy app but good costumer service. I got the app for an out of town visit and was very nervous to rely on it due to some of the reviews. I tried getting a 7 day pass and my payment was processed on my card, but I didn’t receive my pass. I was able to call customer service the next day, and I was on hold for 10 minutes tops. They were able to help me and were very nice. It seems the app regularly has glitches, but it was resolved and my money was returned to me. Since then, the app has worked great and my pass through the app has been very helpful on my trip.

Terrible. This app has never been great, but the updates are making it even worse. I can’t even get into the app now because it says there’s an update but it won’t let me update it. Last time I was on the app 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 the app 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.

Unreliable. This app is so unreliable! It has days were the server is unable connect and you cannot purchase tickets from the app. Which is super inconvenient. By the time you can get a hold of a customer service representative your train ride is over! I would recommend purchasing tickets days in advance or carry cash in case the app is down. I’ve experienced the aforementioned several times with no cash and it’s annoying to continuously have to explain to conductors that app is down. & they’re response is to restart your phone. Please do better.

I would rate it 0 stars if I could. I wished this app was design much better when I first got the app it allowed me to put $15 on a new card because I couldn’t get a physical due to the blue line being closed for reconstruction and when I tried to re-add money onto the app it kept glitching so now I can $1.50 on a card that I can’t use and I went to the green line to try and tap so I can add money that way but it was also saying error which means that the card doesn’t even exist anymore I want my $1.50 back I can buy some chips from 7-11 with that!!!!

Might be the worst. Whomever built this app 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.

Broken. This app is completely useless now. Chicago is too big of a city for this to be a problem and someone needs to revamp the entire app. Can’t load money onto your card through the app. Payment fails every time no matter what. Use Apple Pay? Fail. Use debit card? Fail. Uninstall and reinstall app? Fail. Autoreload? Fail. Remove card and try to put it back on? Wont even connect my card again. Something so prevalent in a lot of peoples LITERAL everyday life shouldn’t be this bad. I need to get to work and back home and I can’t even load money on my card. It take a few minutes to do it from the website but save yourself the headache and use the website until you see people making better recent reviews for this app.

Poor customer service and support. Why digitize the public transport system if you’re going to have terrible customer service. Because of my digital bus card not working I’ve been spending money from my debit card which I should not have to do when this ventra card is supposed to link to a benefit card. It’s so frustrating to deal with looping. The digital version of the card has all of a sudden stopped registering at train stops or on busses… it’s definitely from an update just not sure what?! Tried to download again and still same issue… back to the hard copy of the card!

How do you remove a Ventra card?. Great app. Works as intended. Has a few nice features. I wouldn’t change much about it if not anything. But I am wondering how do you remove a Ventra card you’ve added onto the app? P.S. Whenever you pull up a Metra ticket to show the conductor it’s very hard to press the X in the top right corner to close it. I usually just close and restart the app after showing them instead of fiddling with it trying to get it close. That’s something I would change. That and favorites get reset a lot randomly. But besides that, Ventra is a really great app :)

Decent, could be better. I only use this app to buy tickets and show them to Metra conductors. The train times in the app are inconsistent, QoL is not great, and customer support is hard to get ahold of. I’ve never had issues using Apple Pay to get tickets but I know some people have. I recommend just going off arrival times from Metra website using their real-time station tool or looking at their downloadable PDF schedule. If I only use this app to buy/show tickets, it works great. If I try using it for something more than that, the cracks really start showing…

Logged me out of guest account mid train ride. This dumb app logged me out mid train ride in the city and caused me to miss my stop. I had a guest account and was automatically logged in before I got on the train ride. I didn’t have a password because it was a guest account and I didn’t realize I had been logged out until the conductor was at my neck yelling at me for my ticket. I went to retrieve my weekend pass and all of a sudden it told me to buy a new ticket and logged me out of my guest account. I went to find my password but realized I never created one. The conductor waited on me for about 10 minutes to create a whole new password and reset my app and log back into my guest account, and didn’t let me off the train so I missed my stop. THIS APP IS GARBAGE DO NOT USE.

Not Reliable for Arrival Times, etc. The CTA webpage has reliable arrival times but this app doesn’t. Some stations (I’m looking at you Sheridan Red) don’t show live arrival times at all on the app. Favorite bus stop moved or doesn’t show arrival times anymore? Good luck deleting it without uninstalling/reinstalling the app. 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.

Can't use card after connecting to Apple Pay.... This app 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 ventra 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 ventra 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!

Impossible to Get Reliable Info. I’ve been using this app pretty much since it launched in Chicago and have never had as many issues as I’ve had recently. The “trip tools” tab meant to give upcoming buses/train arrival times is consistently in error and shows no information at all. You can get arrival times from the home screen but it is always behind by a few minutes and doesn’t seem to refresh itself, causing regularly missed buses. The only reason I’m giving 2 stars and not 1 is because the payment features reliably work, but it’s very frustrating to have to use two apps for transit.

No simultaneous Watch & Phone?!. This app 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

Shockingly Useful. Came to Chicago for two days, and haven’t dealt with CTA in probably a decade. Downloaded the app, was prepared for some bureaucratic nightmare hellscape, but all we needed was a one-day CTA pass and it was so easy to get it and then use it. I quite enjoy the “Help plan a trip” feature, as I’m not from Chicago and need lots of help being Timmy the Touristo. I didn’t get lost, and given enough time and battery life, I think I could get around thanks to this system. Thank you.

Got more unexpected twists then a movie.. Okay I am a regular consumer of the bus and train. I commute every day. And this app is almost ALWAYS ,like 99%, wrong about the arrival times. I can not trust it for anything. The time is always off. I will miss my bud or wait for 20 extra min. It is just a hot mess. Not to mention I had a card on my account. It logged me out after an update. I was unable to recover my card or account because every time I sent the reset password info out to my email it never arrived. For all the money that moves threw your company I would figure a app wouldn’t be a issue.

better than yesterday, hopefully worse than tomorrow. updates to include the transit card in apple pay are great.... that’s about where the helpfulness of this app 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 ventra 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 the app. eliminate the “favorite location” section.

Functional, but should be a lot better. Given this app is used by the CTA, Metra, and Pace you would think it would be a lot better. The UI is decent, the real-time info is very handy, and is functional. However, it still is lacking some general polish. One obvious complaint is how poorly the Metra ticket “X” button is placed. Why is it all the way in the top right of the screen where the notch cut out exists on the iPhone? Every update I hope they address such an obvious issue and it isn’t. I can barley get the ticket to close unless I spam my finger multiple times there or just give up and force close the app. The app is passable, but as soon as you compare it to an app like Transit (which I pretty much use all the time in place of this, unless I need to display my Metra ticket) you realize how much better this app can and should be.

Arrival information completely unreliable. The ventra 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 the app 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 this app over Google maps is the ability to more accurately schedule routes.

Awful since the beginning. I have to resave my favorite stops every couple weeks, because they disappear from the app. Trackers are often inaccurate and buses and trains suddenly disappear from the trackers, only to appear again after several minutes with random arrival time. Every few weeks, the payment system is off and shows some kind of random errors, saying that they cannot process my payment, only to find out that they later on processed of the same payment multiple times. Sometimes the payment simply won’t go through, even though everything is fine with my credit card, etc. their customer service personnel is often unprofessional and careless.

Better than nothing, I guess. Unfortunately this app is the only way to add a Ventra card to your Apple Wallet. And that’s about all it’s good for. Can you purchase a new Ventra card in the app? Nooooo. Can you transfer a balance from one physical card to another? No, that would be too convenient. Are there broken links in the help section? Absolutely. Additionally, many of the buttons are so close to the edge of the screen that they don’t respond on the first few taps, or are obscured by other iOS components.

Inefficient and poorly designed. So, what follows is my original review, from 5+ years ago, and despite a redesign, little has changed. Although they did add the ability to favorite some purchases, it doesn’t apply to everything, so I’m still stuck with going through the same process of purchasing a Metra ticket. Also, Metra recently released a tracker site so you can see where your train is, and if it is late. Why isn’t this part of the app now? Removing a star as things aren’t improving Two stars, and only because it does work to purchase and display tickets so is better than paper. But getting there is slow and painful. Too many taps to activate a purchased ticket after launch. Purchasing a Metra ticket requires selecting the line, beginning and ending stations, ticket type and method of payment EVERY TIME. No option to save these choices as a 'favorite' to speed up purchase. Sliding menu interface is clunky and intrusive, why not just use a simple drop down menu like everyone else?

Bad Design and Unreliable Information. 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 this app could be, which only makes me more disappointed with how bad it is.

Three usability issues with password reset. 1. On iPhone XS (ie not the smallest mobile breakpoint), the security question about street cuts off at the end instead of wrapping, so users must guess which street is referenced 2. Email with temporary password doesn’t highlight or make the pw a larger font. If it’s hard for digital natives to copy out of the email in order to paste into the app, it’s hard for everyone. 3. Creating a new password requires duplicated entry into two fields. That’s normal but the error that displays when special characters are missing is that the pw don’t match.

Tickets get lost. 10-ride tickets expire or are not found. This has happened twice. Most recently today. I have a 10-tide purchased a month ago that should have 6 rides to use the app updated overnight and my tickets are gone. The link “what happened to my tickets” states the tickets should upload immediately or after a few minutes. I’m 20 minutes into my commute and they still haven’t refreshed. Last time tickets disappeared the app had a server error. When it came back online two tickets were used. Customer support is worthless and they do not provide refunds!

Irritated. I don’t know who else is going through the same problem I’m going through, but I just got a new iPhone 13 Pro Max couple days ago coming from a iPhone 8 Plus, did what I had to with everything and soon I get to the wallet and start adding my cards and stuff in there and I get to my Ventra card, I get to a turnstile and try by tap on like 15 times and it act like it couldn’t ready the card on my phone, I had to be tapped on countless times from the people In the kiosks or they let me through the handicap gate and it feels like I wasted money on getting a 30 day pass I can’t use if I hogwash of a app don’t let me tap on

Horrible customer service and will take your money. Just recently got back on the Ventra 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 the app 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

Unacceptable. It’s unacceptable that you can’t use the app 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.

Developers need to hear out Users 😒. Horrible customer service and bugs for this app never get fixed . If commuters didn’t have to use it to travel and need it for the convenience it serves this would’ve been a washed app . Still many upset users . This app will sign you in and out as it pleases . Has crazy freezes and then again customer service is slower than dying from obesity. It’s millions using this why are we being told to email it need to be a number always available with agents . The CTA and metra are always making profits round the clock so why should are our questions /problems not always resolved in a timely fashion

As bad as the CTA itself. The CTA can’t run their buses or trains, why would I have thought their app would work. Actually, I’ve been using the app for years & it’s super inconsistent on when it decides to accept my credit card for reloading. Then it will randomly reset & lose all of my saved lines & stops. Why, oh why did I transfer my plastic card to Apple Pay?! Doesn’t work. Plastic card is no longer functional. Customer service is useless. CTA expects me to pony up for a new card. So now they’re holding my money hostage because they’re tech doesn’t work. Awesome.

Almost missed my train. I use this app 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. Ventra 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.

Payment Issues and consistency. App is outdated, needs a refresh and overall is in dire need of a do over. I’ve been using the same payment option for months and out of know where it’s telling me I have to use an alternative payment option. Clearly my card is not expired and has something to do with this buggy app. It was frustrating because I had to get cash near a store to hop on the bus. I commend others for dealing with this buggy inconsistent app. Seriously It would be a miracle if this app ever gets a rework. Wishing you all godspeed

Pretty useless. -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 technically works, I guess. My favorite thing about this app - aside from it showing me the times of busses that don’t exist - is that I will mark a particular stop as a favorite, then at some point that stop that I bookmarked will no longer show any date (it’s essentially a dead link), so then I have to find the stop again and re-add it to my favorites. However, because the old stop “no longer exists,” I can’t remove it. I have 14 stops in my favorites tab. I want about 3 of them, but I can’t remove stops after they’ve been glitched into not existing. The UI on this app is a disgrace…

Headache. This app, while very promising, is an utter failure of the developers. The proof that failing to regularly update apps leads to disaster. There have been several times over the last couple of months where I was nearly out of luck being on the metra and not being able to purchase or display a ticket because the app was crashing and attempts to reset my phone and redownload the app were seeming futile. I am currently fighting with this “updated” app to buy tickets now. Luckily I purchased a bulk order last week or I would have had a hard time getting to work today as I don’t carry cash because the app is supposed to be the one stop shop for my transit needs. This app needs a large overhaul and not just cosmetically. It’s useless if functionality isn’t working!

No help. Customer service will not help you if you email them. They will give you a number even though the phone service is automated and in a loop. They said online to email them because phone service was down and I did that again. I have mention that my phone for some reason don't accept their calls and it end up being missed and I had to use the email but no they keep telling me that they cannot help me and keep giving me same numbers to call. I wish I can give 1 star. Simple just switch my expired balance to new card like they was suppose to do. Its been months dealing with them because their too slow to respond and not doing their jobs. Keep sending automated emails. Im sick of it. There should be a in app or online for customers to do this themselves since ventra can’t and won’t keep up and do what they suppose to. I never got a new card once older one expired I had to buy a new one and getting run around about switching funds to new card. 😤😡😑👎 CTA ventra is a waste of time. Wish I could complain to department thats in charge of this.

Works. I downloaded this last, ironically, because the reviews were the lowest. This app 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.

Unclear. 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 the app. Other cities seem to have these kinds of features figured out. It makes me hesitant to use this city’s public transportation again.

PII Nightmare!. Can someone please explain why do I need to enter things like last name, address, phone number etc to essentially buy a digital Ventra card? Do you guys know what a PII hack is? If you don’t, I assure you, you’re going to in a matter of months. Apart from the fact that I do not know why you need all that personal information, there is also no way I’m trusting your systems to secure it. You should only ask for first name (at best) and then let me pay with Apple Pay. Done! Oh and maybe an email address so that you can bombard me with Marketing material (I guess)...

I don’t usually write reviews but….. This app is a mess. While it is nice to have train passes on your phone, I have had times where the app charges my account for a day pass and then when i try to use the day pass at a terminal it charges the money on my account instead of the day pass I just purchased. My advice, don’t put any money onto your account unless it is for one specific ride, instead, buy day passes and pay for it directly via your credit card or Apple Pay… or honestly, just use a physical ticket, it works better anyways

App won’t accept any payment method. Occasionally the app 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..

So much worse than it used to be. I don’t understand why Ventra 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 the app 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 the app.

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Works almost as often as the Ventra card. If you've ever used Ventra to get around Chicago you'll know exactly what I mean when I say this app is the perfect companion to the Ventra card.

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Must have US credit card. omg this is America Even the vending machine requires me to enter credit card zip while I of course don't have

Good app. Intuitive, function, simple. Good app for Chicagoland transit.

U.S. billing addresses only. Disappointed that only U.S. residents can create accounts and only credit cards with U.S. billing addresses can be used for payment in this version. Would definitely use when visiting Chicago if/when this changes.

Crappy app for international travellers. Can't buy tickets through app because I don't have a US address. This is stupid in this day and age! I travel to Chicago frequently and can't buy through the app but can easily do this with New York and New Jersey apps. It's time for Chicago to join the modern age.

0/5 just terrible. This app is so trash it charged me an hour after i tried paying and it had initially said payment failed. Ended up paying once on the app and once in person. Wish i could give 0/5

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App Won’t Load. I’m running the latest iOS on a recent phone, and the app will not load for me since their last software update. Uninstall/reinstall doesn’t help. I even called Ventra customer service for help and they told me there was nothing they could do, that sometimes the app just doesn’t work. So I guess I’m stuck paying cash on the train for tickets. Thanks Ventra. Your app is officially the worst thing I’ve ever downloaded.

Froze frozen. OMG THIS APP FROZE MY WHOLE PHONE , I mean I was stuck on the ventra information page where u track your buses , when I say FROZE. I mean I could not even SHUT OFF MY PHONE , I press the home button on my phone and NOTHING HAPPENED ,I knew it was not my iPhone so whatever u need to do PLEASE FIX THIS , finally I plugged my phone in now it was never out of charge I had 90%charge left , so as I said I plugged it up the phone went black , then the Apple logo came on and I some how was able to get back on and when I did I IMMEDIATELY DELETED THIS APP OFF MY PHONE , this app is terrible

This app is awful. Constantly forgets the user. Imagine being on a train, launching the app with your $50-10 ride pass, having FaceID set so you can authenticate, and the app asks you to set up a new account while the conductor is waiting. It did this to me three times in three weeks. No one can remember their password in this day and age. A non-functioning FaceID capability is a deal killer. Figuring out how to switch back to paper now. Don’t use this is you don’t have to.

Good when it works. The good : What I like the most about this is the convenience of purchasing a passor adding value before or during my commute. The bus and train estimated times are accurate and give me a The bad: There are times where I was charged twice for a single pass purchase or was met with a purchase error where my pass would not go through. The good thing about this is that the customer service department is helpful to assist with this issue on providing a solution. Future updates? Im not sure if fixes were in place on the most recent update, but I experienced purchase error on the most recent update on iOS.

Apple wallet feature does not work. It used to work but when I switched phones I am no longer able to use wallet feature which is inconvenient considering I have cards with money that cannot be used. I even purchased a Ventra digital card through the app only to be told I cannot add to wallet. There are several complaints in various threads online for years now without the issue being fixed. There should be a class action for all money lost.

Terrible App. I was charged after being denied my 1day Ventra pass, three different charges for the amount of a pass I never received plus a additional $1 for whatever reason. I have to call my bank back to dispute the charges and will be refunded but this is unacceptable! Will not use the app going forward! The low rating should of been a red flag so I guess it was my mistake in the end. I would advise everyone to avoid making the same mistake!

They gave up on this app…. This is a joke.. I had this app when it first came out and it was great I loved it. They updated it over a year ago and it wasn’t working at all so I deleted it and took a break. Well months later, thinking they would fix the problem and it still isn’t working!! Did they give up on this? Wow guess I’ll have to rely on their website or google maps.

What’s the point of bus tracker when the tracker times are estimated. This app needs improvement in the tracker. Countless times busses have disappeared off the list and shows inaccurate times of arrival to the point wher u can be waiting over 30 minutes. Please fix or update the system to actually teach the bus where it is live. If I wanted an estimate I would just look at the schedule. Use ACTUAL GPS to tell us where the busses are.

Absolutely useless. You now need this for Metra too as many ticket offices have closed. However, it seems the writers of this “app” know they have a monopoly and don’t care that much of the functionality if broken, data gets lost, and customer service is worse than Comcast. If I didn’t have to use this app, I wouldn’t. Also, if a resume falls on my desk from anyone who says they worked on Ventra, it goes straight in the trash.

Worked for us. We downloaded the app despite the reviews to usr for trip into Chicago on the UP-N. And it worked pretty much as expected. With the exception of train times…never were accurate and didn’t alert us to a delay. But getting tickets was super easy.

Charged my CC with No ticket delivery. First time I used the app it charged my CC via Apple Pay and did not deliver any ticket for Metra. I followed up with another purchase that succeeded. I have now 2 charges on my CC but only 1 ticket so I have to either dispute with my CC company or deal with their already very slow support system. Disappointing to use this app. I applaud the CTA for trying to go digital but they have failed in some very fundamental areas for how the app should function.

DO NOT RELY ON IT. It has happened to me a number of times now that the app showed a bus arriving within the next one or two minutes, only to then completely disappear and making me wait for another 20 or 30 minutes. I know similar apps from other cities - and countries - and have never seen anything that unreliable. As always, the city of Chicago is extremely effective in leveraging and collecting taxes and fees, but pretty much incapable of providing reliable services to its citizens…

Wasted money. I bought a day pass on the app and it only let me use it once. When I tried using it a second time, the machine said that it had expired. I bought a second day pass on the app, but it remains in-queue unusable. The first one is still active, even though the machines won’t accept it. So I would have to wait 24 hours until I can use the second one. I ended up just buying a physical day pass. Never using this app again!

Opportunity wasted for Metra. While a reasonably functional app to collect fares and store tickets, the app falls short of benefit for the rider at most opportunities. The biggest gap relates to frustration and lack of transparency for riders on Metra issues and service alerts. While service issues are supposed to be updated, The app is never up to date vs platform announcements when trains run late, and is a material step back from real time eta functionality on the metra web page many years ago. Certainly adds to frustration when it should be a positive.

App doesn’t work for new cards. New Chicago rider. Tried to use the “Create New Ventra Card” workflow to add a Ventra card to my Apple Wallet. Errored out all the times I tried to use a credit card stored in Apple Pay and also when I tried to purchase with a different, physical card. It still shows the purchases as pending in my credit card history in online banking, so now I probably have to dispute the charges as well as buy paper CTA tickets.

Not as bad as I thought. I was skeptical about installing this app but went ahead and installed it. I read a lot of reviews but honestly after a few updates it got better.

Won’t take funds for weeks. Haven’t been able to use the app for weeks to get funds. Keeps saying payment won’t work and Face ID won’t work and when I call the number to get help I get the meanest customer service reps who are no help but to tell you to go to the website and don’t use the app. However, the website will take the same payment but according to customer service nothing is wrong with the app. Very frustrating but it’s not like we have any other options in Chicago.

Payment Issues. many people are experiencing issues with not being able to pay for their passes i take the cta every day and my pass just ran out. i am unable to purchase a new one due to the app issues. i have entered my card info and attempted several different methods and none work the app is alright, if not a bit confusing to navigate besides that. if not for the payment issue it might be a 2.5-3 star app. adequate usually—but it isn’t right now

Broken app. Doesn’t fix bugs.. Problem 1) Can’t buy a bus pass or add funds. Problem 2) The routes saved in the Favorites section keeps showing “no information available” after a while, and not because the routes weren’t in service. Even after deleting app the favorites keep showing up. Favorites always deleted when the app is deleted and reinstalled. Get it together! Please fix it!

Thanks for fixing the issue with checkout button.. I reported an issue I had while trying to hit checkout button on iPhone 12 Pro Max and now it’s fixed.

Can’t load money onto transit pass anymore. This app is useless. I’ve reset my passwords, reinstalled the app, added new cards to it, and it won’t process anything. Now I’ve got a card sitting in my Apple wallet I can’t use and money stuck on my account that I can’t use to pay for passes. Thanks a lot Lori for running the only good thing the city had to the ground. So glad you’re finally going to be out of office. Let’s hope the ventra machines work moving forward.

Apple Wallet Issue. Had to reinstall the app 3x before the feature to add my new card bought thru the app would work. Saw a “Server Unavailable” a few times when the card was adding—thats probably it. Support was great, but never once mentioned it could be the fault of the 1-star app.

Returning to travel; didn’t realize we’d time-traveled. I’m trying to get home to visit family. All very last-minute through no fault of my own. Trying to buy tickets to travel around Chicago in advance, just so I don’t slow down lines or irritate my family who have cars but are busy. You know? NB - it’s not my first day on the planet, nor in a major global city, or even in Chicago where my family has lived for a century. Nope. This whole Ventra adjunct thingy is like the 1800s. I am trying to pay money to a company in advance to make everything move more smoothly and instead I’m told I need to pay $5 for a plastic card and I might get that money back through something really not very sensical. This has to be a joke! So much for keeping things easier for others. Or myself, for that matter.

1 star, just like the rest of Chicago’s transit system. I have deleted and re-downloaded the app, and restarted my phone TWICE, and still I can’t buy a metra ticket. Also, thanks to Ventra’s brilliant setup, I also can’t buy tickets online anymore, only through the app. I have been trying for 30+ min. What is the point of forcing people to use an app to buy train tickets if the app won’t let you by said tickets? Absolute garbage.

This app takes your money and won’t refund you when they have glitches!!!. Awful! Really used to love this app but was charged over 10 times and they refuse to refund me the money! I was unable to get an active train pass because of whatever glitch was going on and now have to get a new card due to fraudulent activity. I think I’ll start buying my passes at the train station from now on!

Private company running payment for a public service. Terrible app and customer service doesn’t care. I moved my physical card to a digital one and have had numerous times the digital card won’t read when tapping so I have to pay using a different card. Bus operator doesn’t care to hear me explains this happens all the time and I have a 30 day pass. I also keep “favoriting” various trips and it resets every week. Terrible app. Stop privatizing public services.

Doesn’t deserve 1 star!. This app is awful! I can’t believe that after all this time CTA hasn’t invested in making it USABLE! It’s a pain and frustrating. I have a new Ventra card but the app won’t let me register it. I call customer service and apparently the card is already registered and just needs to be activated. It’s now activated and registered but the app still won’t let me delete my old card and put the new one on it. I’m over it! There’s no reason why this app shouldn’t be working much better than it is!

It's pretty good but still a bit buggy. I use this app since I like the Apple wallet option, but my favorites won't update. If I click on the blue heart, the bus line still shows up in my favorites but it says 'No information available'. I want to make the line disappear all together and uninstalling and logging out did nothing.

Apple Wallet is Unreliable. I am writing this review on a CTA bus. I and three other riders are not able to pay with our phones. Luckily I carry a spare physical Ventra card that always works. There was another mass problem in the fall, lots of people unable to pay fare with their iPhones. As someone without a car, I’d love to have the freedom to go wallet-less for short trips, relying on my phone and Apple Wallet. But that carries a risk of getting stranded because I can’t pay fares. If you use the app, use it with a PHYSICAL CARD ONLY.

UI needs work, some buttons are placed in areas of the screen that rarely work. App works “ok” but could use a redesign of some of the buttons: 1. When you open the ticket, it’s hard if not impossible to tap the X at the top-right edge of the screen on an iPhone 14 Pro 2. The heart button to add a favorite route to track is easy to miss A nice way to address issue #1 is implementing swipe functionality to go “back” which eliminates the need of the X button in the first place.

Fire the software team and get new people in. One year ago I used the app to buy a weekend pass. I was not able to purchase a ticket because it kept saying my credit and debit card were declined. That year I also had multiple pending charges on them too. Here I am a year later with the same problem! Ventra needs to get it together and redevelop an app that actually works!

Horrendous. This is the first review I’m my entire life. How can such a highly funded app be so horrendously designed. Downloaded. Set up card for Apple Pay. Loaded funds. Does. Not. Work. And there is no one anywhere to help you. No one in any of the stations has any clue. Contacting by other means useless. Documentation and faq section on site is worthless. What a horrible job. A disgrace to American public transport. Europe is so far ahead in this department, and this app is in the reasons why.

Ridiculous issues. The people back at Ventra corp have to get their coding straightened out. I often have issues purchasing passes on the app, I forget my password often and need to go through the reset process: they send me a new password to reset, which fails MULTIPLE times, and I have several emails in my inbox I need to delete afterwards. This app is worth two stars only because this is the ONLY public transit system in Chicago.

Works great. Had some apprehension, but totally unwarranted. App does its job. I just need to make sure my phone is charged so I can use it. You need a credit card to load it up. Can also use the app to see what time your bus/train is coming.

Challenger for worst app ever. This app is horrendous. Not only are the flows difficult and non intuitive but there aren’t any error prompts to let the user know exactly what is wrong. You are left doing troubleshooting on your own. It is also overly chatting, almost constantly requiring a server connection which is an issue on a moving train :) Please fix this and outsource it to someone who understands digital design principles. Just because people HAVE to use your app doesn’t mean you should deliver a low quality experience.

APP has very annoying bugs. Whenever I add a bus stop as a favorite. The next day the bus stop doesn’t show anytime and shows up as times unavailable or no information. I can unfavorite these stops because it does not allow me to do so. I have to go and favorite them again which make each stop show up twice on my favorites list. I have to delete the app and install it again.

Worthless. This app is the biggest waste of time and money. I downloaded the app to have my card on my phone. However, once connecting my card to the app my card no longer works. I have a 30 day pass and just had to by a ticket to get home because the app says my card is invalid and in use on another phone. Absolute joke of an app. Stay away if you don’t want to waste money

Good Idea, Poor Execution. Having the card digitally on your phone is cool in theory. However, the scanner fails to read my phone about half the time, basically defeating the purpose of using your phone. The app is down today and I am lucky the ticket-taker on the Metra let me slide. I don’t carry cash, I rely on this app. If you’re going to force us to use it, make it functional. The app has been around a while, this is not acceptable

Keeps losing payment preferences. After an update it wipes out the payment preferences. When you go to buy new tickets you are unable to select the payment (apple or credit card). To fix this you have to 1. close out of your ticket selection 2. close the app 3. reset you payment preferences 4. Choose your train line again 5. Choose your starting station 6. Choose your destination station 7. Choose your ticket type 8. Go to checkout And after all this you get to find out that if your pressing save at step 3 worked. Otherwise you get to go back to step 1 again. They really need to fix this. They also should remember your stations.

It’s just ok. I enjoy the app, however it keeps deleting my favorite stops. What’s the use of having a favorite stop option if you have to keep looking for and saving them over and over? I’ve deleted the app and reinstalled, and it’s still the same. I hope the devs update the app soon.

Declined transaction, took money anyways. I used apple wallet to try and purchase a 7-day pass as I am visiting from out of town. The app said the purchase did not go through. However, my Apple wallet said the purchase was approved and it showed up on my bank account. There is no way for me to gat a refund from the app as it does not even acknowledge the purchase. I will have to place a dispute with the bank now. Total PITA.

Clean interface but unreliable train schedule. The app is easy to use and being able to add cards to Apple wallet is a much appreciated feature. Unfortunately the train schedule (I don’t know if this applies to buses as well) is unacceptably inaccurate. It will say the train is “due” for several minutes before actually arriving. Please fix this issue.

Another CTA fail. The CTA is known for never being on time, taking your money and not fixing anything. It is basically a dead beat landlord. EVERYTIME the CTA “updates” this app is fails to work. Then they do a fix and it’s back to the same crappy app that gives inaccurate scheduling information. I wish I could say this is just a dip in the road but technology and Ventra have been around long enough the CTA should know how to fix these bugs.

Please update for newer iPhones. The “save settings” button has been impossible to tap for literal YEARS because nobody ever updated the app when the iPhone X came out. The app is more or less fine otherwise but I can’t change my settings without going online, it’s so ridiculous.

Ventra machine took my money. Bought a $5 one day pass with a $20 bill and wasn’t given my change or a message saying I wouldn’t get change back. When I asked customer service for the $15 dollars back on my Ventra card, they denied me. Even though I had my receipt and transaction number. Scam company from the beginning and the CTA/ Chicago will just keep doing business with these scummy private companies. No wonder people jump the turnstiles.

Won't read my digital pass. No matter if I take a bus or train, suddenly my ventra card in my apple wallet has stopped working completely. For at least 2 months it worked fine. I could tap my phone and the reader would work. The last 2 months no matter where I tap, it won't register that I'm using it. So I have to dig through my purse in search of cash so I'm not late for work. I decided to just get a new physical card but I still have over $10 on my digital pass that I can't use now. SOMEONE NEEDS TO FIX THIS ISSUE OR GIVE YOUR CUSTOMERS A REFUND.

Not very good. My transit history has been wiped away and only show a date of dec 2nd. It was very useful because I was able to track when my mother actually got on the bus…I don’t like to always call because she doesn’t feel comfortable with taking her phone out of her purse while on the bus stop or on the bus. Seems like I can only add money to card….for now! Please update the transit history!

Why can’t I use my credit card to reload?. Every time I try to add value from my MasterCard to my Ventra card it says my institution declined the transaction. So why does my card work EVERWHERE else?? This includes the actual Ventra website where I reloaded the card from the SAME MasterCard moments after the last time I was told by the app that it was being declined. If I can’t put money on my card to pay the fare, well I guess that renders all your other features irrelevant. Not that it matters, according to other reviews none of it works anyway.

App is semi-functional most of the time. Ventra barely gets a 3-star rating for this app. The ability to save favorite stops is a great feature, except your choices always disappear. I don’t know how many times I’ve had to re-save my favorites. It’s user un-friendly at times too.

Terrible app with inaccurate times. This app never ever shows correct times for arrivals. It doesn’t even match what’s on the signs at the stops. It shows trains arriving in 10 minutes them that train magically disappears from the tracking, even though it’s still coming in 10 minutes. Particularly the red line grand stop has issues with trains falling off tracking once they hit chicago stop. It really is useless.