Leahp

Hi,

We will be visiting Washington DC for 3 days this month. We will be staying in Best Wesrern Old Colony Inn in Alexandria, and are planning to travel to Washington by Metro. How can we purchase Senior week pass in Alexandria? There are no Alexandria locations listed on the WMATA web site. Also, is it necessary to purchase a SmartTrip card? Can we purchase tickets in the machine?

We will be arriving really late at night, and were planning to go to Washington early next day.

Thanks for your help
Leah

tomfuller

For a 3 day trip I doubt that the senior pass will save you much. https://www.wmata.com/
The ticket machines are not that hard to figure out.

tchoiniere

You do need to buy a SmartTrip card to ride Metro. There are no longer any ticket machines to use. I am not sure where to buy the Senior passes but believe there are only a few places that you can.

tomfuller

Here is the storefront. https://smartrip.wmata.com/storefront
You save $1.25 buying the senior card buying it from a human.
Two people traveling together need two cards. You can't just pass your card back to the person behind you.

sf7307

Pretty sure you can't buy a senior card on that website - you need to show ID. We had to go to a station with a SmartTrip office.

Leahp

Thank you all for the reply. We will just buy a regular card from the machine.

Leah

obxgirl

A couple of thoughts:

Metro is in the final third of a extensive and painful improvement program. This month there are impacts on the Blue Line in your neighborhood with Blue trains running every 24 minutes. You will find Yellow Line trains running more frequently but there may still be delays. Once in DC you'll find the trains running regularly,

Also, it shouldn't matter but that hotel has recently dropped its Best Western affiliation.

Christina

well, it's possible that Best Western dropped them, that does happen for quality reasons sometimes.

I live in DC and you cannot buy a Senior Smartrip card from a machine, of course, they must check your ID or anyone could buy one. The website is clear on where you can do it, it lists locations. There aren't just a few places, there are a lot I think, but not at every metro station. In MOntgomery County MD you can get it at many libraries, also.

https://www.wmata.com/fares/stores.cfm

If staying in Old Town, the Crystal City metro location store would probably be the most convenient. If it's too much trouble to go there to do that for a few days, it's probably not a big deal, but it is a very good discount, you get half off the peak fares. If you aren't going to be using it in peak hours very much, doesn't matter so much. But peak hours are pretty long (until 9:30 am and from 3-7 pm). The minimum fare is about $2, so you save $1 on the shortest trips. From King St to the Smithsonian, for example, the one-way peak fare is $3.45, so you'd save $1.70 right there for one trip. If you intend to use the metro a lot in those 3 days, I'd probably just go to Crystal City the first day and buy one. (but you'll have to spend $2.45 just to get there, first). So my guess is you could save $5 a day or so. Nothing a budget buster, of course.

I would NOT buy a 7 day metro pass as you propose for only 3 days, it's too expensive and isn't good on buses. Also, you pay the same amt if a fare is over $3.60.

I am not clear what Tom is referring to about saving $1.25 buying a senior Smartrip from a human, you can't buy it from a machine.