{"id":452717,"date":"2025-12-17T07:23:31","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T07:23:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/452717\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T07:23:31","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T07:23:31","slug":"how-to-get-a-free-90s-blue-metrocard-from-the-mta-in-nyc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/452717\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Get a Free \u201990s Blue MetroCard From the MTA in NYC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here\u2019s your last chance to swipe like it\u2019s 1999.<\/p>\n<p>As New York counts down to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.timeout.com\/newyork\/news\/alert-the-mta-will-stop-selling-metrocards-by-the-end-of-the-year-031925\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the official end of the MetroCard<\/a> on December 31, 2025, the MTA is giving the city a final hit of transit nostalgia: a free, limited edition &#8217;90s-era blue MetroCard, the original colorway from 1994.\u00a0The catch? Only four people will get one. The upside? It\u2019s very easy to try.<\/p>\n<p>To mark the retirement of the MetroCard after more than three decades in circulation, the MTA has launched a short-window giveaway featuring replicas of the original blue cards, complete with classic New York imagery on the back, including <a href=\"https:\/\/www.timeout.com\/newyork\/theater\/radio-city-music-hall\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Radio City Music Hall<\/a> and the Ringling Bros. and Barnum &amp; Bailey Circus. Each card comes preloaded with either $15 or $6, enough for a couple of nostalgic swipes before OMNY entirely takes over.<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re on Instagram, head to the MTA\u2019s official giveaway post and tag a friend in the comments. One tag counts as one entry and that\u2019s it. If you don\u2019t have Instagram, you can also enter by emailing your full name and phone number to entries@mtacd.org with the subject line \u201cMetroCard Farewell Giveaway.\u201d Same odds, same prize, no scrolling required.<\/p>\n<p>Entries close on Thursday, December 18, at 11:59 pm ET; winners will be selected at random and contacted the week of December 22. You must be at least 18 years old to enter and only one entry per person is allowed.<\/p>\n<p>While four cards won\u2019t satisfy the city\u2019s collective desire to hoard MetroCard souvenirs, the giveaway puts a neat punctuation mark on a piece of everyday New York design that outlasted pay phones, mix tapes and most of the subway\u2019s original signage. The blue MetroCard, in particular, feels pulled straight from a time when tokens were still a recent memory.<\/p>\n<p>If you want one last tangible reminder of that era, something that actually still opens a turnstile, this is as close as you\u2019ll get. After December 31, the swipe is officially history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s your last chance to swipe like it\u2019s 1999. As New York counts down to the official end&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":452718,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,11234,405,403,11235,5226,5225,5228,5227,1164,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-452717","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-categories-travel","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-news-transport-travel","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkcity","15":"tag-ny","16":"tag-nyc","17":"tag-travel","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-united-states-of-america","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115733712491431989","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}