New Students Beware of Meal Plan!!

chaz_0426
Sun, 13 Jun 2010 00:00:20 +0000

No, money doesn’t roll over from the end of the spring semester to the following year, I’ve known that for years. However money DOES roll over from the fall semester to the spring semester. However what I didn’t know, and almost everyone I talked to didn’t know (even my roommates) until recently is that you if you don’t add more money in December for the Spring semester regardless of whether you have lots of roll over money or not, you won’t be able to use that money at all.

Most people use up all their dollars in the fall and have to add more money/buy another plan anyway.

In previous years, I’ve always used up my money in the fall and bought another one in the spring except for this past year.

But what isn’t right is that it’s not like students are scamming the school by doing that, it’s just saving money that everyone has a right to. Maybe you just didn’t eat on campus a lot as much as you thought in which you SHOULD have a right to use the roll over money since it apparently does roll over anyway and if you run out early or short then that’s that.

But from Virginia Tech’s perspective, it’s not a revenue bringer so they have to design it in a way as to funnel in more money (i.e. students more likely to have left over dollars since they aren’t allowed to save) in which the only solution for students is to buy 50 pizzas or be forced to “donate” that money to the school which is just wasting money and food anyway.

What was puzzling is that I saw on my vt account that $200 was still there in my plan, but whenever I scanned my card It wouldn’t go through only to find out that it wasn’t using my roll over money I saved from the Fall because I needed to add additional money. Where as they could have just $0 my account and it wouldn’t have been as confusing. It’s like the money is there and right in front of you in your account but it’s locked down/ and you can’t do anything about it.

Basically it’s like the bank telling you you can’t access your own money in your own account unless you put more in there.

What is widely known is that they take whatever is left in there at the end of the Spring semester since it doesn’t roll over. However what isn’t known is that even though money rolls over from the fall, it’s useless unless you pay for another plan for the spring on top of your roll over dollars even if you have $200+ of roll over dollars.

When I signed up for the plan, NO WHERE was this mentioned. No terms of service or anything. Perhaps if you hunt down the information only after this happens to you, it’s somewhere (for legal reasons) but the entire meal system is clearly designed against you.

So basically only get a plan if you eat on campus ALL the time. But even then, there’s no real reason, just add $500 to dinning dollars so at least you can add money at any time and best of all, IT STAYS THERE!