Attention government travelers, buyers and drivers: You may be immersed in the presidential transition (and have plans to flee work for the holiday weekend), but don’t forget this weekend is another transition…to the new government purchase, travel and fleet charge cards.
At 11:59 p.m. Nov. 29 your old SmartPay cards will be useless, so be sure to have the new cards at the ready. That’s what David Shea, director of the General Services Administration’s SmartPay 2 program, tells us here at FedLine.
Shea has these tips for feds who may be working this holiday weekend and need to use their cards:
- Activate the new card in advance of the Nov. 29 deadline.
- If you are going on travel, bring both cards with you to avoid getting stuck with an inactive card.
- Have the number for your agency’s card manager handy in case you run into trouble.
Shea expects that there will be few problems with transition this weekend. The last agencies to make their choice of card providers did so back in July, meaning there was plenty of time for cards to arrive and new accounting systems to be installed. Also, the holiday weekend means there will be little activity over the transition period.
But with more than 3 million purchase, travel and fleet cards mailed to federal employees across the nation, there are likely to be some hiccups along the way, Shea said. That’s why he and his staff will be on call all weekend to put out any major card-related fires.
FedLine suspects he’ll also be collecting the wishbone from his Thanksgiving turkey for luck.
