maybe it differs between companies, but my experience was with the same one. hopefully this info is useful to others and i’d love if anyone else could chime in with their 2 yens.
both last yr and this yr my company decided to change my work location on short notice, so i needed to cancel my commuter pass and get a new route. (for clarity, i went from S station~HQ, then S station~newjobsite, then N station~HQ)
last yr, the station attendant had me cancel at the info booth, refunded the balance, erased my card, then helped me to buy the new one. between then and now, either something changed or the guy who helped me didn’t know/care to save me money.
i live equal distance from 2 stations. i chose the southern station last yr because my transfer was at a big station i used a lot personally, so it made sense financially. i no longer go there as often and discovered that the northern station has a cheaper route which only adds a couple minutes walking time, so i decided to go with that one this time around.
today i learned 2 new things: one, you can purchase a commuter pass from any other station owned by the same company as the station you’re starting from (this saved me a good bit of time and walking between S station and N station because they are separate lines). the second thing (which the attendant showed me on his computer) is that if you purchase a paper pass *first* and *then* cancel the old pass on the machine to transfer the new one, the refund is bigger?!? why tho? i suspect it’s because i stayed with the same train line, but i’m kinda miffed that i possibly got shorted on last yr’s changeover…
hopefully this makes sense even tho i used aliases for privacy, lemme know if anything is unclear or you have more insight!