Selling your seat at The Amex

[Bozza]

They need to tell us what it is, though, BEFORE we make decisions about whether or not we are going to buy season tickets for people who won't be able to get to every game.

Exactly.

I feel somewhat naive in assuming/trusting that what I considered to be fairly rudimentary services would come along with a season ticket purchase.

Like most, I'm sure, I don't even mind paying admin fees that will, in all likelihood, be far above the club's incurred cost for providing those services.

When are the first season ticket presentations?

 

[8ace]

One possibility for lending your card to a total stranger, would be to charge a deposit (equal to the cost of a replacement card) which you'd return when you got your card back. A bit more faff though.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

There was once talk of the swipe cards being able to be used to buy a beer or a pie at half time, in a kinda cashless stadium way.
Is this still the case? If so, lending the card to someone could mean that they could spend your "money" if you had credit on the card.

"Eventually" was the word I recall.

Maybe there will "eventually" be a ticket exchange.

But you're right ... if a cashless stadium does develop, it will be essential that issues like this are taken into account.

 

[Couldn't Be Hyypia]

When are the first season ticket presentations?

Started this week.

 

[Ernest]

I'm buying a season ticket as I intend to see every game as I do now so can't see the point of this binfest, why buy a season ticket if you don't intend to see every game ?

 

[The Large One]

What the quote in post 80 says is "Thank you for your enquiry regarding the season tickets. We do intend to set up a facility whereby tickets can be transferred. This is still in the process of being implemented and I will let you know when the policy has been put in place." That is not the same as "we are looking at a ticket exchange system" at all chaps.

What I was told specifically yesterday by the head of the ticket office is that if I have a PSL, I can sell my ticket for a match. The club will remove it from my swipe card and the will issue a paper ticket for that game. They will charge me a fee for doing so.

Please don't interpret Ken's words as the Albion looking at an Arsenal type system. They may well be - but that quote could also mean exactly what Paul from the ticket office told me yesterday. Ken says they do plan to "set up a facility whereby tickets can be transferred" and then he calls it a "policy". Doesn't seem to me that they are beavering away on an Arsenal/Bozza style system.

It doesn't say they're not setting it up either. You're quite vociferously promoting the assertion that there won't be a system in place.

I don't see how you can make that judgement on the back of what is a fairly ambiguous and widely interpretable statement by the club.

 

[portlock seagull]

That's why you and folk like you would be better off if you and folk like you didn't buy season tickets and contributed to an outcome whereby the best part of 10,000 tickets were available on a match by match basis.

Unfortunately LB, I'm going to be guilty of this if only because I want to be at the first game as a STH veteran of the Goldstone, Gills and Withdean (until 2 season ago) blah blah and it's the only way I can guarantee that is to buy a ST in the knowledge I can't always use it. The club won't care because they'll just have sold the seat for an entire season. I'm also buying a share in another seat because,learning from Withdean, you can't bring other friends and family to a game which has been a major issue all the years we've been "all seater". And game by game I'm very confident we can shift it to someone we know. Might even register it in my wife's name and give as a b'day pressie (knowing she'll never use it). Two birds with one stone. Cunning eh?

 

[clippedgull]

Nope. Not what it says. See my post #128.

I deliberately did not mention PSL's in my email. You choose to interpret Ken as possibly avoiding mentioning PSL's in his reply.

A specific question was asked at the forum and he gave an undertaking that a facility would be set up for STH's to exchange tickets through the club for an admin fee. His email suggests that he has not gone back on that promise.

 

[Bozza]

I'm buying a season ticket as I intend to see every game as I do now so can't see the point of this binfest, why buy a season ticket if you don't intend to see every game ?

Because you want to be able to guarantee getting to as many games as you are able.

Because you want to provide the club with a regular stream of funding. Supporting the club, if you will, in the truest sense.

 

[8ace]

I'm buying a season ticket as I intend to see every game as I do now so can't see the point of this binfest, why buy a season ticket if you don't intend to see every game ?

I'd imagine there are quite a few people getting an ST just to guarantee a ticket for the first game, knowing full well they won't be able to make every game that season.

 

[rool]

I have a Fulham season ticket which is a smartcard.

If I can't make a match I can log onto the Fulham ticket exchange and make my seat available for any match. I will get the price I paid for my ticket back (approx £18) with no admin charge made and Fulham sell the seat at the full face value which is anywhere between £45 and £75 depending on the category of the match.

If I know someone who would like to go in my place I hand them my card.

It works beautifully.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

I'm buying a season ticket as I intend to see every game as I do now so can't see the point of this binfest, why buy a season ticket if you don't intend to see every game ?

Sickness? Holiday? Hangover? All three?

 

[Was not Was]

I'd imagine there are quite a few people getting an ST just to guarantee a ticket for the first game, knowing full well they won't be able to make every game that season.

And lots of people share a season ticket with a friend/family. People with childcare responsibilities and/or jobs with tricky hours and/or living away from Sussex, for example, who want to commit, but not to every single match.

 

[Ernest]

Because you want to be able to guarantee getting to as many games as you are able.

Because you want to provide the club with a regular stream of funding. Supporting the club, if you will, in the truest sense.

So why worry about reselling it ? If you can , you can and if you can't you can't.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

I have a Fulham season ticket which is a smartcard.

If I can't make a match I can log onto the Fulham ticket exchange and make my seat available for any match. I will get the price I paid for my ticket back (approx £18) with no admin charge made and Fulham sell the seat at the full face value which is anywhere between £45 and £75 depending on the category of the match.

If I know someone who would like to go in my place I hand them my card.

It works beautifully.

That sounds both beautiful AND smart. You get your £18 back and the club gets the chance to sell the same seat for at least double that. Everone's a winnah!

Can't see the Albion missing out on that particular trick or a close variant thereof.

 

[Tooting Gull]

I'm buying a season ticket as I intend to see every game as I do now so can't see the point of this binfest, why buy a season ticket if you don't intend to see every game ?

I have only ever bought four season tickets in my life, and while you have the intention to go to every game, you just don't/can't. Unless football is literally all there is in your life, other stuff crops up.

The point you raise is a a good one though, in that there has been a hype created (partly by stuff on here, partly happily allowed to happen by the club) that the only way to guarantee seeing the Albion next season is to buy a season ticket. Perhaps on a false premise, then, a lot of people are buying season tickets that ordinarily (ie if they thought they could easily buy match tickets) wouldn't. If this hype proves bollocks and we only sell 10,000 season tickets, there will be some slightly duped people out there who have stretched themselves to the limit to watch their club. Unnecessarily. I would agree with you on the recouping money idea, surely that should be a major factor in your decision to buy/not to buy, how often you can go. Anything you get back is a bonus.

 

[Tony Meolas Loan Spell]

I have a Fulham season ticket which is a smartcard.

If I can't make a match I can log onto the Fulham ticket exchange and make my seat available for any match. I will get the price I paid for my ticket back (approx £18) with no admin charge made and Fulham sell the seat at the full face value which is anywhere between £45 and £75 depending on the category of the match.

If I know someone who would like to go in my place I hand them my card.

It works beautifully.

Seems this is the model that works.

One question tho, how does it work with the person buying your seat for that game? Do they have a smart card as well that is "credited" for that one game or are they sent say a paper ticket?

 

[Tricky Dicky]

I have only ever bought four season tickets in my life, and while you have the intention to go to every game, you just don't/can't. Unless football is literally all there is in your life, other stuff crops up.

The point you raise is a a good one though, in that there has been a hype created (partly by stuff on here, partly happily allowed to happen by the club) that the only way to guarantee seeing the Albion next season is to buy a season ticket. Perhaps on a false premise, then, a lot of people are buying season tickets that ordinarily (ie if they thought they could easily buy match tickets) wouldn't. If this hype proves bollocks and we only sell 10,000 season tickets, there will be some slightly duped people out there who have stretched themselves to the limit to watch their club. Unnecessarily. I would agree with you on the recouping money idea, surely that should be a major factor in your decision to buy/not to buy, how often you can go. Anything you get back is a bonus.

I agree that we have been led to beleive that the only guarantee of getting into games is to buy a ST - I will want to go occassionally, despite being an ST holder in the past. Not sure who put out the figure that maybe there'll only be 1,000 (or 1,500 I can't remember) tickets on general sale, but if that's the case many like me won't get to a game.

 

[portlock seagull]

And lots of people share a season ticket with a friend/family. People with childcare responsibilities and/or jobs with tricky hours and/or living away from Sussex, for example, who want to commit, but not to every single match.

Yes, this is what I do currently. Unfortunately I'm not the named fan so don't get to go to the presentations etc. I don't exist in the clubs eyes. I'm meaningless. A nothing, that hobo from the USA with the amazing voice. Only without the voice.....

 

[mcshane in the 79th]

Fair point. I'm just Mr Angry today so please McShane, take your valid argument elsewhere!! I am concerned we'll forget everything that makes this club special in exchange for a place at the corporate alter which football's become though. Still, be nice to see 20k+ Albion fans for a change!

I do agree with your sentiments!! But at least for next year there is a cheap option for a season ticket