Ticket Exchange Non Use Penalty - £10 Per Printed Ticket "Policy Change" Now In Place

[ac gull]

Presentation I went to Martin Perry said something along lines of official position is just you no transfers, but we do all live in real world and know what happens in practice, plus existing (Withdean) season ticket holders getting others signed up and introducing as many others as possible to Amex (ie sharing of season tickets) is how we will (hopefully) sell out the Amex - and have a steadily growing fanbase etc

 

[AZ Gull]

£3 is a fair charge for a paper ticket, it only takes a minute to print one off, and this was a win-win deal for all concerned/

You are right - last season virtually all home league matches were sell-outs for home fans. In the absence of an official ticket exchange, it was in everyone's interest (including the club) to enable someone other than the ST holder to attend the match if the ST holder couldn't make it (even though this technically went against the T&C of the season ticket, ie it being non-transferable). The club did not lose out on potential ticket revenue because there were no remaining tickets for sale.

£10 is disproportionate.

This season, with the additional capacity and the official ticket exchange, things are completely different. Far fewer games are likely to be sell-outs; when that DOES occur, the ticket exchange kicks in and the club can still potentially generate additional ticket revenue. In these circumstances, if the club were to cheaply enable non-ST holders to use a ST holder's seat, they are potentially doing themselves out of additional ticket revenue (because if that person bought a ticket through the club or used the ticket exchange the club makes far more than a nominal paper-ticket fee).

As such, as a minimum you would expect a commercial organisation to increase the fee for printing a paper ticket; it has nothing to do with the COST of printing the ticket and everything to do with preventing potential lost ticket revenue.

Before the advent of the season ticket smartcard, there was virtually no way a club could enforce the non-transferable nature of a ST (you could just give your paper ticket from the ST book, or your printed ticket from the wallet of tickets, to A.N. Other and the club would never know). With a smartcard, you can STILL pass it on to someone else to use; but it doesn't seem unreasonable to me that the club has decided to make it much more costly to print a paper ticket when that almost certainly means someone other than the ST holder will be attending.

 

[Black Dalek]

STs are not transferable, I don't give a f*** if people do it but the club could easily come back with this response if people query this.

Hi 8ace, your back on. Welcome back, c u Sat in Ldn.

 

[stss30]

Haven't read through the whole thread, but if you want more than one paper ticket printed, what's to stop you taking a couple of mates along and getting them all printed at the lower price of £5?

 

[Captain Sensible]

Basically since the clubs ticket exchange went live, they want you to use that so whacked up the price of a paper ticket to stop the unofficial transfers. I think it's a joke to ask for anything over £3. If its £5 or £10 it's not far off Ryanair charging £40 to print out a boarding pass.

 

[Steve.S]

Again, why are people moaning. I paid for a ST in the hope of making all home games. Where have I lost out? If you want to sell you ST on a match to match basis, all that has happened is that instead of getting 100% on here and 75% on the club exchange. You will now get 75% on both.
Ok 75% has got to be better then nothing surely if you can not make the match and if you can afford to take the attitude of you would rather let the seat go empty then pay £10, why are you trying to sell your ticket on here for 100% in the first place. Surely you would take what you could get for the ticket

 

[8ace]

Hi 8ace, your back on. Welcome back, c u Sat in Ldn.

Cheers BD

 

[drew]

How do the club find it acceptable to charge £10 for a duplicated ticket off a smartcard when they deactivate the smartcard anyway? Where is the logic in this, just seems like the club are trying to take more money when supporters pay enough money for the ST anyway.

An email in response to this was not very helpful at all and just came across as a little bit rude.

" The purpose of the charge is to discourage passing the season ticket to family and friends and not to rip off supporters."

This is nothing to do with me but for someone I know who doesn't use NSC very often but he isn't happy about this at all.

Surely, if you want to sell your ticket onto somebody you know what is the problem with that? It seems the club don't seem to like it?!

Think you're missing the very important point that it is against the law. Not sure if it would go down well with the footballing authorities if the club were quite clearly seen to be condoning the transfer of tickets with no record of to whom they had been passed hence the club are actively encouraging the ticket exchange.

When I went for the presentation, the club made it clear that the cards were officially non transferable, but would probably tolerate it for a couple of seasons until technology changed. Was I the only one who heard that? Agree with what bozza says about the charter but nothing else comes as a shock to me. I was certainly under the impression use it while you can.

I agree. At my presentation, it was made clear that you are not supposed to transfer them but that it would probably not cause concern if you were doing it 3/4 times a season (the same applied to upgrading a child ticket in the family stand) . There is a season ticket waiting list and it is unfair on those waiting if people buy season tickets and then only go to a handful of games and profit from selling the rest, above the discounted season ticket price but below matchday price. The comment was made about Liverpool having a waiting list but that on their database they had numerous season ticket holders who were well over 100 yrs old! In other words, their ticket had been renewed by family therefore bypassing the waiting list (hence the PSL). However, they can't prevent someone buying and renewing a season ticket and only going to 5/6 games a season, even if they only went to one game.

I was also told at my presentation that it was likely that at some time in the near future they would be rolling out photo id included in the smart card which would make the transfer even harder.

With regard to those that live a long distance away, it would still be cheaper to send the card by recorded delivery and have it returned in the same manner than paying £10 for printed ticket.

In an ideal world it should be possible to let anyone have your ticket but then how would that help crowd segregation. Consider the problems created last year in the 1901 following the Palace game. That could be increased 10 fold and anywhere in the ground if there was free reign to let anyone have any ticket.

 

[Jack Daniels]

Ticket Exchange Non Use Penalty - £10 Per Printed Ticket "Policy Change" Now In Place

Well, yes, which is also highly hypocritical given the club will only pay a seller based on the 'discounted' price (ie the pro rata season ticket price) if a ticket goes through the ticket exchange whilst selling on for the full match-by-match price themselves.

Based on all this, I think I'd rather my front row WSU seats go empty than go through the ticket exchange.

That's unlikely to happen, of course. I'll now send the smart card in the post, if I can't attend, and take a risk on whether I get it back or not. If I don't, I just pay a £10 fee for a replacement smart card, the same cost as a one-off replacement paper ticket. I wonder which costs the club more to produce...?

The main fly in the ointment, is those who have cash on their smart cards. What's to stop someone spending the unused £20 in e cash. Another smart move by the club me thinks?

 

[AZ Gull]

Basically since the clubs ticket exchange went live, they want you to use that so whacked up the price of a paper ticket to stop the unofficial transfers. I think it's a joke to ask for anything over £3. If its £5 or £10 it's not far off Ryanair charging £40 to print out a boarding pass.

Interesting example. Airline tickets are also non-transferable - you cannot buy a ticket in your name, and then pass that ticket on to someone else to use. If you can't do it with airline tickets, why would you expect to be able to do it with an Albion season ticket (and expect the club to cheaply facilitate it)?

 

[Triggaaar]

The main fly in the ointment, is those who have cash on their smart cards.

You can get cash on your card? Lucky you, I can't. I'm supposed to pop into the club shop, but good luck with that on a match day.

 

[Captain Sensible]

Interesting example. Airline tickets are also non-transferable - you cannot buy a ticket in your name, and then pass that ticket on to someone else to use. If you can't do it with airline tickets, why would you expect to be able to do it with an Albion season ticket (and expect the club to cheaply facilitate it)?

FFS! Take your thermos in a clear plastic bag to the Amex will you? Come on man! You are boarding on the extreme. It's a bloody paper ticket. Yes yes, money club profit etc. but this isn't Wall Street, it's a football club where alot of fans bought season tickets on the idea they could give them to freinds family and also sell their ticket at face value to another fan. The club have never reacted like this before. It's over priced and unhealthy. They didn't have to do this, it just leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Not good.