[Albion] LoyaltyPointGate - discussion with the club

Da Man Clay said:

The genuine lack of understanding of particularly obvious things on occasions but the club is quite unsettling. Surely most people saw this coming?

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Surf's Up said:

I think the whole basis on which loyalty points are awarded needs to be reviewed with a fair split between people who regularly attend away games and people who have had season tickets for many years also getting fair points recognition...they are different kinds of loyalty but each as important as the other.

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Munchkin said:

Bournemouth scan every ticket on the turnstile. They know exactly who attended and who didn't last night.

I'm pretty sure the club will be requesting the information on the no shows and deal with them in the appropriate manner.

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Pantani said:

Like say a certain number of points for having a season ticket for many years. And maybe some points for the away games you have attended? Something like that?

The system is fair. The only thing that needs changing is no more points for people attending obvious sell outs against the big boys, and no points for 1,200 capacity away tickets at £10 a pop.

All this talk further back in this thread of tickets needing to be collected at away grounds, scanning bar codes, club checking on tickets etc etc is complete bs. The club ****ed up here by allocating too many loyalty points, let us not get carried away by this really minor issue.

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Superphil said:

Mine too, Watford had about six empty seats in front of us.

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Pantani said:

And the stairs up by me had about 50 people crowded in to a space fit for 10. My row had at least 5 extra people in it too. It has always been like this, and always will. I would not call that definitive proof that a significant number of people are buying tickets for every game just so they can go to Old Trafford.

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Husty said:

I foresaw a number of no shows but over half the tickets sold? That's a really poor show and deserves action.

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Bozza said:

I've had some correspondence with the club regarding last night's attendance at Bournemouth which, in case there is anyone unaware, saw 652 Albion fans attend when an allocation of 1,325 tickets had fully sold out.

It's covered in various threads:

- Looking forward to seeing over 1,000 fans at Bournemouth in the Carabao Cup!
- Bournemouth away tomorrow
- Bournemouth Cup game - did you go, or did you "go"?

I'm going to provide a précis of those conversations here, rather than continuing to fragment the discussion across several threads. Please note the actual words are my own:

The club cannot force people to attend matches when they have bought a ticket, particularly as there will always be legitimate reasons for “no shows”. However, the club are shocked at what appears to be widespread abuse of the loyalty point system last night at Bournemouth. This is particularly disappointing given the club worked hard to keep ticket prices down, yet these lower ticket prices seem to have instigated the abuse.

The club are currently reviewing data supplied to them by Bournemouth to gain a better understanding of the abuse and will be making some changes to the current system and to the governing terms and conditions. There is a wide variety of entry systems deployed by clubs which means it may not always be possible to do the same for all games, but requests will be made which is likely to be a costly exercise for the club. The club was aware there was a risk of abuse, but hoped that most fans would operate within the spirit of the scheme.

Possible options specific to last night include:

- doing nothing (not really considered an option)
- disqualifying the loyalty points from those supporters who didn’t attend last night’s game (however would disadvantage those fans who had a genuine reason for not attending), -
- disqualifying the loyalty points from all tickets sold for last might’s game (this would disadvantage those that did attend but would protecting the spirit of the system as far as possible)
- increasing the loyalty points awarded for those fans that did attend (partially neutralising the benefit gained by those that abused the system. However this would mean further impacting on those that were unable to buy tickets in the first place).

In the longer term, options include:

- changing to terms and conditions regarding the award and revocation of loyalty points
- considering mandatory ticket collections at venues close to the stadium we are visiting to minimise any further abuse of the system, and any associated mis-use of away match tickets.
- deploying club staff and scanners pre-away turnstiles to ensure that only those tickets used accrue the loyalty points promised or are being used by the supporters to whom they have been issued.

The club expect to make a statement on how they intend to move forward in the next day or so.

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Thunder Bolt said:

Cup games away were 10 points last season, so that didn't change. The things that changed in this new system were length of season ticket held, rather than a flat 1000 points for a st, and the 5/10/15 points for categories C/B/A games.

Oxford and Lincoln were 10 points.

The idea of harvesting points via non attendance started with the Huddersfield game on a Thursday night on Sky, but priced at only £10.

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jamie the seagull said:

I did go to both Leicester & Watford. Empty seats all along my row in each Match.

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Titanic said:

or wondering why they didn't do the same for Barnet when they have all of the data readily to hand?

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Beach Hut said:

I did not do Watford but Leicester the aisles were crammed with people who went to watch Brighton in the Premier League

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Lush said:

Here's an idea. Loyalty means a strong commitment to something - so loyalty points earned during a season are only added at the end.

The total will then apply for the whole of the following season, whatever league we're in.

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Lush said:

Here's an idea. Loyalty means a strong commitment to something - so loyalty points earned during a season are only added at the end.

The total will then apply for the whole of the following season, whatever league we're in.

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spence said:

Can't see what the club can do about the other night. Some people genuinely might not been able to go. How would they know who wasn't telling porkies ? You can't suddenly dock points. They will have take this one on the chin and look at another fairer approach.

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spence said:

You can't suddenly dock points now. Doesn't work like that unless there is something written in the terms and agreement

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drew said:

But that wouldn't make a difference as those with loyalty points from one season will still have priority over those that haven't, just as it is with the current scheme.

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Return of the Rev said:

Whats it got to do with anyone if you do not use something that you paid for?

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