[Albion] Club selling your seat, is this right?

[Hotchilidog]

Ticket sharing is relatively simple though now.

1. List the ticket on the exchange. Piece of p*ss
2. If you want to share your ticket more often pay £20 and you can share with a My Albion + member
3. If there are extenuating circumstances for a prolonged absence from the Amex then contact supporter services and they will try and sort you out.

It's not as simple as just handing your card to a mate, but for good or ill those days are gone. A lot of the complaints on here come from those who refuse to look at the options that are available. You can like or dislike these arrangements, but the arrangements are known.

I have a ST, and I intend to use it for as many games as possible if I can't go (normally in festival season in August) I list my ticket on the exchange and it's job done.

 

[Brian Munich]

Ticket sharing is relatively simple though now.

1. List the ticket on the exchange. Piece of p*ss
2. If you want to share your ticket more often pay £20 and you can share with a My Albion + member
3. If there are extenuating circumstances for a prolonged absence from the Amex then contact supporter services and they will try and sort you out.

It's not as simple as just handing your card to a mate, but for good or ill those days are gone. A lot of the complaints on here come from those who refuse to look at the options that are available. You can like or dislike these arrangements, but the arrangements are known.

I have a ST, and I intend to use it for as many games as possible if I can't go (normally in festival season in August) I list my ticket on the exchange and it's job done.

To be honest, physically handing a card to a mate and then having to make sure you get it back before the next home game is far less convenient than sharing your ticket electronically. It's one of the many things in life that technology has made possible to do whilst having a dump.

 

[Wozza]

It’s shitty whichever way you look at it. We’ve paid our dosh and should be able attend or not. Maybe making sharing tickets easier and cheaper for all parties.

We've covered the other side to death.

The club's view would be: You've received your discount - for you. You do not own the seat. You're not free to pass on discounted tickets as you choose, but there are legitimate methods to transfer them. That's about it.

 

[One Teddy Maybank]

Could you let perhaps remind them because i was pretty pissed off i didn't get a Brentford away ticket for my son the other day.

PS: you are allowed defend the club on NSC - my experience of supporters services and ticketing with my OAP Dad when he was ill was a particularly good one - without being accused of doing it purely for ££.

Be fair Chailey, you know you’ve been rumbled as Paul Barber.

 

[drew]

If you tolerate this, then your children will be next.........

At first you got a card that could be passed to someone else, so long as discreetly, if someone else couldn't go. It was a Godsend. I went with my son in the Championship, my mate who lived round the corner and his son and we met a big group of mixed adults and kids at the ground. In the Championship there were regular evening games which not every child could make due to bedtimes. So one of the cards would be a (paid) upgrade to an adult. Every now and again a kid would be grounded / sick / have something else to do. So another kid got to use the card for free and got a taste of top level Championship football. If an adult was working away in the week we could usually put a bum on the seat. And because of this my son is an Albion obsessed young adult with his own STH and six to ten aways a season.

Then the card was removed and you had to have a phone.

Then your name was put on your ticket when you went away and random ticket office collections became the norm.

Then the emails about absence started.

What's next?

We're constantly told how well run the club is, how we're different, how we're a community club, how we're data driven. But here we're using data as a sledgehammer to crack a nut. If you've missed 'x' games you get an email. Period. No empathetic human reaction. No attempt to see what your absence rate since we entered the Premier League was or if you were a ticket user at Withdean, which would flush out the majority of the two team Terrys just using the ticket for the odd match. A blunt instrument targeting sick pensioners, kids with anxiety and people whose work dictates they may be called in at the last minute.

If you want to really know where we are, it's siding against Premier League regulation and therefore two democratically elected governments and the majority of football fans and with the likes of Baroness Brady, the Saudi PIF and the government of Abu Dhabi.

Really! I would suggest most of the changes are due to supporters abusing the system. We get searched before we go in because some fans would try and take pyrotechnics in or other banned items. The away tickets changes because people were getting tickets for the points and passing them to people not entitled to be there, in some cases morons that got themselves arrested. Bottle tops are removed because some idiots throw them on the pitch. etc etc. The vast majority of fans can be trusted but the club have no choice but to have rules that affect them just to keep the idiots either in line or out of the ground.

 

[drew]

I can vouch for this.

My eldest has social anxiety issues and was diagnosed with ASD and ADHD this year so has rarely attended games. We have listed where I have known he can’t / won’t go (ie late evening mid week games) but he often had a moment before we leave the house so would stay home and I’d still go.

Anyway we got the shitty blunt email which at the time I wasn’t particularly happy about considering he wasn’t breaching any T&C’s (the 25% rule is applied at the end of the season) but I emailed the club to explain the situation and told them to stop emailing him these blunt emails as it was making him more anxious with guilt of not going, hes 10 years old and has enough going on. The emails have since stopped and we haven’t renewed his season ticket as a result.

Sorry to hear of your son's conditions but isn't it possible to have his season ticket account attached to your email so you can vet emails that come through?

 

[Nitram]

That's awful. I hope your son's anxiety issues start to abate.

But I'd be inclined to let the club know.

Firstly, because there clearly is an issue with people having season tickets and not making their seat available if they cant attend. You patently have a reason why you might not be able to attend at short notice, but the outcome (two empty seats) on the face of it is indististinguishable from someone choosing not to go.

Secondly, because our club really does care about supporters. It clearly does, time and again. They might be able to help you, or your son. There might be things they can do to help him feel less anxious coming to games. My experience is that they go above and beyond when they are made aware of issues.

You shouldn't have to tell them. You don't have to. But it could help and I'm sure they would want to.

Good luck with this. Its tough being a parent.

My experience of a similar situation has been a positive one. I won’t go into details but they showed empathy and a willingness to help.

 

[Talby]

Yes - because you’ve been told to put up for sale and if you don’t (for a quarter of games, that’s 25%!) then they retain the right to withdraw. As other posters have written and has been made dozens of times on this thread alone, nobody is going to hit that number without bloody good reason other than indifference or incompetence. The former we want rid of, the latter is stupidity and I’d also say we want rid of those STHs also. Now, what on earth is so hard to understand about that? Anyone who doesn’t is most definitely stupid. In fact they’ve done bloody well to complete a STH application if so all things considered.

Doesn’t bother me if people don’t want to go to a match. It’s a club policy. It’s only success that has provoked this reaction, will change if we (heaven forbid) get relegated.

 

[drew]

So what happens for the Villa game when the exchange doesn’t open? Evening game, during term time…will all the no shows be getting an email?

Even if the exchange isn't open you can still list your ticket. If people already know they can't go because of the change of date then list the ticket now.

 

[ATFC Seagull]

I'd be interested in what the club deem "acceptable" reasons.

These are the reasons I have missed home games and not done anything with my ticket over the last few years:

1) Last minute trip to A&E with my son for something that happened that morning
2) Death of father, flew to Ireland, Albion not high on my priorities of things to deal with (but I did have several days notice, so would they argue I could have listed it still?)
3) Flight home from holiday due back at Stansted at 10am. Reckoned I'd make the game. Flight delayed.
4) On a course in London midweek. It overran and then there were train problems.
5) Mrs away on a hen do when oldest was a baby. Had childcare (my mum) organised for a few hours on the Saturday lunchtime for the game, but this fell through.

These all came in different seasons but I don't think it's unrealistic that a combination of 3, 4 and 5 could come up for people more than a handful of times, especially people who travel for work and work in London.

Would be interested to know which if the above the club would accept.

 

[Guinness Boy]

Really! I would suggest most of the changes are due to supporters abusing the system. We get searched before we go in because some fans would try and take pyrotechnics in or other banned items. The away tickets changes because people were getting tickets for the points and passing them to people not entitled to be there, in some cases morons that got themselves arrested. Bottle tops are removed because some idiots throw them on the pitch. etc etc. The vast majority of fans can be trusted but the club have no choice but to have rules that affect them just to keep the idiots either in line or out of the ground.

So where does it end?

Some fans swap seats with someone else in agreement with both fans (I did this at Sheffield Utd away last season, the people in front of me in the WSU at home games do it all the time) but others squeeze into a row too small for all of them or deliberately take someone else's spot. Should we have to prove we sat in exactly our numbered seat, on pain of a ban?

Everyone gets a travel subsidy, even if they get dropped off dangerously. Should we have to provide some proof of travel to get this in future?

Some people buy guest STH tickets for fans of the away team for the games where they go on sale. Should we stop 1901 members from entertaining people who may support a club other than the Albion? Or do background checks into guests?

Like I've said several times, it would be easy to weed out the pisstakers with better data analysis and maybe by someone with some human emotional intelligence calling people with odd patterns to have a sympathetic chat. But an organisation that's happy to pay its super stars 50k a week or more doesn't seem to want to write more than one line of code or employ someone on 30k a year.

 

[Brian Fantana]

I'd be interested in what the club deem "acceptable" reasons.

These are the reasons I have missed home games and not done anything with my ticket over the last few years:

1) Last minute trip to A&E with my son for something that happened that morning
2) Death of father, flew to Ireland, Albion not high on my priorities of things to deal with (but I did have several days notice, so would they argue I could have listed it still?)
3) Flight home from holiday due back at Stansted at 10am. Reckoned I'd make the game. Flight delayed.
4) On a course in London midweek. It overran and then there were train problems.
5) Mrs away on a hen do when oldest was a baby. Had childcare (my mum) organised for a few hours on the Saturday lunchtime for the game, but this fell through.

These all came in different seasons but I don't think it's unrealistic that a combination of 3, 4 and 5 could come up for people more than a handful of times, especially people who travel for work and work in London.

Would be interested to know which if the above the club would accept.

I'd say 1 and 2 definitely. 3 possibly. 4 and 5 probably not,.

 

[Talby]

I'm not lecturing him on anything, he said supporters give the club money, I said they give something back i.e. a discount to reward people for their committment. Being hospitalised has nothing to do with this as the club have stated there are options available should you be seriously ill....and from experiece this has been backed up with actions and support far in excess of what I would have expected.

I think there’s a suggestion of ‘put up and shut up’ rather than any lecturing.

I’d not expect an email after one missed game. If there’s a trend then fair enough. i don’t really want to tell the club that I missed a match because I was in hospital.

As for commitment - it’s loyalty and goes two ways. Mine is to the team and the club is to money.

 

[Paulie Gualtieri]

Sorry to hear of your son's conditions but isn't it possible to have his season ticket account attached to your email so you can vet emails that come through?

Not as far as I know. We had to create an unique email address for him when he signed up initially, it’s only recently that he’s got access to it, now that he’s old enough to have an inbox

 

[amexer]

We've covered the other side to death.

The club's view would be: You've received your discount - for you. You do not own the seat. You're not free to pass on discounted tickets as you choose, but there are legitimate methods to transfer them. That's about it.

So should someone who purchased a matchday ticket be able to pass ticket on if unable to attend because there ticket was not discounted

 

[Wozza]

So should someone who purchased a matchday ticket be able to pass ticket on if unable to attend because there ticket was not discounted

Sigh.

 

[Nitram]

I have missed games and forgotten to list my ticket in the past before the club changed the system.
I now know that if I don’t list my seat I may get an email. I also now understand they want a full stadium and for other fans to be given a chance of attending if I can’t. That requires me to think of others not just myself.

If I do get an email I’m not going to take it personally, it’s a generic email not knowing my circumstances, I’m pretty sure I wont be writing to the club contesting it or giving them details of why I missed a single game. I’m also sure that the club realises life gets in the way and has no intention of causing me personal upset.

I would be more likely to remember to list it in the future, or write to them saying because of my circumstances I’m unable to attend for a period of time.
This does not seem unreasonable to me.

 

[Ooh it’s a corner]

If you list your ticket on the exchange you’re covered regardless of the ticket selling or not, or the exchange not even opening.

Yes - and actually it may still open, less than 500 ‘normal’ price tickets left I think

 

[dsr-burnley]

That is the better argument.

But again - as I understand it (and I really miss the days when you could discretely share your season ticket) - the issue is the d1ckheads who share their ticket with known trouble-makers and away fans getting tickets. If there is no control, there is no control. This is a wider argument, but I can see why the club would want (a) a full stadium and (b) to be able to control access to the ground.

Is that a massive problem? At Burnley (where passing on a season ticket to anyone is permitted, as long as they aren't in a more expensive category that the original holder) it's understood - or it may even be a written rule - that the owner of the ticket is responsible for the behaviour of the user. If the attendee misbehaves, then the season ticket holder is in trouble as well. This means that anyone who passes on a ticket automatically vets the person they are giving it to.

 

[portlock seagull]

Doesn’t bother me if people don’t want to go to a match. It’s a club policy. It’s only success that has provoked this reaction, will change if we (heaven forbid) get relegated.

Undoubtably - but that’s tomorrow not today!