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Booking Fees and Convenience charges



Barry Izbak

U.T.A.
Dec 7, 2005
7,310
Lancing By Sea
I don't know anyone who isn't frustrated by the miscellaneous charges we have to pay for the privilege of buying tickets for events.

The Albion charge for the privilege of queuing up to collect them as we know. Baseball tickets are worse. You pay $5 for printing your ticket out at home on your printer with your own ink. And then they add insult to injury by calling this a "convenience" charge. We all know who's convenience this is.
Joe Bonamassa at The Brighton Centre last week you could buy a ticket at face value in the box office, unless you wanted to pay with a credit card, but this was nothing compared to the charges incurred if you had the temerity to phone their outsourced ticket agents.

But here is a good one, I just saw this morning.
I want to go to Lingfield racing tomorrow. Thought I'd check out ticket prices, and see if it was worth buying in advance.

From the Lingfield Park website:

"Whilst you don’t have to book in advance, doing so will save money on the gate price on the raceday, which will be £17 per adult (over 18). . Plus, there are added value admission & restaurant packages to choose from that are not available on the turnstiles on raceday.

All tickets purchased in advance are subject to a small booking fee. If you have purchased a ticket well in advance, your ticket will be posted one week before the raceday. However, if you purchase a ticket 5 days or less before the date of the meeting, your ticket(s) will be left at the main entrance under the name in which it was booked"


Buy on the gate with cash £17
Buy online in advance £15 + "small booking fee" £2.50 = £17.50

Obviously no one going there is bothered about small change, but I wonder if the genius who runs their ticket office wonders why no one buys in advance?
 






Herr Tubthumper

Well-known member
NSC Patreon
Jul 11, 2003
59,199
The Fatherland
It's a piss take. Especially the print at home charge some places have.
 


Barry Izbak

U.T.A.
Dec 7, 2005
7,310
Lancing By Sea




dazzer6666

Well-known member
NSC Patreon
Mar 27, 2013
52,011
Burgess Hill
Went to a show at the Apollo in Hammersmith last week - booking fee was £5.90 per ticket, 'facility charge' another £1 per ticket and postage £2.90 (for all three to be put in one envelope with a stamp on it) - so this added £23.60 to the cost for 3 tickets.
 








Mellotron

I've asked for soup
Jul 2, 2008
31,730
Brighton
getmein.com seemed to be offering reasonable(ish) priced tickets for Chvrches at the Brighton Dome - £32-odd, which wasn't too bad compared to the original face value of £25.

£14 booking and admin fee. Per ticket.
 










Jul 7, 2003
8,573
I did some work in this field a few years ago. The place I was working with didn't want to rip off the customers so agreed a small admin fee to cover postage and the card payment charges. IIRC we agreed a set fee of £1.50 per booking - not per ticket. We looked at Ticketmaster but they wanted to charge around £4 per ticket to handle the same transactions.

The whole per booking rather than per ticket issues is the biggest rip off. Yes, the card charges will be higher as it is based on a percentage of the payment, but generally it costs no more to send one ticket as it does to send six. As for print at home...

There are numerous justifications put forward for exorbitant charges - the main ones being that they need to cover both card handling charges and covering the investment in and running costs of, the hardware and software needed to run the ticket system. How many times they need to cover this investment is anyones guess.
 


The Fifth Column

Retired ex-cop
Nov 30, 2010
4,008
Escaped from Corruption
Can we add Broadband providers to this scam? Saw an ad recently for FREE Unlimited Broadband for 12 months, a great deal right? Wrong, some thin font small print stating if taken with line rental at £17.95 per month. So its not actually free is it? You don't even want or need a landline for phonecalls, I can't even use a fraction of the minutes on my mobile each month FFS! But you need the landline to carry the broadband signal so you have to have it, its not a conditional offer you can't have the 'Free' broadband on its own because it comes via a landline which you have to pay for. Tossers!

Can you imagine some other utilities trying this scam? A water or gas company offering you free water/gas but charging a 'piping rental' charge, free electricity as long as you take the electricity cabling service at £xxx! Free entry to every home match at the Amex in a designated seat subject to a £600 admin and booking fee. Its all ripping off bollox.
 




Worthingite

Sexy Pete... :D
Sep 16, 2011
4,959
Worthing
Can we add Broadband providers to this scam? Saw an ad recently for FREE Unlimited Broadband for 12 months, a great deal right? Wrong, some thin font small print stating if taken with line rental at £17.95 per month. So its not actually free is it? You don't even want or need a landline for phonecalls, I can't even use a fraction of the minutes on my mobile each month FFS! But you need the landline to carry the broadband signal so you have to have it, its not a conditional offer you can't have the 'Free' broadband on its own because it comes via a landline which you have to pay for. Tossers!

Can you imagine some other utilities trying this scam? A water or gas company offering you free water/gas but charging a 'piping rental' charge, free electricity as long as you take the electricity cabling service at £xxx! Free entry to every home match at the Amex in a designated seat subject to a £600 admin and booking fee. Its all ripping off bollox.

You do pay that, on top of the actual tariffs of your energy supplier/water company. It's called a "standing charge".
 


studio150

Well-known member
Jul 30, 2011
29,555
On the Border
Its about limit legislation was brought in to limit the charges to say 2.5% of ticket cost. With free print at home or transfer to smart phone.
 


Herr Tubthumper

Well-known member
NSC Patreon
Jul 11, 2003
59,199
The Fatherland
I seem to recall airlines did something similar a few years back. They'd advertise a price but the small print added on a card fee plus in some cases an extra surcharge for the petrol.
 


Mr Putdown

Well-known member
Jan 26, 2004
2,899
Christchurch
I've just got off the phone after booking four tickets for Eddie Izzard. The total cost was £101.79

4 x £25 for the tickets, £1 booking fee and 79p postage to send the tickets out. :)

I can't complain at that!
 


spring hall convert

Well-known member
Nov 3, 2009
9,608
Brighton
Whilst the charges can be well over the top, clearly third party ticket agencies have to charge something as that is their income generator. I don't think it would be ridiculous if it were legally regulated to say 10% of the ticket price.

What I can't get my head round is where businesses handle their ticketing in house and still charge booking fees. They know their own costs, they should just be factored into the price of the ticket, otherwise it's just dishonest pricing, deliberately attempting to mislead consumers
 



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