Any way to avoid Ticketmaster 40% in"convenience fee" ???
Ohioguy
of our kids that are old enough to enjoy the "Zing Zang Zoom" Ringling
Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus when it comes to town. She got some
sort of discount code, which I entered.
Cost for the 4 tickets was supposed to be $38, but then I noticed
that Ticket Master wanted to add another $3.75 per ticket "convenience
charge". ($15) I couldn't find any additional information about what,
exactly, this charge was for. It wasn't called an "online charge", so
I'm assuming it would be charged whether I order online or at one of
their windows. Without any details, what is so convenient about it?
It adds about 40% on to the cost of the tickets, without anything
more than a vague label.
Then, to add insult to injury, I found out that you can't just print
out the tickets. Oh, no, that would be too simple. They want another
$2.50 in order to let you use your own printer and print them! I
thought maybe I'd swing by to pick them up in person, but they want $3
for you to do that! (& then you spend $ on gas, too) UPS 3 day delivery
was $14.50. Regular mail delivery was offered for free, but with that
option they would wait about 7 weeks before mailing it - supposedly 48
hours before the event, in a plain, unmarked envelope.
I can only assume they aren't mailing out right away with the postal
service in order to try to get most folks to avoid the free option.
It's pretty aggravating, and at this point I guess I'm glad I haven't
messed around with them before. Plus, they probably have a monopoly on
the ticket sales, and I'm guessing if you want tickets, there is
absolutely no way to avoid most of these scam fees, right?
BigDog1
Welcome to the wonderful world of live entertainment.
The "convenience charge" is a processing fee, and all off site
ticketing services charge such fee. It varies by where you're at and
what service the production company is using.
As to the delivery charges, that also varies on the same basis. I
generally avoid those by picking up the tickets at the Will Call
window on show day. The down side to that is that there's always a
line, sometimes a long one, to wait in. What's your time worth? I've
used the mail option a few times with no problems. When Ringling
Brothers came through my city in January I paid the same fee per
ticket as they're charging you, but there was no fee to pick them in
person. In fact, I happened to be in that part of town on business
and picked them up at the box office two days before my show.
You can avoid all of it by just showing up at the box office on show
day, and hoping they have decent tickets left. Depends on what it's
worth to you to have good seats for the show.
SMS
> It's pretty aggravating, and at this point I guess I'm glad I haven't
> messed around with them before. Plus, they probably have a monopoly on
> the ticket sales, and I'm guessing if you want tickets, there is
> absolutely no way to avoid most of these scam fees, right?
The fee to let you print out your tickets is real chutzpah. It's like
Easyjet where you have to pay to print out your own boarding pass, or
pay even more at the airport.
I remember helping my sister-in-law buy some circus tickets. I could
have gone to the box office and gotten them without the fees, but I
found some coupons code on-line that made the tickets cheaper even with
the fees.
I won't go to the RR B&B circus since what happened the last time I went
in Miami.
BigDog1
> In article <mL7mn.17904$ND2...@newsfe05.iad>, Ohioguy <n...@none.net>
> is to buy them in person. This can't always be done, but for many
> events, you can simply go to the venue where the event is being held and
> buy tickets at the facility's box office.
>
> For example, I intend to go see the Atlantic 10 NCAA basketball games in
> Atlantic City, NJ this weekend. I could buy the tickets online, but pay
> all the excessive fees or just take my chances and buy them the day of
> the game at the facility where the games are being played. I plan to
> take my chances and buy my tickets on game day the old fashioned way.
Yep. That works fine. In fact, depending on the event and the venue,
I've done that a few times myself. Only problem is, traveling shows
frequently don't open local box offices until they arrive in town and
start setting up. By that time the prime seats for the entire run
have already sold on the internet. Of course the OP is buying four
tickets for $38.00. Knowing what Ringling charges, those are "cheap
seats" and, unless it's a total sell out, will probably be available
right up until show time. His contention that they charge to buy and/
or pick up the tickets at the box office is not consistent my
experience attending live shows for many, many years (decades,
actually).