FAO USA Canary re gripes over the new system

I don't know why i'm bothering with this as it seems to fall on deaf ears but here is why I am p**sed off at what the club has done today. It has nothing to do with home adult membership or casual home ticket prices.

To start with I would admit that there was a slight unfairness in the existing system for away ticket allocations in that it was too weighted in favour of home season ticket holders who automatically got given 500 more points than members. This meant a season ticket holder who had been to no away games would get priority over a member who had been to 9. This needed adjusting. They could have done it by giving members and season ticket holders parity in the system and then coming up with different priority groups depending on how many away games people have attended. In my view that would have been fair.

Instead, they have come up with a system that appears designed to extract cash from fans in return to simply giving them a chance to buy away tickets and which leaves a lot to be desired.

I am a season ticket holder who went to 8 away games last season. Until today, that would have given me 1400 away points and placed me in either the top or second tielr of the hierachy for away tickets. In previous years i've had a few more away points and have always been in the top priority group (aside from away season ticket holders). I've made a point of keeping my poinst up (although obviously would have gone to most of the games anyway) as the system was well advertised and well documented and piints from one season were rolled over to the next and so you knew if you went to 8-10 games in one season it would give you priority for any big bames in the next.

Now, overnight the club has scrapped this system overnight with zero consultation and zero notice and as I did not go to ten games last season I find myself in the position where I would get no priority for away game next season unless I pay £50 for the privilege. I therefore now have to pay £50 for less chance of getting away tickets than I had because I am in the same category as anyone else who pays £50 regardless of whether they have ever been to a game before.

Those who went to 10 games are in a slightklkly better position in that they can join the priority group but they still have to pay £50 to preserve the same level of priority they already had,

On top of this, my son has a junior membership. Last season this was £20. This I admit was great value as it also included 2 match tickets. I could use his membership number to get him away tickets although he had no priority in the system. Now his membership is £50 and you get no match tickets included. Thats probably fair enough (they had spare seats before they won't next season) but I also can't use his membership to get away tickets unless they go to general sale which most won;t. therefore to have a decent chance of ever getting him an away ticket i have to buy one but they don;t do child away memberships so have to pay for another adult one.

Consequently, to get as close as possible to my position from this season in terms of being able to get tickets (although if they sell thousands of away memberships it will actually be worse as to date i've been pretty much guaranteed an away ticket for any game and I suspect getting home tickets for my son will be more or less impossible) I have to pay an extra £130 to the club. And this is at the one moment in time when the club actually does not need this income drastically in the way they have done in some of the recent seasons.

I gave my rebate, bought shares, have had a season ticket for 30 years and have attended between 8 and 15 away games for pretty much all of the last 20 seasons. I feel that perhaps deserves some recognition in the system but then that's just my opinion.

I appreciate that the flipside to the changes is that some members who want to get away tickets now may have a better chance than they had previously but they could have addressed that without exploiting their existing season ticket holders and reguslar away travellers.by charging them all this extra money. Just a tweak to the existing system would have done the job.

And that in a nutshell is why I am p*8sed off. You may disagree and think its all fair enough but I hope that explains it a bit.

Posted By: Jim on June 12th 2019 at 20:17:32


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