Online ticketing

[Fosse69]

25 minutes ago, Smugsy said:

They've now announced that loyalty points have been reset for this season. Would have been very nice to have been told about this.

 

They've said it's because someone who doesn't renew their season tickets retains their points but that doesn't make sense because people who do renew will have more points than those that don't. I've been an advocate of a loyalty scheme for years and many clubs run a successful system but for some reason, we've tried to reinvent the wheel with this and have made a right pig's ear of it.

But all the STs that renewed their STs lost their points as well, did they not consult the fans? The computer system appears to be quite comprehensive on how it tallies the points,  in my opinion they took a simple way out when  more sophisticated options  were available.

[Smugsy]

Sheffield Wednesday have a scheme that's been going for 10 years. 230 points for a season ticket and 10 points for away and cup games. Sheffield United's scheme means that you have to have a current season ticket or membership for your points to be valid. These scheme's have been running successfully for years for bigger fanbases. Why didn't we just copy those?

[PortVale89]

The loyalty scheme is so simple, but yet its another thing related to tickets that they just can't get right.

Today's announcement is a joke.

It's really not difficult. Just mirror it off one of the countless other loyalty schemes used across the football pyramid or even by the FA for the England supporters club.

Have a two year rolling period where points/caps are active.

Someone who doesn't renew this season retains their points from last year but will quickly drop down the loyalty scheme as others who attend or buy STs for this year over take them.

[PortVale89]

Sheffield Wednesday have a scheme that's been going for 10 years. 230 points for a season ticket and 10 points for away and cup games. Sheffield United's scheme means that you have to have a current season ticket or membership for your points to be valid. These scheme's have been running successfully for years for bigger fanbases. Why didn't we just copy those?

Exactly my point. We are inventing something new. Just take a look and copy. It's not hard.

[robf]

8 minutes ago, Smugsy said:

Sheffield Wednesday have a scheme that's been going for 10 years. 230 points for a season ticket and 10 points for away and cup games. Sheffield United's scheme means that you have to have a current season ticket or membership for your points to be valid. These scheme's have been running successfully for years for bigger fanbases. Why didn't we just copy those?

Yep, totally makes sense. You renew your season ticket your points are kept but if you don't renew by a certain date then the season ticket points are removed.

Surely that's a fairly simple process/rule to add? 

[Doha]

15 hours ago, Doha said:

The high demand for tickets that has ground the website to a crawl (I've been stuck on "Demand is currently very high for tickets for this event. You are in a queue. 0 minutes 0 seconds left" for 15 mins now) isn't being helped by the fact that loyalty points have been reset to zero, so loads of fans are trying to buy tickets simultaneously instead of just however x many have 400+ points or whatever, 300+ tomorrow, etc etc. You could have gone to all 23 away games last season but your previous loyalty is now discounted. Quite a lot of fans annoyed about it on this twitter thread below (and some comments on the one above) and as yet no comment from Vale what the plan is.

 

Fair play for getting a statement out the next morning 

 

Loyalty Points and Purchasing of Away Tickets | News | Port Vale

WWW.PORT-VALE.CO.UK

 

The ins and outs of the points is one thing but if anyone from Vale is reading this, could I politely suggest that we review the ticketing system, creaking hamsterwheel server hardware wise, for resilience. It grinds to a halt for hours when away tickets go on sale, which is frustrating and stressful for the consumer (not least that they can't book accommodation/public transport without a confirmed match ticket etc) and no doubt causes a lot of aggro for the staff when the frustration starts on social media, and when the ticket office phone lines start blowing up with calls. 

There's lots of people posting screenshots on the wonderofyou etc who've had money taken but had no confirmation of a ticket, just a 404 message or a timed out loading page. This just leads to more workload for everyone when they have to chase Vale up to confirm that they even do have a ticket booked.

This has happened every time for in demand games since the online away ticketing system kicked off, but we don't seem to have learned. 

[Playa Amodores]

I’m not a ST, just a member. Why have any expiry on loyalty points.? 

[For Us All]

Anybody know if matchday tickets are only available online or can they still be purchased with cash or card at the ticket office.I can't get through on the phone at the moment?

[Fosse69]

4 minutes ago, Playa Amodores said:

I’m not a ST, just a member. Why have any expiry on loyalty points.? 

Otherwise  as an extreme, fans with 10 STs of points  would grab all the early tickets whereas STs of only 5 years would not get a look in.  So as a compromise rolling on after a year or two gives new STs a chance, whilst retaining the recent loyalty rewards. No scheme can be perfect, some better or less worse than others.

[rsb]

Changed from a season ticket last year to a membership + card this year went the ticket office monday  as won't be going all the home games health & age related reasons got to the window gave  recipt no membership card found so had to wait for it to be printed off then i was asked if i wanted my reading ticket and where asked for lorne street had to wait again for the printer to kick in to print ticket so on monday the ticket office where selling Barnsley , Reading, Blackpool. plus giving out season tickets and membership card  

[Playa Amodores]

11 minutes ago, Fosse69 said:

Otherwise  as an extreme, fans with 10 STs of points  would grab all the early tickets whereas STs of only 5 years would not get a look in.  So as a compromise rolling on after a year or two gives new STs a chance, whilst retaining the recent loyalty rewards. No scheme can be perfect, some better or less worse than others.

Fosse, TY for your reply and very true what you say about no scheme being perfect. I’ll never be in a position to have to worry about points as I don’t attend so many away games and I’m not an ST. If ppl have been going for ten years or more then they’ll have put quite a bit of money into the club. A lot of football fans are fickle and a lot will defend on performances on the pitch. Football isn’t cheap especially when you factor in travelling. The only reason I see for loyalty points is if we get a decent cup draw and the number of tickets we’re allocated doesn’t meet the number of our ST’s.

Do we have an away season ticket.?

[Fosse69]

Fosse, TY for your reply and very true what you say about no scheme being perfect. I’ll never be in a position to have to worry about points as I don’t attend so many away games and I’m not an ST. If ppl have been going for ten years or more then they’ll have put quite a bit of money into the club. A lot of football fans are fickle and a lot will defend on performances on the pitch. Football isn’t cheap especially when you factor in travelling. The only reason I see for loyalty points is if we get a decent cup draw and the number of tickets we’re allocated doesn’t meet the number of our ST’s.
Do we have an away season ticket.?

No, but some clubs have away membership schemes, or priority systems.

Sent from my SM-A715F using onevalefan mobile app

[jjvale_03]

6 hours ago, Jacko51 said:

You really do talk rubbish. I had no trouble using the online system last year but yesterday was crazy. 

I can't shake the Exeter away brown envelope saga. Everyone else camped out to get a ticket and the super fans waltzed in mid-afternoon and picked up their brown envelope.

To be fair, I took advantage of Vale's incompetency to attend that game so can't complain. Don't have to be a super fan to bamboozle the ticket office staff.

[Jacko51]

42 minutes ago, jjvale_03 said:

I can't shake the Exeter away brown envelope saga. Everyone else camped out to get a ticket and the super fans waltzed in mid-afternoon and picked up their brown envelope.

To be fair, I took advantage of Vale's incompetency to attend that game so can't complain. Don't have to be a super fan to bamboozle the ticket office staff.

Can you define "super fan" because I don't know what on earth you mean?

[Playa Amodores]

5 hours ago, rsb said:

Changed from a season ticket last year to a membership + card this year went the ticket office monday  as won't be going all the home games health & age related reasons got to the window gave  recipt no membership card found so had to wait for it to be printed off then i was asked if i wanted my reading ticket and where asked for lorne street had to wait again for the printer to kick in to print ticket so on monday the ticket office where selling Barnsley , Reading, Blackpool. plus giving out season tickets and membership card  

Went to the ticket office today and had to queue for an hour, which was no problem. A lady in the ticket office was going up the line sorting ppl out with ST collection, Barnsley tickets, to save them queuing 👏👏. Ppl were buying Blackpool tickets and they’d sold 1,015. Having obtained my membership, I asked for tickets for the next five home games, but got told that they couldn’t let me have the tickets as they don’t release them until fourteen days before each game.