I looked in to doing this article around 12 months ago after a meeting with the club to discuss the loyalty points system and general away ticketing issues.
As the away fans representative on the Fans Forum I get a lot of questions relating to these issues so I thought this sort of article was the best way to respond.
However, despite numbers being mentioned by the club at that time, I was not given the exact figures needed to progress the article.
So, the questions asked.
Why can I NEVER get away tickets?
Well this season, you could in fact get tickets to at least 50% of away games simply by being a season ticket holder.
You could get tickets to 35% of games just by being a member.
You could get tickets to 25% on general sale. That’s on sale to anyone.
The figures for this season in terms of points are:
Bournemouth 90
Huddersfield 45
Watford 45
Man Utd 30
Man City 20
Liverpool 15
Arsenal 5
West Ham 5
Chelsea, Burnley and Leicester 0
Palace and Brighton Members
Everton, Swansea, Southampton, WBA and Stoke General Sale
Spurs TBC
Season 16/17 –
o 8 games with points only (20 points – highest 95)
o 3 to zero points
o 5 to members,
o 7 fixtures got to general sale
o Season 15/16 –
o 2 games points only ( 65 & 105)
o 3 zero points
o 14 went to members sale
o No general sale
So, you can never get tickets? think again.
As for the misconceptions over the thousands who have hundreds of loyalty points, it’s maybe nowhere near as bad as you might think.
Points totals are:
150+ 1122 fans
100-149 918 fans
75-99 615 fans
50-74 914 fans
25-49 2246 fans
Fans with less than 25 (minimum of 1 point) 18247
On a lot of allocations this season, some would think they have no chance of getting tickets given that there are over 3500 fans with more than 50 points. However, the first list of figures proves that not all of these fans will go to every game and there is more than enough availability for fans to gradually work their way up the loyalty points ladder.
The main difficulty appears to be around the “must go to” games.
Your bigger teams and the grounds everyone wants to visit. IMO these are nothing special.
There is no such thing as a bad away game or bad away experience. They are what you, the fans make them. We have a great away following and are generally well received wherever we go.
Please don’t convince yourself you can NEVER get a ticket. You can. It may not be the game you wanted, but try it. I will 100% guarantee you will enjoy it.
After all, It’s Rafa’s Newcastle United you go to watch, not some team put together by Middle Eastern or Russian money in zero atmosphere clubs.
Hope to see you soon on your travels! Keep the Faith.
Steve Wallwork
Follow Steve on twitter
Listen to this weeks free true faith podcast here:
I don’t have a problem with the loyalty points system. I think it more or less works well and there are no particularly unfair barriers to building a decent points total if you are so inclined. The big problem I do have is not with the points system, but with people abusing it. It’s a well registered fact that there are individuals who have a number of accounts (perhaps family members or friends who don’t go) and who buy tickets for friends using these accounts, or sell spares on Twitter. In doing so, they amass even more points enabling them to do this even more so in the future. This well and truly boils my piss and I think it is extremely unfair to those waiting for the total to come down and who could miss out.
I am just guessing, based on what I see and hear and who I know, that there are probably a few hundred tickets for each away game that get into the hands of people who did not buy them through their own personal account. These people may not even be season ticket holders (which is a joke). I’m not talking about kids with adults as I believe these can be bought through one account anyway.
I think that this should stop and anybody at an away game should be their through their own ticket. How could this be combated? Maybe you should require I.D in order to check that the person using the ticket is the same as the account from which it was bought. Also, the club could offer an official resale option if you bought a ticket and cannot go, so it goes to somebody waiting in line with loyalty points and not some kid on Twitter. At the end of the day it’s just greed from those buying multiple tickets and sorting out their mates who don’t have the points to buy their own tickets, and it shouldn’t be allowed.
Same as it’s always been really, put in a little bit of effort, and over time it will pay dividends…
But… and not a popular opinion I know, the above doesn’t apply to members. Whilst the system should always favour long-standing season ticket holders, it should also acknowledge that having a s/t isn’t always practical, and s/t holders aren’t the only ones travelling…
After a very long break, I started going to aways regularly (as a member) in 14/15, and managed 24 trips in two terrible seasons. Throw in another 3 from the tail end of 13/14 and 5 from 16/17 (when it started to get more difficult) and that’s a potential 32 loyalty points lost. This season I had the option of Sunday games at Brighton, Swansea, Southampton, Palace and Chelsea (FAC4). midweek trips to WBA and Everton, and a New Year’s day trip to Stoke. Even if I’d gone to all of them, (I didn’t, I only managed Palace & Chelsea in the Cup), I would have received another 0 points…
I don’t want to cherry pick, I’ve been to all of the above, even if Brighton was at the Goldstone Ground. But it would be nice to think that, eventually, I would have the option of the occasional Saturday afternoon…
Yeah I never understood why members couldn’t accumulate loyalty points…
Cheers for that
Explains a lot