AN ALTERNATIVE TICKET PLAN.

There was no way I was sitting four rows from the top of Citi Field for another year. No way. I called the Mets constantly about this, were told, repeatedly, that there was no way to move (yet), that there was nowhere to move us. I kept saying, I understand that you can’t move me down in my section, but how about moving me towards third base (so I could see into the dugout). I waited, and waited, and waited, waited until December, when they were going to release tickets held by other ticket plan holders. Row 9, Row 10, but moving pretty far out, further out than we wanted to go. I waited, and there was still nothing. I waited, and then we accepted that the best we would do is row 9 or 10 all the way out almost at Promenade Reserved.

The problem, of course, is that the Promenade Reserved Infield is the only ticket at Citi Field that is fairly priced. It is the only truly affordable ticket. There really are enough full season ticketholders in that price level for that reason.

I finally said: enough. Enough with dealing with the Mets.

So we started looking for a season ticket holder who would sell us what we wanted: every Tuesday and every Friday home game. We didn’t ask for Opening Day and we didn’t ask for the Yankees – we would sell the Subway Series tickets if we had them in our plan. We posted notes on Craigslist and in a few online forums with which TBF is acquainted, and we waited. It didn’t take long for us to have multiple offers.

Everyone, without exception, offered to sell us 24 games at the season ticket holder price (everyone that is except for the idiot who felt that this was the time for him to ask for a MARKUP ABOVE FACE VALUE…not even just the full ticket price, a 10% markup. We just never answered his emails). And TBF tells me to not advertise my exact row and section but I will tell you that I am sitting in the first four rows of a very good section in the PRI and that I am very, very happy with my seating location.

We don’t get the plan holder gift. We don’t get to drive through Brooklyn chasing DHL or UPS to get our shipment (because the Mets just cannot grok the concept of shipping addresses vs billing addresses). We don’t get postseason rights (don’t laugh). We do, however, get exactly the games we want. We get to see one game in every series. We get to see every team that comes through Citi Field (except the Yankees, and we always go to the House of Evil for that anyway). We will be picking up our tickets from our season ticket holder on Opening Day – where we are sitting in lovely Promenade Club seats TBF picked up on a ticket drop about a week or so ago.

I’m not seeing the down side here.

I know. There is a new ticket office and a new VP of ticket sales and they were giving people time to pay and they were making up all sorts of plans. I know, we are untypical fans. I know this, but I can’t imagine there aren’t other people like us – I know of plenty of former Tuesday-Friday plan holders at Shea (they were our neighbors in 514 row ZZZ for the past two years) who liked that plan for the same reasons we did. They might learn something if they listened to fans. Instead, this was my experience:

“So how many games a year do you go to?”
“30-40, by the time we’re done, not counting road games.”
“So why don’t you buy a 40 game plan?”
“Great! I’d love to buy a 40 game plan in the Promenade Reserved Infield. What do you have available?”
“Oh… the Promenade.”
“That’s always the problem.”
“I could put you in the Promenade Club…”
“Those tickets are as expensive as the field level. More expensive in some cases.”
“More expensive.”
“Right, I can’t afford that.”
“You can’t afford that.”

I wanted to say, “Hey, dude, can you do some simple math? An average – premium – game for a ticket plan holder is $59.50 for the Promenade Club, but only $31.50 in the Promenade Reserved Infield,” but this is not the first time I have had this conversation with a ticket rep for the Mets. Why is it so hard to understand that someone who can afford $31.50 per ticket can’t necessarily afford $59.50 per ticket? Why, instead of noting the issue and telling me that if they ever did start selling 40 game plans in the PRI, that they’d give me a call, did the guy laugh derisively at me when I told him that the fact that they couldn’t sell us what we wanted meant that we were going to buy 25 games, every Tuesday and Friday home game, from an existing season ticket holder? “You go and do that,” was his response.

Anyone can do this. I didn’t advertise on Twitter or on the site, we just went looking for regular old Mets fans who were happy to sell 25 games on their existing package and get that cash up front. Think about it the next time, before you fork over all that cash to the Wilpons right before Christmas.

I liked being a plan holder. I liked the feeling of it. I liked saying that I was a plan holder. But the Mets haven’t given me any reason to do it any more. The only benefit I will miss is the ability to buy tickets via phone without a service charge.

TIME FOR THE WEEKLY SERVICE CHARGE EDITORIAL:

No one in the media is reporting on this — the exorbitant service charges to buy Mets tickets. It turns a $10 ticket into a $15 ticket. $4 per ticket and $5 per order is insane, especially since they don’t use Ticketmaster and all of their ticketing is done in house. Ticketmaster already learned this lesson – just price the ticket at the real price and stop adding “service charges”.

END EDITORIAL