Cheeky add-on charges.

[Brandane]

I thought Ryanair were bad, but the O2 Academy are pretty good at extracting the urine when it comes to "add-ons".

Just booked 2 tickets to go and see Squeeze with the Lightning Seeds as support band, at the O2 Academy in Glasgow in November. Ticket prices are advertised at £33.50 each, fair enough. Then when it comes to payment there is a "service fee" (whatever that might be) of £4.19 (x2), but even more cheeky than that is the "delivery fee" of £2.25 (x2).

Delivery fee?? The chosen method of delivery is to print the things myself from a PDF file!

I am going to compile a Victor Meldrew style letter of complaint, suggesting that they should actually be paying me for the paper and ink used, not to mention my labour charge for printing THEIR tickets!

 

[Archie_tect]

Even had to pay the 'booking fee' when we went to the Arena in Newcastle to buy 2 tickets for Elbow in March 2011

 

[davefb]

i 'love' the fact that the excuse for one of the charges is 'coz the new tickets cost a lot to print with the anticopying holograms' , yeah they cost a lot in my printer ink....


not only is it a cheek, but it's a rip off because they have a monopoly and you have no choice in the matter.



hehe, yeah, 'dear o2 acadamy , my charges £10 for printing the tickets, thanks brandane'..

 

[Bird Brain]

I think I got stuffed by o2.

Paid a tenner instead of £15 this month because I just wanted infinite web instead of web and text.Looks like I got it the other way round.So I paid another tenner and didn't get the usual what I pay for every month on pay and throw up.Text and web.Good old o2

I still haven't found how to get just unlimited web instead of web and text.

 

[Chutzpah]

I had a protracted email exchange with Ticketmaster once over their 'TicketFast' service. Same thing as above, where you print them off, but they still charged you for it.

Their argument was that the charge was covering the cost of investment in the TicketFast machines, and couldn't see my argument that that wasn't my concern. I also did some fag packet calculations and worked out that on an average show in a decent sized venue they should have more than comfortable covered the cost, so claiming that rationale for every single show that they sell for that venue was stupid.

 

[vernon]

Surcharges are not confined to O2 Academy.

I've yet to come across any surcharge free tickets online.

It seems a rip off to pay for a delivery service which is purely electronic but the alternative is not to buy tickets at all or purchasing directly at the box offices of the venues concerned.

 

[Tim Bennet.]

I've yet to come across any surcharge free tickets online.

I think you're right. But it's really hard sometimes to buy from the box office if you don't live close enough to visit.
The surcharges piss me off each time.

 

[Black Sheep]

I could understand a small surcharge for electronic delivery given server maintenance fees etc, but surely £1 on each ticket would be covering that

if you were presented with the options

electronic to print yourself £1
standard delivery £2
next day delivery £5
collect on day £3

would that be more acceptable as you can understand the cost? or is it surcharges in general we don't like?