MSE News: Olympic tickets re-sale Q&A with Martin Lewis

Former_MSE_Helen

This is the discussion thread for the following MSE News Story:

"Those who applied for London 2012 Olympic tickets and didn't get any can rebid today, Martin Lewis explains what to do ..."

Read the full story:
Olympic tickets re-sale Q&A with Martin Lewis

tronski

We logged on at 6am and had completed our 2nd application and had it processed by 6.03am. We've applied for handball and basketball. We looked at available sessions yesterday so we knew in advance what we were going to bid on. Not our first choice events but we wanted £20 tickets and to be in the Olympic village. Bit of a shame that there are few child tickets left - we've applied for one at the basketball. She'll only be 2 so wont realise she's missing out but it would be lovely to go as a family.

skylight

I too took a good look at the available sessions beforehand and decided that what I wanted to se was just too far out of my price range for what was left. Plus its still a "lottery" so I may get one set of tickets or all three. I just simply cannot afford it.

So I have decided to wait until the website that lets people sell unwanted ones is up and running next year and see if I can get what I want then.

skylight

And a PS - so much for those sour-pusses when we won the Olympic bid a few years back stating that no-one would be interested in attending and there would be loads of tickets left and empty seats!

JimmyTheWig

This meant the whole thing was skewed in favour of wealthier people

I presumed that this was their intention.

Q. What about people who got tickets, but not those they wanted. Can they rebid?
M: I'm in this boat myself

Martin, surely there's an unwritten Mantra that says if you don't want something, don't buy it!

MaryMusker

Martin, why did you apply for Archery tickets of you didn't want them? We applied for Archery but didn't get any - can I buy yours from you please?

stephenliverpool1

The whole ticketing system reminds me of the farcical end at the Beijing games with the London bus, which I found embarassing and cringe-worthy.

A Martin says, the whole process was designed for the wealthy and to maximise profits with the high ticket prices. I can't believe that anyone would pay more than £40 to watch an Olympic football match. I can watch Liverpool play a premiership game for £35 and the quality of the football will be much superior and exciting that watching the Olympic ones. I couldn't even tell you which country won any of the previous Olympics !! Saying this, I have applied for one of the football tickets for £20. Fingers crossed as they say.

They have had over 4 years to design a ticketing system and this is the best they could come up. They should have spoken to key stakeholders (e.g. Martin Lewis for the consumer side) beforehand to ascertain their requirements. A great one would have been to limit the number of tickets that each person could get in the first ballot. This would have enabled the tickets to have gone to more people.

I just hope London Olympics isn't a disaster like the London bus and this ticketing fiasco.

jennikitten

Martin's suggestion that you should have been able to bid without committing to paying is insane. It would have been abused to a massive extent - look at what happened with Amazon's Black Friday sale. People went after products they didn't even want just for the sake of it, and then removed from their basket because they didn't have any intention to buy, wasting everyone's time.

veryintrigued

Think the OC missed a trick here in that those people who already support the various associations should have been given some sort of priority.

I.e. those people who compete, watch and coach athletes at a non elite level before the Olympic band wagon rolled into town and will continue to do so way after it has left.

Not sure how many of those who were successful will (post 2012) for instance be running a 10k race in a wet Redcar on a Tuesday night or driving two hundred miles supporting their kids or stood measuring the long jump for kids in a half empty stadium.

People will argue that those successful with tickets will inspire participation but I doubt that. TV has done a remarkable job of doing that in the last 60 olympic-less years for GB & NI.

Yours ticketless but still hopeful (and still excited!)

mynameisclare

Has anyone had money taken from the second round yet? I had the email saying we were successful, but they still don't seem to have tried taking the payment.

ticket2ride

mynameisclare wrote: »

Has anyone had money taken from the second round yet? I had the email saying we were successful, but they still don't seem to have tried taking the payment.

Money showing as pending but not yet taken. Tickets confirmed by email and in "confirmed tickets" page on official website.