My wife has agreed to make Friday night, Game 3 my birthday present this year. I have to admit that I was surprised by how much tickets are selling for on Stubhub. $650 (before fees) for standing room only and $800 for a seat. We are hoping to bring my daughter who is a huge Astros fan but at these prices we may have to leave her home. Before buying through Stubhub I have questions I hope some of you can answer. Is Stubhub the best marketplace for tickets? Is there a way to reach sellers to bypass fees such as Craigslist without getting scammed? Can I expect a large drop in price for tickets as game time nears? We are coming in from Austin so it is ideal to have tickets in hand by the time we drive to Houston.
I used craigslist a few years ago for texans postseason tickets. I was nervous about it as well. We met in a public place and I was made sure the tickets looked legit before handing over the money. It was a last minute decision and I only started to look that morning. By early afternoon, 3 hours or so before the game, prices started to drop. Some people were being irrational, of course, but I ended up with great seats and for a reasonable amount. I will probably stick with a 3rd party marketplace like stubhub, vivid seats, seatgeek or something like that but I might checkout craigslist too.
Pricey. Like other birthday gift options, do those tickets come with complementary birthday present bj, or are you essentially cashing in on that this year.
I use tickpick.com or their app. Screw stubhub, tickpick doesnt charge all those ridiculous fees. Now that you wont have to pay those fees, you can spring for my ticket as well. Im very respectful and wont even bother yall.
Best way? Apply for a credit card with a $5k+ limit, take out a max 401k loan, reverse mortgage your home, and empty out your savings.
If you are going to use any of those sites, I would just wait till game day. Everyone puts the up for crazy prices hoping people buy. Each day you will see the prices keep coming down as they see they aren't sold yet. By game day they are going to try and get something out of their tickets so prices tend to drop a ton. That's what I usually do. Out here in LA. They started at 1500, went to 900, yesterday the lowest was 799, and right now I just checked the cheapest is 740.
It's definitely worth being patient. Prices are already down around 20% from 2 days ago. I'm looking at game 5 in particular.
Also don't forget to take out a title loan at those cash advance places! I hear they have the best interest rates.
The best way was to enter the world series lottery and hope your name was chosen. If not just enjoy it on tv or go to a bar and enjoy it with other fans. There is no event that I could spend that kind of money on and I love sports as much as anyone. The World Series, Super Bowl, and NBA Finals aren't events for regular joe fans. Those events are for the corporate big wigs that pay the big bucks to advertise on the broadcasts.
Have you (or anyone else) purchased tickets from them? How soon do you get the tickets after you purchase them on line? Are they hard copy tickets or a printout?
fwiw, for Game 6 of ALCS, I waited outside entrance line, about 6:55, I kept refreshing Stubhub, was about to buy a SRO ticket for $42 which was the lowest ticket, refreshed one more time, got an actual seat for $38 after fees. Ticket was in my account after my payment, and was able to use Stubhub's app to pull up the digital ticket and was scanned in no problem. Of course being World Series, it's going to be 15-20x more. Just a note, Stubhub stops selling tickets at 7pm on the dot, while Vividseats and SeatGeek still sells tickets even after first pitch. Good luck, I'm going to try my all 3 games. Also, face value for tickets, at least to the public, non season ticket holder prices before fees was $199 for SRO, $205+ for actual seat