Oh my god, I fucking hate our ticket office at times. When the hell was this announced? You'd think the fact I pay £30 to be a 'member' they'd send an email once in a while.
I know what you mean, if I hadn't logged on to the ticket site to see if there were any late tickets left for Arsenal, I wouldn't have had a clue that the derby tickets were on sale. It's ridiculous that the club can be good in most areas yet one of the most important, the ticket office, is absolutely abysmal.
I can't remember the last time I got an email off them, unless it's one trying to get me to spend money with Thomas Cook.
The way it
supposedly works is that any returned or unsold tickets are made available to members first, then fancard holders, then they go to general sale. This makes the most sense, is fair, and is how it used to be done, even for most of this season.
But both the Arsenal and Wigan games have gone straight to General sale and then sold out - so I couldn't get a ticket for either game despite wanting to. The Everton game is also General sale, except you need to have gone to at least one game this season, so that made it a bit easier to get tickets.
Complained about the process of not giving priority to members/fancard holders on the live chat (which incidentally is only open from 9am-12pm Tuesday to Friday - which half-decent money making business only has support available for 3 hours a day, 4 hours a week? Unreal) and this is what I was told: there has already been a sale for members.
Yes, that would be the half-season ticket sale back in
November, where you're a) very lucky to get a ticket for every game and b) if you do, you have to spend £400+ on tickets in one go, which I and I'm guessing quite a few others couldn't afford to at the time.
I pointed out that previous games have gone on sale to members first, which was ignored and I was told sales are advertised when they know about them. Complete bullshit - as you said they never bother emailing, and I've checked .tv today and there's absolutely nothing in the News section about Arsenal, Everton OR Wigan tickets. What does "when we know about them" even mean anyway? You're the ticket office, you should know what you're doing since it's your responsibility to organise ticket sales.
At that point I was asked "is there anything else I can help you with?" when I'd barely had chance to read the previous response, and a couple of seconds later "Rosalyn" or whatever her name was disconnected without even waiting for an answer.
Awful customer service all round. Seriously wondering what I'm paying 30 quid a year for at the moment, because it definitely isn't priority access to tickets.