Arsenal America

(The following is a message from our ticket officer, Rick)

Normal rules from the 19th July 2007. If you requested before this thats fine and your tickets are now to be taken as fully confirmed.

To everyone who wants to apply for tickets.
I have re-done these instructions at last to incorporate all the stuff that has gone on last season. I am going to put it in a format that is basically how you go about the process. If you need to ask me more questions about it, do so. But PLEASE bear in mind I get about 10-20 Pm’s and e-mails per day asking questions of which the information is either available elsewhere or are pointless questions.

1. You must be an Arsenal supporter and every ticket holder must be a paid Premium member of Arsenal America of the present season. One member cannot order more than one ticket unless he is ordering for other members. In the UK it’s one ticket per member, it’s the same for Supporters Clubs. Chelski, ManUre or Spurz supporters…..well, get your own damn tickets.

2. I have to get tickets 10 weeks before the game date. That is NOT negotiable. That is a club policy. I USED to be able to get tickets closer to the game date, but due to problems with someone who mucked me around, that has now been withdrawn. Most of the people who have been to games will know how much that will affect us. One or two tickets may come up last minute, but please understand that it will not be a regular thing.

3. Using the Big Soccer Message Boards, send a Private Message (PM) to “aa tickets” with the date of the match(es) and how many tickets you require. Know that nothing is guaranteed. If you are asking the impossible, I will let you know. It’s expected that you’ve already made arrangements and tickets are the final detail. That is a rule of Arsenal not mine.

4. Once I’ve confirmed that tickets are available through the club, I will ask you to PayPal Arsenal America the money. Please don’t send money until you receive an e-mail or PM asking for it though!!

Therefore this season we have decided the following:

a) ALL ticket payments have to be in GBP to our paypal account. No $ payments. Everyone is able to choose to pay for the tickets in GBP through Paypal so from now on if you put the amount into $ yourself we will refund it and ask you to pay it in $.

b) One of the costs is phone calls back and forth, going to the club, picking up tickets from other sources. We are cutting down on last minute tickets as Rick has said before and now we are going to keep to a set price for the tickets so you know what you have to pay.
This price is inclusive of the following things that we have to pay out:

Paypal fee’s which are approximately just over 4%
Exchange rates on credit card
30p per ticket for having paper tickets
Rick’s phone calls/travelcards etc etc
Admin costs
35GBP we will charge 42GBP
42GBP we will charge 49GBP
46GBP we will charge 53GBP
50GBP we will charge 57.50GBP
60GBP we wll charge 67.50GBP
66GBP we will charge 74GBP
70GBP we will charge 78GBP

Category A fixtures:
Chelsea
Liverpool
Manchester United
Tottenham Hotspur
West Ham United

All remaining Premier League games will be Category B.

The majority of FA Cup, UEFA Competitions and Carling Cup will be Category B fixtures. However, there will be some specific matches which will be designated as Category A fixtures.

Away game prices are determined by the club we play and that is on Arsenal.com. Depending on how we get the tickets (easily if they go to Silver, or difficult if they have 30 credits and I have to gt from another Supporters Club who will charge me 2GBP for getting them or special delivery costs etc etc) will depend on the price. This will vary for every game.

If people think these are too high and don’t want to pay them then in the end we will just have to stop getting tickets for our members. Unfortunately we dont set the fee’s that we are getting charged.

5. I require the money to be in the Arsenal America Paypal account no later than 5 days from requesting the money. Any longer and your request will be canceled automatically and you will be blacklisted from receiving tickets in the future. If you have requested tickets, put the money into your paypal account to be ready. Telling me that the money won’t be ready for x amount of days will lead to your request being canceled. We don’t want to be paid using e-cheque’s. Some of you in the past have paid using this method. It takes an extra week, which may mean we are down the money for two weeks. As we will be buying tickets every week we need to get the money back in the account as soon as possible. Paypal charge fee’s. They charge 4%. Please add that onto the total. They charge everyone, so everyone needs to add it.

6. PM your flight info and contact info while in London to me. This is very critical as it is how I and the club knows for sure you are coming and how to reach you when you get there. The club do ask every now and then for this info, so it needs to be there if they do. As most of you know it was someone who had not booked any travel and then refused to respond to me or other posters which has led to a downgrading of our favourable status in the clubs eye’s.

7. PM’s - I may not respond to every PM. Thats simply because I genuinely don’t have enough time to. I get a lot of questions which you can find the answers elsewhere. If you really need an answer from me, use Big Soccer to send a private mesage (PM) to Mike K (HighburyGoon), Matt (Bighorn), or Romeon (Bergkamp_4_ever). Between them they will know about Arsenal America, stuff over here and other ticket related things. If none of those three are online, please wait for them to come back to me. They will, I’m sure, let me know if there is something they can’t answer.

8. I will either meet you on the day or will leave the tickets at a part of the stadium which I will tell you in a PM about a week before the game. Don’t ask me to post tickets out or give them to you a day before or leave them at your hotel. I can’t, won’t and will get annoyed. Even if you are here for two games, you will only get each ticket on each match day. Special favours asked will be met with special glares and obsenities!!!

9. For away games we as a Supporters Club can arrange Travel for you. To do this I will need an e-mail from you with passport number and expiry date. I will then issue with an invoice through Arsenal America. We will charge £3.50 more than the club charge to cover costs etc. For you to book directly with the club you would need to pay for Travelclub membership, so it is still far cheaper for you to book through us.

10. If I am meeting you to give you your tickets, be on time. I have stood for half an hour before waiting for people who give me all kinds of excuses about the tube. I have to take it as well. I give everyone my mobile telephone number, if you are not going to be on time - call me. If you are more than 15 minutes late I will of gone to The Tavern, it is then up to you to find me as you will of been given my mobile number. If you have not contacted me before 30 minutes prior to kick off - your ticket is forfeited.

11. If you haven’t met/spoken to me before - ask the people here. Most have been to a game with me.

12. We should be able to this season get enough tickets for all games. If however you want to come to Man U, Liverpool, Chelsea or Spurs please try and request your ticket as soon as possible as these games will sell out quicker.

13. I don’t ask or need people to buy me a beer (although I won’t say no). I will ask though that if I got the tickets through Judy/Old St/Jeff/someone else, that you buy them a drink. They have gone out of their way for you and it would be appreciated if you reciprocated.

14. Please DO NOT post on this thread until I have confirmed your request. In that post I need your full name, match, ticket amount. Nothing else.

15. I have just been told that as Supporters Club tickets will be paper tickets at the Emirates, they will incur a surcharge of 30p per ticket. I was expecting this and knew this would be happening although didn’t know the exact amount, this is NOT an extra on top for you to pay, this is part of the £5 administration and expense charge. I was not able to tell people earlier as it hadn’t been confirmed to me the exact amount.

16. We do have some Club Level Seats Available this season, please state your preference on seating. Please note - I can NOT choose area’s or price brackets, Arsenal choose that BEFORE they confirm seats. Therefore you can choose either Club Level (1 x £96.50, 2 x £125, 2 x £176) or normal seating only.