2009 Yankee Tickets Go On Sale For The General Public Today - Beware Of The Bait And Switch

Today at 10:00 AM the general public finally gets their crack at Yankee tickets without any preconceived notions of licensee status, lottery winner or anything else. All you have to do is be a human being (or a cleverly written computer program that knows how to read CAPTCHA), and you can log on to Ticketmaster.com to see what is left after the three separate presales. The good news for everyone not lucky enough to have been included in a prior presale is that the Yankees have created pools of tickets available for each presale. In theory, there should be close to as many Opening Day tickets for today's sale as there were for the other presales - or at least an incrementally lower number of tickets available.

That being said, everyone clicking away at Ticketmaster this morning should be aware of bait and switch tactics that we were alerted to by a tipster. This story is pretty unbelievable, but the screen grabs are there to prove it.

A well-off friend of one of our readers happily plopped down over $900 for a single ticket in section 24B, Row 5 for Opening Day against the Indians. Apparently these tickets are directly above the visitors dugout and $900 was in his budget. More power to him. This is the ticketfast confirmation of the purchase:


Order confirmation number redacted for his safety

Excitedly, he clicked on the "pick up your tickets" link, but to his dismay he was shown that he was assigned a ticket in a different section. Suddenly, his ticket was no longer directly above the dugout, but in section 24, and four rows further back. Here is what currently shows up in his Ticketmaster order history:



Sadly, this isn't even the worst part of the story. Not about to let this go, the poor guy who dropped nearly a G, only to have his tickets switched went back into ticketmaster to investigate. He searched for similar tickets and found that Ticketmaster had the audacity to put his original seat back up for sale, and was now charging $2,625:



As we mentioned, this entire story is almost too far-fetched to believe. However, when following the progression with the screen grabs, it is apparent that all of this actually happened. It looks like Ticketmaster made some sort of error selling that original ticket as a single seat, or selling it for the $900 price. Instead of alerting the customer, they just decided to switch out his ticket and put them back for sale - for $1,600 more.

So, what is this guy supposed to do now? It is likely that he splurged for a $900 ticket because he would be on top of the dugout for the first game ever in the new Yankee Stadium. Now he is sitting in the ridiculously priced box seats all alone and not even where he wanted to sit. It is unlikely that Ticketmaster's useless customer service will understand this complicated situation, so an easy resolution is not in the cards. Can anyone offer suggestions on the next steps to take for this poor guy? Read the full post, after the jump

The Final Slap In The Face To Partial Plan Ticket Holders

As everyone knows by now, we were downgraded from a B-plan (41 games) that we had since 2005 to a 20 game plan for the 2009 season, pretty much against our will (we were offered the B plan for $350 premium seats), during the relocation process.

Today, the Yankees issued the final slap in the face via this press release:

Prior to the public on-sale, all Yankees Premium, Full-Season and 41-Game Ticket Licensees will be able to purchase individual-game tickets, online only, via a pre-on-sale on Thursday, March 19. On the following day, Friday, March 20, all other Partial Plan Licensees (of 20-, 15-, 12- and 11-Game Plans) will be permitted to purchase individual-game tickets online only as well. For complete information, including ticket limits, please visit yankees.com.

This really is the decisive insult by the New York Yankees to their loyal ticket holders. Not only were former B-plan holders inconvenienced by losing their opening day tickets, their playoff tickets, and 21 additional games when they were downgraded to 20 game plans, but now we are bunched in with all of the other partial plan holders (and minor league season ticket holders!) for the pre-sale.

Instead of throwing us a bone and giving us the "first crack" at the premium games, downgraded B-plan holders are once again on the outside looking in, as people in the plan we used to be in and WISH WE COULD STILL BE IN get to purchase more tickets to games they already have.

This is an absolute disgrace. We truly hope that Richard Sandomir, Neil Best, Neil deMause and Jay Jaffe catch wind of this and give it the same attention that previous relocation fiascos have received.

The updated dates are as follows:

• March 17 - Registration for online sales random drawing end.
• March 18 - Random drawing for general public online sales takes place.
• March 19 - Yankee season ticket licensee pre-sale date for 2009 New York Yankees single game tickets for Full Season, Premium Seat and 41 game plan holders .
• March 20 - Emails are sent to "winners" of random drawing.
• March 20- Minor leage affiliates and Yankees partial plan (20-, 15-, 12- and 11-Game Plans) ticket licensee pre-sale date for 2009 New York Yankees single game tickets.
• March 23 (10 AM - 10PM) - Online only sale for 2009 Yankee single game tickets (with limitations on premium games) for those chosen in random drawing.
• March 24 - General on-sale for 2009 New York Yankee tickets at all outlets for any remaining tickets (Ticketmaster, Yankee Clubhouse stores, New Yankee Stadium Ticket Office).

Read the full post, after the jump

Yankee Ticket News - Random Drawing For The Opportunity To Participate In A 12-Hour Online Sale

Gone are the days when the casual fan was able to purchase Yankee tickets at their leisure. According to a page on Yankees.com, the initial single-game ticket on-sale for the general public will take place exclusively online during a 12-hour sale on March 23, 2009.

Not just anyone can get in on this sale - only people chosen in a random online drawing will be allowed access to this exclusive sale. This sale will cover all tickets from the Cubs exhibition games through the end of the regular season. This is NOT a pre-sale.

As of now, there is no word of a subsequent on-sale for people who don't have lady luck on their side in the random drawing. It would make sense that there would be some sort of in-person on sale at Yankee Stadium or Yankee Clubhouse stores, but nothing has been announced.

Be sure to sign up for the random drawing by March 17, 2009 at 10 PM. After that, the only online purchases for Yankee tickets you will be taking part in will be on Stubhub or Ebay.

This general public online sale does not have any affect on the season ticket pre-sale opportunity. According to a ticket office representative, no date is set for the season ticket holder pre-sale, but they are "aiming for late next week for the license holder pre-sales." That would be the 19th or 20th of March, so clear the dates!

UPDATE (3:23 PM) - A level-headed commenter offered up the following take in regard to the Yankees selling out the entire Stadium on the online sale day:

That's a rather bold statement to make. The Yankees could NEVER sell out the entire stadium for 83 games in 12 hours. It's impossible, and wishful thinking on their part to get people to buy up all these season tickets on stub hub and make people contemplate paying for seats they cant afford (either in the "onsale" when all they're offered is 175 dollar seats or ponying up for the 325 seats)

That is actually an excellent point, and one that I overlooked in my haste to get this information out there. Could this be another Yankee tactic to get fans to buy tickets on their terms? We will have to wait and see...

Talk about it in the Stadium Insider Forums!

Tax Season is here - Save By E-Filing Your Taxes and tell 'em Stadium Insider sent you - Only $19.95! Read the full post, after the jump