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

Yankee Season Ticket Holder Pre-Sale Update: How did everyone do?

Today the Yankees allowed ticket holders of Half and Full season plans access to single game tickets on Ticketmaster. Now that we have been upgraded to a half-season plan, we were lucky enough to be involved in this pre-sale.

I focused my frantic clicking on finding tickets to some of the "premium" games, for example, Opening Day or games against rival opponents. While I was unable to find any affordable tickets for Opening Day, I did manage to get a pair of tickets for 2 games against the Red Sox.

The seats for both games are located in section 407A in the Grandstand. For September 27th, the seats are in Row 1, while the August 9th tickets put us in Row 6. It seems several others found tickets in the same section for other games as well.

I was disappointed that I was unable to find tickets for the ultra-cheap Cubs exhibitions. Ross was only able to get a single ticket to one of the games which reminded me of the only time I went to see the Yankees on my lonesome. It was a day game, a scorcher in the summer of 07, and Kei Igawa was rocking his signature sunglasses on the hill. By "rocking" I mean, boring me so badly that I left early. I think he threw a pitch once a minute...BOOOOOOORING. Back on topic now: I insist I will not attend another game alone. Not gonna happen.

So, anyone make out especially well during today's pre-sale? Leave some comments -- hope you found some awesome, affordable seats (YEAH, RIGHT.). Read the full post, after the jump

A Sneak Peak At The Confusing Yankee Ticket Options On Ticketmaster

Via the message boards of baseball-fever.com comes this interesting Yankee-related item. Prospective Yankee ticket buyers can get a sneak peak at the drop-down menu that may greet them when purchasing 2009 Yankee tickets.



This screen grab is taken from the purchase page for the inspirational speaker, Joel Osteen's event at the end of April. It is immediately apparent that there are more options than in the past, and all of the sponsored seats make things a bit confusing.

We can't confirm that all of these options will be the same for a baseball game, but it can be assumed that many of the options will be the same. Not sure where The Mohegan Sun Sports Bar is, but it would be awesome if it included a casino (it doesn't). That would make Yankee Stadium a viable year-round venue!

We would like to note that as exciting of an opportunity as it was, we passed on our Joel Osteen tickets. It was a tough decision, but in the end the recession got the best of us. Read the full post, after the jump