I think I have a solution to the Mets’ desire to have a full house while not annoying those who buy ticket plans.
This weekend the Mets are selling (sold? I wrote this Monday so I could travel today) $3.50 tickets. That made people like me sad since I had paid more than that as part of my ticket plan.
The solution?
“Frequent flier miles.” Let’s call them Mets Points and not bog down in how many points you get for what – the Mets have all kinds of smart executives who can take this idea and massage it.
When I buy an airline ticket I get miles. What if when I bought a ticket plan I got Mets Points?
Sometimes I can redeem my miles for flights. Sometimes I can fly to Phoenix for miles and $5 (did that last year.) Sometimes I want to fly to Florida on the day before Thanksgiving and I can’t use miles because the flights are sold out. I get it.
So what if I could take my Mets Points and cash them in for some tickets that otherwise are going to waste. Maybe 10,000 Mets Points gets me into Mets-Nationals on a snowy Tuesday night. Maybe a good Mets game costs me 25,000 points, or good seats are $20 and 50,000 points. Maybe I can’t use Mets Points for the Subway Series
Sometimes I can use my frequent flier miles to get “stuff.” I had enough miles at one point that I cashed them in for a bike. Another time an Apple TV.
Maybe I could use Mets Points to get one of those Seaver replica jerseys. Or a cap. Or a hot dog.
Now what does this have to do with $3.50 tickets? Imagine you got the following letter
Dear (Your Name),
Thank you for being a valued ticket plan holder of the New York Mets.
This weekend we are offering a blah blah $3.50 blah blah.
We also wanted to recognize you as someone who supports the Mets through thick and thin, and are adding 19,640 Mets Points to your account. This weekend you can redeem x points for Thing Y or you can hold on to your points and turn them in for one of the offerings at mets.com/metspoints
So yeah, maybe you paid $25 for a seat someone else will pay $3.50 for – but maybe you could walk away with a cap or a hot dog or a Seaver shirt or something.
Maybe that would take the sting out of things for the die-hards, and allow the Mets to pursue their understandable goal of wanting fannies in the seats.
If others have suggestions how to make this genesis of an idea even better please share them in the comments.
As for “Mets Money” – I needed an image so I used that. I never understood Mets Money. If I remember correctly you could turn in $5 for 5 dollars in Mets money which had the spending power of five US dollars. There was no benefit unless you were planning to run a blog in the next century and wanted a cool image.
Just don’t buy a ticket plan. This team has given everyone enough reason to not buy one with all the late announced ticket deals and special ticket only promotional items (like last year’s GKR bobble). Until this team looks like they’re a threat to make it the postseason and you have the option to buy playoff tickets, there’s really no benefit to getting one. And even one day, in the hopefully not to distant future, when they are a playoff contender you’ll almost certainly be able to buy prorated plans during the season to secure playoff tickets, I did that during the 1999 and 2006 seasons when it was obvious that those teams were for real.
Pretty simple idea that makes sense! The Mets won’t use it then.
I am of the mind set of Smelvin Mora. I would not buy a ticket plan. It it much easier and cheaper as the Mets proved, just to buy individual tickets.
You don’t have to worry about weather, last minute “I cant make it to that game and so on.
It seems obvious that it is really easy to get a ticket below face value now.
Kind of a reverse dynamic pricing.
I have had a continuous partial plan since
85. I have said this to the front office as well as every rep that I have
had. Institute a tiered anniversary for partial plans with prizes for each
plateau. 2yr-5-yr-8yr-10 yr and so on. The top plateau should be
the ability to purchase playoff ticket (different section) for every possible
playoff game instead of getting a code and a phone #. After all, the longtime
partial plan holder is probably one of their biggest supporter, who else should
be at every game when the playoffs one day miraculously occur?, The
Mets sold a lot of tickets when the stadium was new and the years they were in
playoff contention but it is the diehards that come out and keep supporting the
team when the mets are miserable. I think many fans would keep their plan
if they knew that ultimately when the days come they will be rewarded with
playoff tickets. Then it wouldn’t matter what promo they ran for the non
season ticket holder.
I can’t remember if I had a conversation with somewhere where this was a thing, or I was suggesting it to my ticket rep. I used to joke about getting an “8 games I promise plan” for the Devils where I would swipe my card upon entry and I get ticket plan discounts after 8 games (I ended up getting full season at a decent price instead), but I think I also heard that the Devils are doing something similar or were thinking about it or something (I need to take better notes next time).
and promos like this made me regret a bit that I bought a ticket plan (even the most flexible 10 game plan possible) and chose Saturday’s game for it. but i had to exchange the ticket for another day because of some on-going health issues preventing me from making it out to Shea this weekend.