Topic: FAN CARDS discontinued

[lar311]

I have received an email from LFC saying FC will be discountinued:

As part of streamlining our processes and systems to provide the best possible service to supporters, from the 2019/20 season the Club will no longer operate the Fan Card Scheme. There is only a very small number of Fan Cards in circulation and it is no longer a sustainable process that we can continue to facilitate. Fan Cards will therefore no longer be able to be used to purchase tickets.

As a supporter who may have used their Fan Card to purchase tickets in the 2018/19 season, you are invited to join the Club’s Official Light Membership for free for the 2019/20 season. When you join, your ticket purchase history will then be transferred from your Fan Card onto your Membership Card. Your Customer Number will remain the same.

LFC Official Membership offers fans priority access to tickets together with opportunity to join the Auto-Cup Scheme and access to late availability ticket sales. LFC Official Members also receive a host of other benefits such as access to a Members Only area online, retail discount, a quarterly digital magazine and opportunity to enter competitions for once-in-a-lifetime prizes.

I remember FC was meant to be a lifetime scheme. Again club wants us loyal supporters to caugh up....

Shame really

[rocco]

Is there much of a difference from Fan Card to Membership Card.

[CraigDS]

Is there much of a difference from Fan Card to Membership Card.

Think you have to pay £20 or so for the membership.

[Red Beret]

Cough up? They're offering to transfer you for free.

[Dublin Red]

Cough up? They're offering to transfer you for free.

For the first year.....

[redgriffin73]

"The only card you'll ever need"...

[swoopy]

"The only card you'll ever need"...

Just came to write the same thing

[Claire.]

So what does this mean? You just have to get a new card or you have to have paid the fee to have any access?

[CraigDS]

So what does this mean? You just have to get a new card or you have to have paid the fee to have any access?

Sounds like you get free membership for the first year when you switch, but then after that will have to pay £25 to get the light membership.

[Fazak_Red]

I've got an old fancard that is linked to my account but no longer have access to the e-mail registered to it.

Any ideas of how I would be able to switch it over to a membership?

[Ziltoid]

Sounds like you get free membership for the first year when you switch, but then after that will have to pay £25 to get the light membership.

From Watt Age can you get that from?

[Red Beret]

For the first year.....

Well that's not very nice.  Least they could do is offer three years. 

I guess plenty will be literally turning in their fancards.

[Alan_X]

I've got an old fancard that is linked to my account but no longer have access to the e-mail registered to it.

Any ideas of how I would be able to switch it over to a membership?

Write to the club with the fan card number.

[Alan_X]

No offence intended but a light membership is £10.00 a year and they stopped issuing Fan Cards before FSG took over as far as I can remember. Most 'loyal supporters' moved over to Membership years ago (I changed from Fancard to membership in 2014) and use their membership to buy tickets.

If anyone is going to hang their hat on a promise made by the club under different owners I suggest they contact Mrs Hicks or Mr Gillett for their £10 back.

[redgriffin73]

No offence intended but a light membership is £10.00 a year and they stopped issuing Fan Cards before FSG took over as far as I can remember. Most 'loyal supporters' moved over to Membership years ago (I changed from Fancard to membership in 2014) and use their membership to buy tickets.

If anyone is going to hang their hat on a promise made by the club under different owners I suggest they contact Mrs Hicks or Mr Gillett for their £10 back.

Light membership isn't a tenner, more like £26.99 or something I think from memory.

[CraigDS]

No offence intended but a light membership is £10.00 a year and they stopped issuing Fan Cards before FSG took over as far as I can remember. Most 'loyal supporters' moved over to Membership years ago (I changed from Fancard to membership in 2014) and use their membership to buy tickets.

If anyone is going to hang their hat on a promise made by the club under different owners I suggest they contact Mrs Hicks or Mr Gillett for their £10 back.

It's £27, so bit more than a tenner but not a huge amount.

2008 they stopped issuing new fan cards.

[anitrella]

What about those who buy in the local general sale, they don’t have a membership so are they classed as fancard holders?

[Alan_X]

It's £27, so bit more than a tenner but not a huge amount.

2008 they stopped issuing new fan cards.

Fair enough. The point still stands. The world moves on. Ticketing technology has developed in line with computing power - when I got my fan card there were no iPhones, Twitter and Facebook were barely a thing and 'broadband' for many of us was 512kbits/sec. Windows XP was the latest operating system and my Mac was still using PowerPC chips.

Fan cards are a legacy and the club have been supporting them for eleven years since they were discontinued. The only beef is that someone in the marketing department was naive enough to think that the Fan Card would ever be superceded.

If the OP is that upset he should write to Trading Standards. Maybe he'll win and a few legacy Fan Cards users will use up resources in the ticket office while the rest of us pay for the privilege.

[CHOPPER]

Not sure how these work, but as along as whatever credits you have on it, are transferable, whats the problem.


Get with the programme.

[thekitkatshuffler]

A local business puts up its subscription fee for the first time in over a decade and all people can do is moan.

I for one think it's a bargain to help support the 2,000 jobs generated by this local business.

 

[ant]

I've got an old fancard that is linked to my account but no longer have access to the e-mail registered to it.

Any ideas of how I would be able to switch it over to a membership?

if you have the fc number and password you can update to a membership on the clubs membership buying page as an existing customer :

https://www.liverpoolfc.com/membership/purchase/verification

if not ring/email the club with your details and they will do it for you over the phone - YNWA !

[oojason]

I have received an email from LFC saying FC will be discountinued:

As part of streamlining our processes and systems to provide the best possible service to supporters, from the 2019/20 season the Club will no longer operate the Fan Card Scheme. There is only a very small number of Fan Cards in circulation and it is no longer a sustainable process that we can continue to facilitate. Fan Cards will therefore no longer be able to be used to purchase tickets.

As a supporter who may have used their Fan Card to purchase tickets in the 2018/19 season, you are invited to join the Club’s Official Light Membership for free for the 2019/20 season. When you join, your ticket purchase history will then be transferred from your Fan Card onto your Membership Card. Your Customer Number will remain the same.

LFC Official Membership offers fans priority access to tickets together with opportunity to join the Auto-Cup Scheme and access to late availability ticket sales. LFC Official Members also receive a host of other benefits such as access to a Members Only area online, retail discount, a quarterly digital magazine and opportunity to enter competitions for once-in-a-lifetime prizes.

I remember FC was meant to be a lifetime scheme. Again club wants us loyal supporters to caugh up....

Shame really

Sad to see. Haven't received an email from them yet.

The club quietly stopped selling tickets to us Fan Card Holders for Champions League matches (to us fans with the required loyalty) after the Group Stages in 2017/18 (Spartak was the last game, I think?) [Edit - the club stopped selling to FCHs for home games]

When I wrote them and asked why all I got back was a lazily compiled reply of lies, mistakes and bullshit - no truthful reason given.

No acknowledgement of it being 'the only card you'll ever need' either.


'We Are Liverpool. This Means Costs More.' / Belong / Turning Supporters Into Customers - whatever the fake and insincere tagline spiel is these days. I suppose 'Give us more of your money for nothing - or we'll find people who will and fuck you off.' hasn't the quite the same ring to it?

[Byrneand]

Appreciate that this is slightly off topic.

I've been living out the country for a while and likely to move back with the family in a couple of years. If I'm trying to sort out tickets for my dad who's still local, if I get a membership in my name:

1) Can I buy tickets through that for him?
2) Does each membership only get you one ticket or can you buy multiple tickets with one membership?
3) Does the names person need to be there at the ticket gate?

Any advice would be great... along with if its even worth going the membership route.

Thanks!

[Jake]

The fact someone has to have an annual subsription to be a member is a fucking rip off whether it's ten quid or 27 quid. A one off fee for the card and to set up on a database should be all that is required.

What were the figures the other year? 100,000 memberships sold, 5,000 tickets per game. Even if every single member only went to one game there'd be 5,000 who couldn't get a ticket to any.

You just want to go to the one game? That 59 pound ticket just cost you 86 quid mate.

Didn't get through the queue on member sales day? Tough shit thanks for your 27 quid mate.

Atrocious and greedy.

[Greyfox]

As I remember it cost me a whole £3.50 when I joined the fancard scheme
Still got it in a drawer...and i'm sure I was "invited" to join the memberships thing some years ago for £27

[stevienash]

I got email but 2 others I know haven’t had the email yet.

[Medellin]

The fact someone has to have an annual subsription to be a member is a fucking rip off whether it's ten quid or 27 quid. A one off fee for the card and to set up on a database should be all that is required.

What were the figures the other year? 100,000 memberships sold, 5,000 tickets per game. Even if every single member only went to one game there'd be 5,000 who couldn't get a ticket to any.

You just want to go to the one game? That 59 pound ticket just cost you 86 quid mate.

Didn't get through the queue on member sales day? Tough shit thanks for your 27 quid mate.

Atrocious and greedy.

Is right.

[Eeyore]

The fact someone has to have an annual subsription to be a member is a fucking rip off whether it's ten quid or 27 quid. A one off fee for the card and to set up on a database should be all that is required.

What were the figures the other year? 100,000 memberships sold, 5,000 tickets per game. Even if every single member only went to one game there'd be 5,000 who couldn't get a ticket to any.

You just want to go to the one game? That 59 pound ticket just cost you 86 quid mate.

Didn't get through the queue on member sales day? Tough shit thanks for your 27 quid mate.

Atrocious and greedy.

Exactly.

In essence it is a ticket Tax. You don't want to pay it then there are plenty of supporters customers who will.

As you say you aren't paying a premium to garner an advantage, you are paying a premium just to get on the bottom rung of the ladder.

[CraigDS]

10,000 a game go to members don’t they?

[terry_macss_perm]

The fact someone has to have an annual subsription to be a member is a fucking rip off whether it's ten quid or 27 quid. A one off fee for the card and to set up on a database should be all that is required.

What were the figures the other year? 100,000 memberships sold, 5,000 tickets per game. Even if every single member only went to one game there'd be 5,000 who couldn't get a ticket to any.

You just want to go to the one game? That 59 pound ticket just cost you 86 quid mate.

Didn't get through the queue on member sales day? Tough shit thanks for your 27 quid mate.

Atrocious and greedy.

Well said.

Pathetic really that anyone would try and defend it, even on here.

[OneTouchFooty]

Well said.

Pathetic really that anyone would try and defend it, even on here.

Yep, it's an unnecessary ripoff to just be allowed access to buy tickets, loads must never get a sniff of a ticket either. The club don't need to gouge £3-4m a year from the members to keep the system afloat.

[Barneylfc∗]

The fact someone has to have an annual subsription to be a member is a fucking rip off whether it's ten quid or 27 quid. A one off fee for the card and to set up on a database should be all that is required.

What were the figures the other year? 100,000 memberships sold, 5,000 tickets per game. Even if every single member only went to one game there'd be 5,000 who couldn't get a ticket to any.

You just want to go to the one game? That 59 pound ticket just cost you 86 quid mate.

Didn't get through the queue on member sales day? Tough shit thanks for your 27 quid mate.

Atrocious and greedy.

I agree with your overall point, but there has never been 100,000 trying to buy tickets in any of the sales. I'm sure last year the blog at its highest was 19,000 in the free for all. That was 19,000 sessions, not 19,000 different members. As most know, some of these people have 5/6 devices with 5/6 browsers on each device. Taking that into consideration, you're probably looking at 12,000 people trying to buy tickets during the free for all.

[BCCC]

At least they're transferring loyalty, they just scrapped the PTS scheme and threw away the "loyalty".

[Alf]

At least they're transferring loyalty, they just scrapped the PTS scheme and threw away the "loyalty".

The loyalty from the PTS was rolled over into the current members scheme.

[BCCC]

The loyalty from the PTS was rolled over into the current members scheme.

It may have been recorded (although I'd have to check) but certainly wasn't rewarded as loyalty.

[nickyd186]

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/liverpool-end-fan-card-scheme-16524478?AScasc

[ABJ]

The only card that you'll 'ever' need.

[nickyd186]

The only card that you'll 'ever' need.

Yeah so if you hadn't renewed your membership this season does that mean there going to give it you for free now?

[lar311]

Fair enough. The point still stands. The world moves on. Ticketing technology has developed in line with computing power - when I got my fan card there were no iPhones, Twitter and Facebook were barely a thing and 'broadband' for many of us was 512kbits/sec. Windows XP was the latest operating system and my Mac was still using PowerPC chips.

Fan cards are a legacy and the club have been supporting them for eleven years since they were discontinued. The only beef is that someone in the marketing department was naive enough to think that the Fan Card would ever be superceded.

If the OP is that upset he should write to Trading Standards. Maybe he'll win and a few legacy Fan Cards users will use up resources in the ticket office while the rest of us pay for the privilege.

FC was meant to be a permanent membership ( super-light if you like) to allow people to buy tickets and record their credits electronically. Previously ticket stubs had to be sent to Ticket Office  as a proof of attendance and were sent back to us once "hole-punched"

I never wanted the additional benefits of store discounts etc... FC was a perfect solution for fans and should have been respected. Membership was introduced so the new entries are charged and to justify that the so-called other benefits were implemented....10% discount is to fuel even more cash going in

some people will use it only to buy tickets and keep credit history. i am pretty sure there is a significant number of people still having FC which turns out to be a decent potential profit....otherwise why discontinue it?

Greed I say....

[Alf]

It may have been recorded (although I'd have to check) but certainly wasn't rewarded as loyalty.

I was sceptical myself at the time but loyalty was recognised for Cat A sales after SOS took the matter up with Ian Ayre. Found the letter earlier, what a load of shite that was.

Dear …,

As a valued supporter we are writing to inform you of some important changes to the Club’s Priority Ticketing Scheme Membership.

Over the past few months, the club have been reviewing its membership and ticketing schemes. This Review and consultation has involved talking to supporters and understanding the issues that fans face when trying to apply for tickets.

The PTS scheme has run in its current format for a number of years and over the past couple of seasons, we have seen a significant drop in the number of PTS members applying for tickets. At the same time, we have seen a large increase in the number of supporters joining the Official Membership Scheme.

The Club believes the time has come to combine the PTS and the general membership into one scheme, and offer a ticketing benefit to all members. This means that the PTS in its current format will cease to exist and all PTS members will be incorporated into the Official Membership Scheme.

You will still be able to enjoy ticket access for 09/10 season but at a reduced rate of £29 through the Official Membership, almost half the cost of the current PTS scheme. Tickets will go on sale to all members in advance of the general public, maintaining an exclusive access to tickets for all members. The Official Membership will also include a whole host of exciting benefits, giving members even more value for money.

We will be in touch with you in July, when the new scheme launches, with ways in which you can join.

Should you have any questions, please contact Customer Services 0844 844 2005 or email customerservice@Liverpoolfc.tv, where a member of staff will gladly assist you.

Thank you for your continued loyalty and support.

Yours Sincerely

Ian Ayre

Following the amalgamation of the PTS and membership schemes for this coming season, Liverpool Football Club is pleased to announce the ticket selling process for members in 2009-10.
Questions relating to other areas of ticketing for season 2009-10 will be answered separately.
 
Category A games:
 
Category A games for the 2009-10 season will be: Arsenal, Aston Villa, Blackburn Rovers, Chelsea, Everton, Manchester City, Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham United.
 
These games will be sold in conjunction with loyalty from the 2008-09 season. Members who meet the loyalty criteria for each game will be given a priority selling period before the sale is opened to other members. Approx 50 per cent of the 5,000 available tickets will form part of this initial sale.
 
For the fixtures with Everton and Manchester United, 100 per cent of the 5,000 tickets will be made available for sale on the basis of previous loyalty and there will be no secondary sale.
 
Supporters who are existing members or who join the new membership scheme and have the required level of loyalty criteria for the sale can purchase on this basis. Sale is not restricted only to supporters who were members last season and loyalty from people purchasing via the general sale or PTS in 2008-09 will be recognised.
 
The criteria for each game will be released prior to each sale and will vary dependent on the number of qualifying members we have at that time.
 
The remaining 50 per cent of tickets will be available to all members on a first come first serve basis during the secondary sale period.
 
Example:
 
The first category 'A' game for the 2009-10 season is Aston Villa; currently members who attended 12+ games last season, would have access to the priority selling period. This is based on current membership levels as of today (June 24, 2009) and subject to change depending on numbers of people joining the membership scheme throughout the season, that have the qualifying loyalty.