Am I being Petty?

As mentioned earlier we went to the Circus last Thursday. At the time of buying the tickets I didn’t really look at how much they would cost me, so didn’t notice that if you buy something via the Ticketmaster website they charge you a convenience charge. This comes to mind as I was about to buy tickets to go and see Tom Petty play, here in Sacramento. I went on-line and I can buy tickets at $58.50 and then there is an additional “convenience charge” of $11.60 per ticket. Just what is a convenience charge and just who is it convenient to?

It turns out that Ticketmaster charge this because they have made it convenient for me to not have to go to the box office and buy the tickets for the show. The convenience charge is not a flat charge though, it varies from show to show. I am now feeling annoyed and feel like not going to the show if I have to pay an extra $23.30, that is almost half the price of a ticket. I guess they have got us over a barrel, if you want to see the show you will pay the extra charges and if you don’t then there are plenty of other fans who will. The same used to happen in the UK when purchasing with a credit card, suddenly you would have to pay extra money for using the credit card. At least they didn’t call it a convenience charge!