Adventures in Tickets -- First World Problems

So my friend Mike convinced me that now is the time to see the aging rock acts -- music groups we really dig or dug are fading fast.  Other acts, too -- like Barbra.  I scored nice tix to her show and took Wifey last year.

When I was young, I was content to merely have a ticket.  But now I'm old and spoiled -- I only want to go if I get great seats -- preferably Club, in an arena.  So in the coming month or so, we're seeing Hall and Oates and Paul McCartney at the AAA, and Wifey's favorite, U2, at Joe Robbie.

Of course, the stadium has had 10 names since Joe Robbie built it, in the 80s, but old timers like me continue to call it after the dude who built it with no public money.  These days, I think it's SunRock, or something.

Anyway -- in January U2 announced they'd play there, and I decided to buy "pre sale" tix.  To do so, though, I had to join a U2 fan club, for $50.  I'm nearly 56 and NEVER joined a single fan club in my life.  I guess it was time...So after I joined, I was given the privilege of buying 4 seats -- upper deck, but ok.  We invited Norman and Deb, and decided we were going to get a limo and avoid the parking hassle, plus drink the whole way there.  We were all set...until...

Yesterday I got an email from the Canes Club.  They had a "special offer"  - you could, through them, buy Club Seats for U2.  I jumped on it -- seemed wrong to take a limo to a show to sit in the upper deck -- and went online and bought 4 seats.  With the "facility fee" and other charges, well, let's just say the 4 tickets cost more than a luxury cruise of a week's duration.  I justified it by realizing that there would be no vacations this year, at least until after D1's wedding.  So we're set to cruise to Joe Robbie in style and eat and drink well as Bono belts out "Where the Streets Have No Name..."

Then, I went back on the Ticket Master site, where I knew you could re sell you unwanted tickets.  Not so fast!  Turns out the earlier tickets I bought, through the stupid fan club, were "credit card entry," meaning I had to be there with my card and ID and whole party to get in.  And they were not transferable, or saleable.  And it got worse -- I bought the tix with an AMEX card in January that had since been replaced, so I had to send Ticketmaster my old statement, plus a new one, and they would re-jigger their system to allow use of the no longer wanted tickets at Joe Robbie!

Young Vince of my firm, of Irish background, said he was duty bound to take the tix off my hands.  So I strategized we'd all go together (Vince and his TWO friends -- I needed to be the fourth) -- we'd get them in, and then I'd join my party in the Club.  I had Amanda of my office scan in an old January statement, I emailed it to TicketMaster, and all seemed set.

But then...I got another email from TicketMaster saying that my January statement didn't have enough info -- I needed to send them more.  No way.  Now I called Amex Platinum, and played the spoiled rich guy card.  Cynthia, in the Plantation office, agreed -- I had AMEX since 1989, and was a "valued Platinum customer."  She said forget it -- they'd fight with TicketMaster and get me a credit for the first tickets.  I'll tell Vince today he's out of the party.  Since he has a Brazil trip planned with a James Bond girl-type escort, I think he'll get over the disappointment...

I hung up, and looked skyward -- thanking the Big Man that this was the type of "problem" I had to deal with.

So let the music begin...