17/07/2015

United scrap away booking fees

United have agreed to immediately stop charging booking fees on away tickets for the 2015-16 season onwards.This follows representations from MUST.

This is one of a number of measures that MUST has been working on with the Club on behalf of match going fans. MUST made the case several months ago that all fans buying away tickets are season ticket holders or executive club members, and therefore spend enough time (as well as money of course) on the Club that the administration of away tickets should be provided free of charge as a service.

The Club has also been proactively acting on behalf of fans to tackle the excessive price of away tickets for our fans, often caused by price banding that always places us in the top category. We believed that it undermined their case to complain about away ticket prices on behalf of fans, but then to put an additional charge on those unfair prices themselves. The removal of booking fees will therefore also allow United to make the case for cheaper away tickets, as well as larger allocations, without this being a factor.

We are pleased that the communication we have had with the Club over the last 18 months is starting to lead to direct actions by them to the benefit of match going fans. We are working on many other issues with them, as well as booking fees, and fully intend to see other positive developments in due course. We are also grateful to the Fans Forum for considering the booking fee issue and also agreeing that it should be scrapped.

While MUST remains critical of the actions of the current ownership of Manchester United resulting from the takeover, and we continue to keep the spotlight on any activities that could be damaging to the Club, that does not prevent us from working with the Club to deliver benefits to supporters.