Russia 2018: Ticket Thread (sales at face-value ONLY)

Whilst trying to find a suitable email address I did see they are listing a FIFA Brochure which states that Sepp Blatter is President and Jerome valcke is secretary! Extraordinary but not surprising.

 

Well, I do hope to be able to attend the big matches, but to be honest, I have understood that my chances are poor.

If there is a group arranged I will be glad to take part in it.

 

I totally disagree...

Chiefs at the Foreign Office believe the 2018 Russian World Cup will flop because of the country’s football yobs

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/41858...world-cup-will-flop-because-of-countrys-yobs/

 

Yup. If you're in Qatar it might appear like there are a lot of football fans who made the trip because everyone will be condensed into two cities. But I bet the total numbers will be laughable compared to those that travelled to Germany, Brasil, etc.

It
Will
Suck

 

it sucks already, and it hurts every true football fan since the day qatar got it, but we will still watch it, all of us! I am absolutely sure about that, and many will go there too.

 

Yes and watch 40-50 matches apparently.

 

Make hay while the sun shines. You may not get another opportunity like this.

 

Greetings world!!
Long time no post!
I've provisionally booked a weeks accommodation in Sochi and a couple of nights either side in Moscow.
It seems the usual rip off charges have now started.
Internal flights Moscow>Sochi are usually around £80 return with Aeroflot, which have now predictably increased to £500+ return in June!!

Nice to see you are still around Pablo/Ric Braz

 

Nice to be back in here. Got a lot of useful information last time from this forum. Let's see how it goes this time around.

 

ahh, the whole gang is getting together again! Great to see you and hope the last 4 years have been good for you! Will you be in Moscow for the Opening Match again? Would be great to hang out with you again.

 

Duplicate

 

Our flights are booked -- looking forward to our first world cup. Unfortunately, the schedule didn't line up well and so we're only there the first six days, but hopefully we'll manage to see three or four games. Looking forward to the next several months of sharing tips.

 

Aeroflot haven't yet released their full schedule for summer 2018.

Apparently will come around next month or October.

S7, UT Air and Pobeda seem to be months behind with their schedules as well.

 

Well I don't know about the full schedule, but flights are on sale now, and Aeroflot on the route I'm interested in, have increased x6. I've emailed Vladimir Putin about it!

I can only see S7 flights until March 24th. They have advised that April, May and possibly June will be released some time in September - but no specific date given.

 

I'm good thanks.
We have no plans for the opening ceremony this time. We're likely to be in Moscow 12th June, and again on 21st.

 

Yes good to see you again Whiskerxx, it seems a long time again on Soccerphile and Germany in the days when FIFA used to sell tickets for the competition.

Some airlines have a definite summer timetable and Aeroflot, in keeping with all the other authorities were very vague about when it comes out and said look on the site in September or October. In keeping with tradition I have already booked two of the three hotels but it still baffles me why 85% of the hotels with or without FIFA will not give their prices. What do they gain by just saying we have no rooms? When they do.

 

S7 flights can be booked with British Airways avios. If you have membership rewards points, they can be transferred right now to British Airways with a good transfer bonus. I'll probably transfer some over, hoping that I'll be able to use them once S7 releases its schedule. I've been looking at Aeroflot awards internally in Russia during the World Cup, and they aren't releasing very much, even though they generally release a fair amount, so I suspect they are keeping their options open, which is probably also why many of the rates they have filed so far for the same months are all non-discount. Assuming S7 follows suit, transferring to Avios now could leave you stuck with Avios, so buyer beware, but if you're filthy with membership rewards points this might be a speculative move to make in preparation, if S7 has routes you want.

 

It's still early to buy domestic flights within Russia, I am going to wait until September-October. International flights to Moscow for June-July are already available and there are some cheap ones as well. My friend from the US bought a round-trip flight from New-York for about $600. I saw from the UK flights are super cheap as well.

 

I read this blog this guy kept at this year's Confederations Cup. I has a lot of information in it, much of it really useful sounding.

https://brasilfuteboltravel.blogspot.com/

One point he makes multiple times is that with the FanID and names on tickets, ticket exchanges won't be possible. Up until now, it seems to be the prevailing opinion that they won't try to prevent fans from entering with a different name on the ticket. Here are his two quotes, the first on on stadium security on match day:

Security is very, very tight, similar to going through an airport. You need to present your FAN ID and game day ticket. You will not get in if you don't have both of these and there's absolutely no way to exchange tickets, from what I can tell.​

and this quote:

While fans were able to purchase and then exchange tickets to the 2014 World Cup in Brasil in an open market, I don't see how this will be possible for the Russian games, as every fan will need to have a FAN ID to enter the venues, along with their game tickets.​

I assume he also didn't try to use a ticket with someone else's name on it, so maybe he doesn't know. It still seems to me that it'll be total chaos if they try to enforce this. And how will all the FIFA officials and all the sponsors and VIPs be able to scalp their tickets which is a major income source for them?!

He also states that to use the free transportation, you need to also show a match ticket for the city/destination you're trying to get to. Lots of other good info in there too. Worth a read for those going.

 

That is a very helpful site.

I've been skeptical of resale tickets. We'll see. The Fan ID adds a dimension. If they were allowing those who had visas or didn't need visas to attend matches without the fan ID, it seemed like it would have been possible to use a ticket in another person's name. As much of a pain as it is to get a Russia visa from the USA, if getting one meant I could avoid the fan ID and have a shot at resale tickets, I would probably have done it.

But, the current plan seems to be that fan id is required for everyone to enter the stadium. http://welcome2018.com/en/journal/m...ens-required-to-have-fan-id-at-2018-world-cu/

So, the question is whether one will really be able to get into a game with a fan id that has one name and a ticket that has another. The problem is that it's going to be difficult to know until the games start, which is a bit late for planning.

Edit: And, of course, at a minimum, everyone will need to buy at least one ticket through regular channels to get a fan ID, though hopefully that won't be a problem.

 

Any measure that cuts down the touts is one that is ok with me. If they enforce a name check on tickets it surely means that we have better chances at scoring some rather than the assh*le touts.

Maybe they just won't enforce it on the VIP tickets

 

Everything I've read says that the FAN ID is absolutely required to enter the stadium. The blogger's point about how long it takes to get one makes me somewhat concerned. I hope I get some tickets early so I can get the FAN ID and then not have to worry about it.

While I had some luck with obtaining tickets through normal channels at WC14, I also relied on buying from secondary sources and did some trading and sharing too. I think I recall that someone else posted that they did not stop fans from entering matches at the Confed Cup when the ticket name did not match the FAN ID name. But I don't know where I read that.

As it's always been against the TOS to resell or exchange tickets outside of the FIFA system, we're not going to get anything from FIFA that'll say something like: we don't plan on preventing entry to people who's ticket name doesn't match their FAN ID. The TOS already say it can't be done. I'm thinking that it's true we won't know until the tournament starts.

As a mostly solo traveler this screws up my plan which was to go for 2 tickets for each match I'm shooting for and use my wife's name as the 2nd person. Then invite others to attend with me using her ticket for games she doesn't go to.

I'm still thinking though that this won't be enforced. Selling, trading, and sharing tickets was such a massive practice at previous WCs. It's really difficult to know a year in advance who you're going with and changes happen.

 

Yeah, I agree with pretty much all that. The problem, of course, is that none of us wants to be the guy who shows up at the turnstile in Ekaterinburg where some hardcore rule follower wants to look at the name on the ticket. It was one thing to make someone pull out a passport when you're trying to load 80,000 into a stadium, but this time everyone will already be required to have easily accessible picture ID.

One small point about changing the name on second tickets -- I think there is supposed to be a procedure for guest name changes for tickets (just not for the primary) up to 3 days before the game. At least, there was for the confederations cup.

http://www.fifa.com/confederationscup/organisation/ticketing/ticket-transfer-resale.html

 

That's good info. I think it's likely the policies in place for the Confed Cup will be in place for the WC, with tweaks for things that didn't work well.

I wonder what the choices are for: "Select the reason for the Transfer of Tickets".

I'm also wondering about this clause:

If you have purchased Venue Specific Ticket Series (“VST”) you may only submit the entire VST series for a Ticket transfer (and not any parts thereof) and you must do so at least 3 full days prior to the start of the first match.​

I was thinking of shooting for a VST for Moscow and/or St. Petersburg, but there's no way I can come up with the same name for all of the games. Plus my thinking was, if I was lucky enough to get a VST for one of the 2 big cities I could use some of the tickets in trade for other games I want to see; or sell them off if I had to be in another city say for a USA match.

There were no TSTs (Team Specific) for the Confed Cup but they had them at WC14 and I think/hope they will for WC. So I wonder if the same restriction for the entire series will apply to a TST; I would think so.

It would really be nice if the Fan's Ticketing Guide would get released.

 

“Aeroflot” has raised the prices for tickets in the days of the 2018 world Cup, and then called it a technical error

http://en.news-4-u.ru/aeroflot-has-...cup-and-then-called-it-a-technical-error.html