Going to North America '26: tickets, accommodations, etc. (non-politics)

I was a bit worried when I received the FA+ email that had been rejected. But once I read their verification methods, if I were rejected, then most others would have been too.

I do hope the majority of the 25% of non-verifieds are bogus Aussies. All first round matches were oversubscribed - I need my chances of success to inncease.

 

If I still lived in the UK I think I'd be complaining about the prices too but I'll be flying in from Singapore so my only gripes are on the price of the tickets and the tipping culture!

Hell of a ride? You're right there. The Afcon finalists and BRAZIL! And now everyone suddenly discovering they've got a Haitian auntie.

 

oh man... if you haven't been to US lately. The tipping culture is way out of hand. almost demanding 20% everywhere... order a sandwich at a counter... 20%!

 

I did actually miss the 15% / 20% / 25% tipping options when submitting my ticket application… Guess FIFA isn’t as smart as we thought.

 

Lol, in Vegas, if the Bell Boy farts in the lift, he’ll want a tip for sharing it with you!!

 

They're saving it for the FanFest and the Stadium.. but it's coming

 

you arent too far from reality.

 

Enjoy pal! It's not everyday that you get to see you're country play in a world cup with a couple of great calibre opponents and also chill in vegas at the same time!

 

Was there in September and fairly regular visitor so the tipping thing is an ongoing bugbear. I didn't have anyone expect a tip at the sharing of their flatulence but I will check my bill for that one as I'm sure they'll be able to sneak it in somewhere down the line.

5th of Feb feels a long way off currently...

 

I'm fed up with tipping, and yet, 80%+ of the time I tip $1 whenever I pick up coffee somewhere. So I guess I am part of the problem.

 

Can you share what matches you're optimistic at getting/applied for. I haven't anybody else here saying they were confident of getting any tickets.

 

Happy to

M2 - Korea v Euro.Playoff D
M6 - Australia v Euro.Playoff C
M16 - Belgium v Egypt
M26 - Switz v Euro Playoff A
M78 - 2E v 2I

Unless I have got something wrong, there is no chance of Mbappe/Ronaldo/Haaland/Messi/USA/MEX/VSN.
All Cat 1.

If I cant be optimistic on that, might as well give up.

 

You should be able to land all. if not; we're cooked! demand is thru the roof.

 

There's definitely a chance of Mbappe or Haaland at M78. But, those should be semi-easy to get at Cat 1.

 

I'm really looking forward to see which ones you land! Would be a great proxy for the type of demand we're seeing.

 

Yes, makes sense you're confident on those. I'm thinking you'll have a good chance of picking those up during last sales phase otherwise.

 

So I've read the debate over how FIFA will process this draw. In the more distant past, they definitely ranked applications and then filled all they could for each application sequentially. So when it was your application's turn, the Final and QF you wanted may already be sold out, but other matches still available would be filled. They allot a small proportion to cat 2, 3 and 4, so if that's what you asked for, the likelihood increases that your match is sold out at the category you requested. That's why cat 1 applications have always faired better and returned more tickets.

However, the digitalization of this process is now in full display. So for 2026, I see absolutely no reason why they will not proceed match by match. There is no longer any procedural economy in going application by application. Every ticket request made is simply a unique identifier consisting of application number, match number, category, qty, flag for lower categories, and an "is successful" flag. I would be shocked if they don't run the lottery match by match: 104 x 3 = 312 lotteries. Very simple, very clean. If your application checked lower categories, each of your ticket requests get recycled through the lower category lotteries if the "is successful" remains negative after each match draw.

I'm not really a programmer, but I could write this code.

The real interesting part of the lottery coding is when/whether they decide to expand category 2 and 3 allotments because there weren't enough applications to sell out category 1. Probably to keep it simple, they don't bother in this round. Any undersubscribed cat 1 matches get dumped into the FCFS phase, where they can manually shift cat 1 to lower categories as required to maximize revenue.

In my opinion, FIFA won't give a rat's ass how many tickets or matches you applied for in your application. It will all be based on individual match lotteries. It's no longer 2010 folks.

Step 1: filter out illegal applications based on whatever criteria they choose to enforce
Step 2: run 3 lotteries for each match, sequentially.
Step 3: incorporate results from the federations
Step 4: accumulate all results inside each application, and send out emails.

The computing power needed is not insignificant but frankly not that large either. They will crunch several matches per day and be done in a few weeks. Then they'll spend their time on how to get all the emails sent out and the credit cards all charged.

 

All good, don’t feel so bad about not tipping FIFA, they will make that money up by investing the conditional ticket payments for 6 months

 

This is probably what they are doing for the next 3 weeks.

 

It seems to have really gotten out of hand starting around the time of COVID. Almost everywhere you pay with a credit or debit card you are asked if you want to tip, all sorts of places no one would ever have dreamed of tipping before the last couple of years. I think younger people maybe don't realize it isn't normal and have fallen into the trap of paying tips for things like handing you a drink at a drive through. One must be firm and resist.

 

Better tip or this man will find you! You need to pay his employees!

 

Atlanta Fan Fest info is out:

https://atlantafwc26.com/fan-fest/

Open 20 days, free general entry, VIP section for cost, match days (8) and day before match days, plus 4 additional days (assuming US games)

Centennial Olympic Park, super close to the stadium, downtown.

 

Would you mind sending me info for this whatsapp group?

 

Alright I have a $60 ticket to the World Cup final…

…if Canada makes it

 

How do you know?