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

I think you are correct. Plus resellers are submitting millions of automated applications and snapping up the few available tickets. I hope they are left holding tickets and resale prices collapse.

 

I will give you a spoiler for everyone here...

When we load into FCFS, see all those games that were the highest applied for, CATEGORY 1 ONLY!!!

You watch the absolute panic insure from some people who would do ANYTHING for a game like COL v POR in Miami. Those tickets are not dropping in any category besides that I can tell you, and any tickets in CAT 2/3 will be listed at that price AT A MINIMUM on resale.

People who are a little tighter on budget, or lives in the city and just wants to attend, they will see this and look for the other games in their city (Saudi v Cape Verde - HOU , FP2 v Uzbekistan - ATL) , and see that those matches are available in Category 3's!

Perfect, now the only games that anyone can ideally afford are the games with low demand, meaning these are now high demand as some have flights or whatever booked, because all Elite Matches are now Category 1 or bust!

Oh and by the way, because of the 'Demand" last time, the tickets for those Elite Matches are now gone from 265 to 350 USD each

You're Welcome nice swiss man

 

One thing is sure: people have credit cards with more credit than i thought, i don’t think here in Europe many people can spend 10k a month on a single card but it is probably very normal for americans.

 

I have not received an email yet so checked my account page.
Am gobsmacked. Absolutely gobsmacked.

 

Crazy. Again, something doesn’t compute here.

 

Now - I am not entitled to a ticket. It is not what makes me angry. (In fact I have tickets for 2 matches in Kansas City).
I am furious, however, that someone who just wants to watch games has to wait until 5 months before the tournament to know the final logistics. For the pre-draw tickets, this ballot could have been done a year ago. FIFA/26 are wasting the time of a lot of people.
And if you look at what I went for, is not as if I am a glory hunter.
Not going to say I am done with the WC, but of the 6 I have had tickets for, this is the one that has left me with the least enthusiasm.

 

This is scary! This means that what ever inventory FIFA put up In any category has been sold off! So either lot of inventory is in the hands of touts or there was actual Fans/FOMO/Locals for any games to buy the inventory available.

So FCFS we are getting only the unpaid inventory and the remaining with FIFA. Like someone said on here, we should not be expecting anymore cat3's

 

Prices will drop big time for a lot of games so don’t fall into this, If anything i think a lot of hospitality tickets will end up being sold as normal tickets. Glad i am not going there anyway, the whole thing is just insulting.

 

How did you manage to apply with different IPs for 86 apps??? What categories did you win for these matches?

 

I applied to two cat 1 tickets for this game and so far nothing

 

I finally went into my app. I “Lost” on every single game I applied to. I applied to 13 games, 22 tickets total. I cannot believe I got zero.

My application:

2x category 2 Brazil vs Morocco
2x category 2 France vs Senegal
2x category 2 Ecuador vs Germany
1x category 3 norway vs Senegal
2x category 3 France vs Norway
2x category 1 Colombia vs Uzbekistan
1x category 1 Colombia vs playoff
2x category 1 Colombia vs Portugal
2x category 2 NJ R32
2x category 2 NJ R16
2x category 2 PHL R16
1x category 2 Boston QF
1x category 3 Final

yeah I know these are high demand games but not even Norway Senegal? Somebody here won four category 1 for Colombia Uzbekistan? So many people got Portugal vs Colombia through PMA?

I was worried sick for 2-3 days after my app because I wondered whether such a large app had been a good idea and what if fifa had been lying bout the demand? Well now I’m thinking I should have made an even bigger app!

im also wondering whether I got flagged for something. I redid my app multiple times, changed credit cards a bunch of times. At some point it wasn’t letting me add a credit cards; but eventually everything went through.

devastated is too strong a word but I am definitely sad and shocked…

 

I make it that the tickets are with touts. There is plenty of inventory for the matches I applied for (lower interest). Funnily enough, a number of them have the exact same sales price!!!!!!!
If you look at the premium being asked for in comparison to the last sales prices, the posters dont want them.
(An example - Uruguay/Cape Verde listed for $520 vs a sale price of $500 (Cat 1))
So those tickets will come onto the market at some point.
It is still a hindrance though due to whether I want to leave planning different countries to the last minute.
Where the FOMO is real is when you cant FIND a ticket.
I know the difference. There ARE some matches like that, but none of the ones I went for.
So for group games without a host/Mbappe/Haaland/Ronaldo/Colombia/Messi, it is a matter of choice.
No need to jump into the nearest river. Annoying, but we do have other things in our lives.

 

I wonder which stand they will exclusively give you for the Portugal Uzbekistan game.

 

I applied for 22 games and I lost on every single game

 

Yes, this is the only major remaining question. It seems clear that demand was massive but how much of that was people looking to resell at profit? We have seen on this thread that there are a lot of cultural differences that people don't fully understand. For example, Aussies have pointed out that they don't have a culture of ticket resale. People buy tickets for events they want to go to and that is it. The USA is home to several ticket resale organisations and also the side hustle culture. Setting up multiple accounts in order to resell tickets doesn't appear to be something looked down on. I expect the price or resale super bowl tickets will be quoted in the build up today with no negative spin. Instead it will add to the hype. In the UK ticket touts are seen as spivs and scum. Obviously it happens and people can now do it in secret but traditionally it was low level cockney and scouse criminals. Further up the thread someone expressed the surprise that people can put $10k of tickets on a credit card. That is another cultural difference. I checked and the average US credit limit was $29k in 2022. That will be shocking to many in comparatively debt-averse Europe. The UK is in between on that score.

The question is have the touts misjudged the World Cup market? There are a lot of disappointed fans that were prepared to pay list prices but touts need higher prices still. FIFA will take their 30% and anyone buying from another site will want a lower price than the FIFA portal. Many fans that were going to travel to North America will now give up and stay at home. Those that are able to wait might get chance to buy cheap or at least face value tickets nearer the time.

This ticketing situation also makes me wonder just how much money Qatar paid to host the last World Cup. FIFA had a massive ticketing opportunity cost hosting it in such a small country.

 

I applied for 9 matches for RSD, mostly single ticket, all cat 3 and 8 of those in Toronto and Mexico City:
Got 2 cat 3 in Toronto (Panama vs Croatia, Senegal vs Playoff 2)

2 matches via German FA, fan budget: nothing

So quite happy with that, booked hotel and flight for Toronto and will now start the quest for a ticket for the Germany match in Toronto

 

I have to say I cannot remember a lower success rate for tickets on this site and TA when it was good in 2010 and 2014. Still 2006 was pretty desperate by this stage and only that nice Mr. Sleeper sorted a lot of people out. Think he might be needed again this time!

 

Previous WCs, we have not seen a ticketing process set up for the scalper.

 

I've done a comparison of prices this morning on the two legit resale options, FIFA Resale and FIFA Collect (RTTs).

There are some large discounts on FIFA Collect across most matches,

Some of the best:
M11 NED v JAP Dallas Cat 1: 885 vs 1553
M74 R32 Boston Cat 1: 750 vs 1495
M48 COL v POFF1 Guadalajara Cat 1: 1200 vs 2299
M30 SCO v MAR Boston Cat 2: 575 vs 970
M8 QAT v SUI San Francisco Cat 2: 317 vs 535
M61 NOR v FRA Boston Cat 2: 750 vs 1265
M83 R32 Toronto Cat 1: 2000 v 3325
M32 USA v AUS Seattle Cat 2: 1000 vs 1662
M84 R32 Los Angeles Cat 1: 990 vs 1610

I think the discount is driven by awareness and the fact you have to buy using USDC crypto currency which scares people off. If you have Coinbase, it is super easy to fund the FIFA Collect wallet.

 

I presume there will be an Exam at the end of the ticketing processes.

 

I was unsuccessful in this draw but my friend pulled 2x Cat 3 for M83 which seems like a miracle based on other results.

 

If you want to mess around with USDC (US dollar coin) and FIFA Collect you can get Norway vs Senegal Cat 1 for around $500 (see link below). I was a little bummed that I "won" tickets to the match (they were trading a little higher when I applied, I think).

https://www.fifacollect.info/tickets/world-cup-2026/listings?city=new-york

 

There's lots of Uruguayans who either live in Florida or have family who live in Florida or who like to visit Florida.

 

If you click on your unsuccessful application in the ticketing portal, do you see this message, with the "read more about the rules" link taking you to the Secutix website?

I think this is as close to a "smoking gun" as we're going to get that applications were filtered out by the anti-scalper system.

https://i.imgur.com/rtFHrRt.png

 

I wonder why they are so late sending out emails... Until I get the email I will still believe lol.