Take Me Out To The Ball Game, But Leave The Fees Behind, Please!

Like a lot of Americans, I love going to baseball games.  It doesn't even matter who is playing, just the experience alone is enough for me to be excited.  What I don't like, the extra "junk fees" that ticket providers can tack on to your ticket price.  Although they range in names, and fees, they are often called something to the effect of "convenience," "download," "on demand," "network," etc. fees.  Basically, the margins are so thin that it takes a provider to lump on a service charge to make the transaction profitable.  But, you do have options.

While it can be almost impossible to avoid some sort of service charge when you buy an event ticket ahead of time, there are ways to help bring down the initial cost to give you a good starting point.  I have used Fansnap in the past to buy tickets for this vary reason.  Basically, Fansnap acts like a ticket search engine and aggregates prices from leading ticket providers, such as Stubhub, and Razorgator.  Fansnap is pretty transparent with the total ticket price, including fees, but of course, you will never know until you go through the entire transaction.

So, why use a site like Fansnap?  Simple.  By comparing ticket prices, you will get an idea how much junk is added to the final sale price for similar seats.  When looking at a baseball team's official site, its prices were more than Stubhubs when the extra fees were added in.  Next time you are seeking event tickets, do a little hunting to see if you can get the price down by avoiding junk fees as much as possible.

--The Edge