PreferredSeat.com Blog

 We get asked this question all the time. Why can you find the same tickets on most of the ticket broker sites on the internet? Yes, in most cases they are the same tickets. This is the way it works.

 Ticket brokers upload their inventory to one or more of several exchanges. These are databases of tickets that a ticket broker will then display on their website so they can sell their own tickets if they stock any, and all other ticket brokers tickets so they can sell them also.

 So then each ticket broker will choose to display their tickets on their website with either all the service charges included, or in most cases they hide the service charges until you choose the shipping method and then they mysteriously appear. 

 Ticket brokers will hide the total price to make it look like their ticket prices are cheaper, but the hidden fee will jack up the price of the ticket by up to as much as 25% or more. Usually, the higher the price of the ticket, the bigger difference between ticket brokers that include all the fees and those that hide them.

 And it’s not like they are doing you a favor by breaking down the service charge, though they hide it. The service charge you see is usually only a part of the total service charge you will pay. Companies like Stubhub and many others will already have marked up the price of the ticket above their cost when you see it on their website.

 Then they hit you with the service charge which does not give a fair tally of their true profits from the ticket sale. There is nothing dishonest about it. But it’s their reason for hiding the fees that we have a problem with, because the ticket buyer must go through the process of buying the tickets and choosing the shipping method just to find out they are paying more anyway.

 At one time, a very short time, we did the same thing to compete on the web with the other ticket brokers. But we received so many complaints about the hidden fees we vowed we would never do it again. And we hate complaints. You can often tell the difference between ticket brokers that hide their service fees and those that don’t. Check the Better Business Bureau record for each and you’ll see what I mean.