If you’ve tried to sell TicketFast tickets to another fan recently, you know it’s not easy. Most fans are aware of the risk involved, and won’t buy TicketFast from someone they don’t know personally. (I wouldn’t, sorry to say…..)

So the thing you want to do, especially before the 3rd Leg starts (in a little more than six weeks), is get your TicketFast tickets converted to “hard” tickets. Easier said than done. If you call or email Ticketmaster Customer Service, they’ll pretend they don’t know what you’re talking about and then they’ll flat out tell you it can’t be done. You have to call them several times or be ready to bother them all day via email in order to get information from them about how to do this.

I chose the email route today. Here’s the full text of the email exchange.

It began when I submitted this via their online Customer Service contact system:

“If I am the original purchaser of TicketFast tickets, what is the procedure to have those converted into “hard” tickets?”

Simple enough question, right? Well, when I submitted the question, TM took me to another page where I was told that my question really WASN’T submitted, and instead they thought this might answer my question:

The answers below were automatically selected to assist you with your questions. If no solutions are listed or the solutions are not helpful, select “Submitting Question” to submit your issue to our support staff. The answers to the following questions may be relevant to your question:

Title: Which email from Ticketmaster contains my ticketFast tickets?
Link: click here

Title: What is ticketFast?
Link: click here

Title: What if I experience problems while ordering or printing my ticketFast ticket(s)?
Link: click here

Title: Will my ticketFast printout be accepted for entry into the event?
Link: click here

Title: How can I purchase tickets using an internationally billed credit card?
Link: click here

At the bottom of that page, I found another SUBMIT button with instructions to click it only if they hadn’t already answered my question. Ummm … click!

Credit where it’s due: I got a human response only 27 minutes later. Sadly, it was useless:

Dear Matt,

Thank you for your e-mail. There are many conveniences to purchasing ticketFast as your delivery method! Some of these conveniences include:

-You get your tickets right away, no will call lines or mail delivery to wait for.

-You print them at your convenience.

-You can forward them to others attending the event so they can print their own tickets. TicketFast tickets are transferable, as they are used in the same manner as traditional tickets.

-You can change the method of delivery, depending on the time frame and have them either mail or shipped via UPS to your billing address, or have them waiting for you at the Box Office Will Call Window.

If you have any further questions, please reply and include all previous correspondence.

Thank you for using Ticketmaster, where we really appreciate your business.

Sincerely,
Martin

They really appreciate my business, but they don’t read my question. So I wrote back:

Thank you for the quick reply.

I understand the convenience of TicketFast, but that doesn’t answer my question.

If I am the original owner and am still in possession of TicketFast tickets, how do I get them converted into “traditional” or “hard” tickets? I’d like a step-by-step procedure, please. I have Ticketfast tickets and want to have them converted into traditional/hard tickets. How do I do it?

Thanks,
Matt

Again to their credit, I received another email reply very quickly. This one arrived 46 minutes later:

Dear Matt,

Thank you for your e-mail. In order to process your request, we require additional information. Please provide the following:

Name on the account:
Credit Card Number:
Event:
Facility:
Date of Event:
City and State of Event:
Order Number:

If you have any further questions, please reply and include all previous correspondence.

We really appreciate your business.

Sincerely,
Miguel E.

Now, in hindsight, that may have answered my question right there. But that’s not how I understood it. When he starts by saying “in order to process your request, we require additional information” it sounds to me like, “We’re not going to answer your question until you give up all your personal information.” Well, I didn’t like the sound of that, so I wrote back:

Miguel -

Thank you again for the quick reply. I’m sorry, but I don’t see why Ticketmaster needs to know my account, credit card number, event information, and all that other stuff. I’m asking what should be a simple question, completely unrelated to anyone’s personal details:

If I am the original owner and am still in possession of TicketFast tickets, how do I get them converted into “traditional” or “hard” tickets?

I assume the procedure is the same no matter what my account name and credit card number is, right? So I’m asking - what’s the procedure? Thank you in advance.

Matt

And again, another quick reply — they really do deserve GREAT credit for being so quick to answer emails — this one from Martin who very clearly explained exactly what you need to do if you want to convert TicketFast into hard tickets:

Dear Matt,

Thank you for contacting us. If you wish to convert your ticketFast tickets into hard copy tickets, please provide us with the following information:

Name on the account:
Credit Card Number:
Event:
Facility:
Date of Event:
City and State of Event:
Order Number:

Once we have accessed your order, we will cancel the ticketFast ticket and issue out hard copy tickets. This can only be done by either calling Ticketmaster’s Customer Service department or by emailing our Customer Support team.

If you have any further questions, please reply, and include all correspondence.

Sincerely,
Martin

Thank you, Martin. And those of you with the patience to read all the way to the end, you know how to do it, too. Remember — only the person who bought the TicketFast tickets can do this.