Groundhopper Soccer Guides is an registered agent for tickets and hospitality packages for English soccer games and we sell a lot of Premier League tickets. There are a few questions that our customers frequently ask, so this post has more information about the ticket-buying process.
Free kick right in front of Centenary seating at Chelsea FC.
First, what’s a hospitality package? Essentially it’s a seat at a game plus some kind of benefit. That could be anything from access to a private lounge to a full-on buffet with a full free bar. It all just depends on the package and the club, and some clubs offer quite a few options. Note that a few packages, especially at clubs below the Premier League, really are just seats.
We should note that when we say “access to” a lounge or a suite, we don’t mean the seats are in there; we mean you have regular (sometimes better than regular) seats with access to an indoor hospitality area.
Often, and especially with the big Premier League clubs, going for one of these packages is the only fully legit wait to get into a game. Demand for those tickets is so high, and the stadiums so relatively small, that buying regular Premier League tickets for the big clubs is virtually impossible without resorting to third-party sites like Stubhub, etc. And while they are ubiquitous, they are almost all illegal, as well.
How Is It That We Can Sell Hospitality Packages?
The tickets and hospitality package we sell for Arsenal home games.
We are registered with a licensed broker called Champions Travel, based in Dublin. They have contracts with almost all the Premier League clubs and many of the Championship clubs (and many other clubs in Europe, as well) to buy a block of tickets for every home game. For example, Liverpool has many different hospitality packages, and Champions gets a bunch of several for every game at Anfield. We, then, can purchase seats in these areas and sell them to you.
Sometimes people want to make sure we’re legit, which we can certainly understand. You can contact Champions Travel via their website and confirm that Groundhopper Soccer Guides is a reseller. You can also confirm that Champions Travel is legit on the PremierLeague.com website. And you can read reviews of our services on Google.
This leads us to an important point: we sell these packages, but we don’t have them. In other words, we can sell you seats in the Centenary package at Chelsea, but we don’t have a stack of them at our offices. We simply tell the broker to reserve tickets in your name; in fact, we never see your tickets at all, unless they happen to be emailed out.
What is the Sales Process?
View from Block L12 at Liverpool’s Anfield Stadium.
It starts with you getting in touch with us to ask about a particular game, or maybe taking advantage of our travel consulting services. Then we send you a quote based on availability that day, with a price guaranteed for two days, assuming tickets are still available. If availability is tight, we will let you know on quoting, as we have had people lose out on a package they wanted because they waited to pull the trigger.
Once you tell us what you want, we’ll send an invoice, which you can pay online with a credit or debit card. Here’s our refund policy. It’s important to note that sometimes schedules change. We will be clear about that during the quoting and invoicing process, but you’ll want to make sure that kickoff times and days coincide with your travel plans before making your purchase with us.
What Does a Hospitality Package Cost?
It’s hard to name an average price, but generally you can expect to spend at least $250 US each. There is a whole lot of variation, and you can read more about costs in this post.
How Do You Receive Your Hospitality Tickets?
Dining area at Everton FC.
This varies with club and package, and it is also affected by your travel plans. Here are the basic routes:
- Tickets are emailed out to us a few days before the game, and we forward them on to you.
- Tickets are delivered to your UK hotel a day or two before the game.
- If you’re not staying in a hotel, we use a central London hotel as a drop-off point; simply ask the concierge desk for tickets left in your name.
- Outside London, if you’re not staying in a hotel, we put our courier in touch with you and they arrange to meet.
- It’s sometimes possible to have tickets overnighted via DHL to the States, usually for a $75 fee.
Why can’t you get them sooner? This is a question that comes up on occasion, and it’s all about the relationship between the club, the broker, and us. We don’t have the tickets, and the broker can’t deliver them until they are released by the club. So we can’t get them to you any sooner than usual — with the occasional exception of the DHL service mentioned above.
You Don’t Want “Hospitality” so Why Can’t You Just Buy Tickets?
Centenary buffet at Chelsea FC.
We totally get it. But like we said above, getting regular tickets from the big Premier League clubs — which is what 90% of you want — is basically impossible. This leaves you with two options; the third-party “tout” market, and authorized resellers like us.
Besides, there is a lot to be said for (A) knowing you’re getting legit tickets at a fair price, (B) getting some perks with the experience and (C) having a nice warm place for you or your companions to go to while the rain pours down and/or the post-game crowds clear out around the stadium.
All in all, a hospitality package for a Premier League game can be a great experience.
Want more information or a quote for a specific club or game? Fill out this form, and we’ll be in touch.
