My partner wants to attend the Real Madrid home game and my mate (who normally sits next to me) isn't in the CL Cup Scheme
Both are on my "Family and Friends" so what could possibly go wrong?
1/ I bought a ticket for his seat last Monday, but could only transfer it to his wallet or mine
2/ I chose my wallet, but unbeknown to me this automatically blocked my Cup Scheme payment
I assumed that you could have more than one ticket in your wallet (not dissimilar to an airline boarding pass) and simply swipe my partner through the turnstile. However this obviously isn't the case.
3/ Normally the Cup Scheme payments are processed before the remaining tickets go on sale. However on this occasion they weren't processed until the Thursday
Ultimately my normal seat went into Ticket Office limbo, showing as RESERVED on my City Ticket Account, but no effort to debit my bank account or even contact me and query why somebody who had attended every single European game at the Etihad suddenly wasn't interested
4/ I phoned the Ticket Office on Friday but a recorded message indicated that I would be waiting for 50 minutes.
I then emailed the help desk and finally had a reply on Saturday morning, basically offering to refund my original payment in order to process the Cup Scheme Payment .
In other words, cancel my partner's ticket even though she was supposed to be sitting next to me.
I didn't see this until returning from Orient, but my partner then suggested the farcical but ultimately inspired idea of manually paying for my own seat, and then transferring it to her wallet
So now she's sitting in my seat (for £57.50 when my cup scheme payment should have been £47.50) whilst I'm sitting in my mate's seat for £52.50
So all's well that ends well, but I think the appropriate phrase rhymes with clucking bloke.