I seem to recall we used to spend a lot of time at each others' throats a while back but I find myself nodding in agreement at the things you post now.
There's definitely a debate to be had around cup schemes. One person that sits near me in 109 has 6 season tickets. He argued that people not on the schemes but who attended cup games anyway, should get priority over those on the scheme who didn't attend games, or any other supporter who wasn't on the scheme but had more points. You can see his point.
The advantage of the cup schemes is that you're guaranteed your seat, don't have to do anything to get a ticket, and you get a small discount, although the 'think of a number and double it' method they seem to have for pricing cup games doesn't really make it feel like a benefit sometimes. But, as you say, it makes it harder for people who live away from Manchester to attend midweek games, and you could argue why should we penalise people for that? But that should be less of an issue for the FA Cup (or would be if they didn't fuck around with days and times for TV).
I know that for FA Cup finals, and certainly League Cup finals, there are more tickets available than people on the schemes. Last time I had access to numbers, the CL scheme had the highest numbers, with half our season ticket holders on it, although it's probably less than that now. The domestic cup schemes have fewer members.
So do you keep the cup scheme, introduce a scheme based on attendance or just revert to points, even if you haven't attended any cup games? There's no easy answer.
Thank you, and yes we did disagree a lot, and maybe my approach could have been better, and the written word doesn't always translate on a forum.
The biggest question is what is the motivation for cup schemes, from my perspective it's to guarentee tickets and initially it felt like a good incentive, tickets prices capped up until the 1/4 finals not exceeding 25 quid i think, and many of the games were 15 quid against lower opposition and kids for a quid, you joined and you were rewarded, but i think a tipping point was when we played Utd and a lot of fans who were on the scheme got a good deal (rightly so) and the club probably felt they missed out on a payday.
Now you are in the cup scheme and you face the prices with trepidation, Inter Milan being a case in point, the club got all excited and thought wow it's Istanbul all over again, lets cash in, even in very modest seats i ended up with a bill exceeding 100 quid, travel 60 quid, parking 10 quid, for a run of the mill group game, for me the prices are becoming unsustainable, unless i become a pick and choose supporter, which i am not, and season ticket holders are generally not, we are commiting because we want to be there most if not all of the time, it's the essence of being a season ticket holder. I think we are finding that not only match day members are picking and choosing, season ticket holders are making the same choices because the cost doesn't exist solely around the one match, even with your tickets paid it can still become a costly experience.
There can be no club in the league who's prices fluctuate as much as City's, even season tickets within one block can have 3 different tiers, it feels like every game is monetised to the maximum, we as fans should be in partnership with the club, we know it not free, and nor do we expect it, but we do want to come along and cheer the team every week (especially at home) and feel it's value for money, not half a weeks money, but they just don't get it.
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