Evan X. Merz

I prefer to write about art, programming, and artificial intelligence on my blog, but Ticketmaster is so awful that I felt compelled to write this.

The problem is that Ticketmaster makes it nearly impossible to convert ticket vouchers into actual tickets. You might expect this to be a button on the vouchers in your inventory, but it's not there. So then you might look for some utility in your account, or settings, but there's nothing there either. So you might Google how to do it, but you'd find there's no results there either.

The fact is, Ticketmaster encourages people to buy the vouchers then makes it nearly impossible to redeem them. So I'm trying to clarify that for people. Just to set expectations properly, you should expect this to be very difficult, and it only makes sense if you realize that they don't want you to redeem your vouchers.

Steps to turn Ticketmaster vouchers into actual tickets

1. Visit https://am.ticketmaster.com/sharks/ or if you are trying to convert tickets for some other team, then put them at the end of the URL. In this case, the Sharks url works for both the San Jose Sharks and the San Jose Barracuda. You might expect the "/barracuda" url to work, but you would be wrong, because Ticketmaster wants to take your money without delivering any actual service.
2. Log in by clicking "Sign In" in the upper right.
3. Click "Manage Your Tickets" at the bottom of the page.
4. Scroll all the way down your list, then click "Select Event" next to "Barracuda Ticket Vouchers". Again, you have to imagine that they're making this as hard as possible to convert, and then it kind of makes sense. The vouchers aren't tickets, you can't use them to get in, yet they are listed with your tickets.
5. Click the "Exchange" button at the top of the list.
6. Select the vouchers you want to redeem then click "Continue" at the bottom.
7. Click "Select Event" next to the game you want to attend.
8. Select the section and seats that you want, then hover over your cart and click "Continue". This part can be extremely tricky because Ticketmaster doesn't want you to redeem your vouchers. So you have to choose seats that EXACTLY match the value of your vouchers. You can't choose cheaper or more expensive seats. Also, you can't leave one empty seat in a row (if I were a lawyer I would question this policy in particular).
9. Click "Submit"

Summary

For my own sanity, I just want to summarize how stupidly difficult this is.

1. You must go to a custom URL that can't be found via link or search. As far as I know, you have to be told this link by a human.
2. You must find the vouchers listed with your tickets, by clicking buttons that are at many different positions on the page, appear in multiple different styles, and have wildly varying text.
3. You must pick seats that exactly match the very narrow criteria under which Ticketmaster will allow you to exchange them.

It takes a minimum of 11 clicks through a very unintuitive process to convert the vouchers. In my experience, it takes closer to 20 clicks, and around 15 minutes, because finding seats that Ticketmaster will allow you to purchase is quite difficult.

If I can leave you with one piece of advice, it's this: buy tickets at the gate, or from a salesperson for season tickets, and avoid Ticketmaster altogether.