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You can watch on TV in glorious HD for nowt. That's my thinking

I've "spent" about £1000 on Olympics tickets, but most of this is a long-shot punt on four men's 100m final seats. I anticipate paying a lot less. In general I have no problem with the organisation of ticket sales - given the scale I think they've done a reasonable job.

The only gripe I have is needing sufficient funds in my current account to cover everything from the 10th of May to the 24th of June. This seems an unnecessarily long period of time. Seeing as the money is taken automatically, can't they just say money will be taken on such and such a date, so that everyone can plan for that time? Surely it's in the organisers' interest too - I'd imagine they'd see fewer transactions failing due to "insufficient funds" this way.

Fair play to the market men. They've nailed this one for tickets sold at max.

The suspense is killing me it is the children who will be more miffed if we miss out.

The delay in the resale system is unacceptable though....

From what I understand there will be a second application process, for those who have already applied, in the summer. These will be for the unsold tickets. Any further tickets after this point will go on general sale in the winter.

I've applied for the opening ceremony, a couple of swimming events, Judo and gymnastics for me and a couple of friends. I'd be gutted if I missed out on the swimming, and might have to pick more up in the summer if I get bitten by Olympic fever!

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

"...the biggest demand is likely to be at the lowest price point."

Oh dear. When exactly did this horrible phrase 'price point' creep into the vernacular? Why are we suddenly using two words when one word used to be sufficient? I can understand language evolving to become more efficient but this seems to be an unnecessary elongation and I suspect is yet another Americanism. Now I'm sure some marketing guru with more suits than sense will try to tell us it doesn't actually mean 'price' but something so much more than that, an elusive concept that cannot be conveyed by the mere use of the word 'price' alone. I can understand marketing types talking such tosh because that's their job but now it seems even the esteemed Ö÷²¥´óÐã has fallen into the trap. Please stop.

Well I think its rubbish.

1.8m people subscribed out of a population of nearly 70m. What is that in Households - maybe 18m families / households?
So 90% of all UK households did not subscribe.
I will tell you why. 1) the tickets are astronomically expensive and 2) you can not get into half of the premium sessions as a family of more than 4 people (I have mum, dad and 3 children). The system will not let you have more than 4 tickets eg in the Velodrome.

One full day of 3 sessions covering my family of 5 (accepting compromises on what we watched) - Projected cost £1250 + food + transport = £1,500. For one day.

I am paying for all of our return flights to Spain for £1500 !

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I am surprised that only 1.8m people applied for tickets. Now I am slightly concerned I might actually get some of the outrageously expensive tickets I applied for!!

Justin do you happen to work for the Ö÷²¥´óÐã? :p

'The system will not let you have more than 4 tickets eg in the Velodrome.'

That is so as many family groups or people get to go as possible. You might not like it but for anyone that wants to go on their own that's another person getting the experience instead of your 4 year old asleep on the chair or the 2 year old that is screaming their head off.
There were plenty of sessions that allowed you 20 tickets per application. The fact they aren't the most popular ones shows why there had to be some restrictions.
You can't have everything.

Outragously expensive, everyone is paying through the nose to, once again to inject more finance into London. What about the dozens of inner cities around the country which really need stimulation? It should have been a Manchester or Birmingham bid - it would certainly have been cheaper and more widely supported by the British people. Manchester commomwealth games was a brillient success at 1/10 of the cost.

"It should have been a Manchester or Birmingham bid - it would certainly have been cheaper and more widely supported by the British people."

Birmingham bid in 1992 and didn't get it.
Manchester bid in 1996 and 2000 and didn't get it.
Probably London's turn to bid......

After being requested to remove myself from the Woolwich Olympic Site. An irreconcilable request; since, I'm a London Council Taxpayer, and paying for the Games. I will not be participating in the Games in any way.
No tickets sold here, then !

One full day of 3 sessions covering my family of 5 (accepting compromises on what we watched) - Projected cost £1250 + food + transport = £1,500. For one day.

_______________
You should lower your standards then. For me and my 2 kids, it's £34 per session, which is excxeptional value for 3-4 hours of top quality sporting action.

Encouraged by the report - it looks like I've applied for the less popular sports!

If I obtain all the tickets I have applied for, it will cost me over £1,700. If I get all the tickets, I will be selling the majority back.

The likelihood is that I will obtain the odd ticket here and there on days that are not adjacent making planning difficult.

All I really want is to see a couple of events, preferably with one of our medal prospects going for a medal, plus tickets for another event of any status on the same day, and tickets for a variety of sports on the day before, or the day after.

The fear of not getting to truly experience the Olympic games encourages many of us to over apply for tickets.

Whilst I am currently in a position where I can afford to take a gamble, I feel sympathy for those sports fans that cannot afford to take a punt, especially those with kids.

I am sure that there were much fairer methods of selling tickets, but this method has done exactly what was intended by encouraging people to over apply.

I don't warrant much personal sympathy, no-one forced me to apply for the number of tickets that I did. I'll be at 2012 events in some shape or form even if it takes the next round of ticket allocations/reallocations.

It just could have been so may more transparent, convenient and above all fairer .....

I'd be happy with any ticket at all! I would have liked to have seen an option to apply for any ticket, for any sport, under a certain price.

DrRitchie: If your family went for the equivalent of one session (eg 3 hours) to go see Glee at the O2 it would probably cost you £100 a ticket plus transport and food etc.
The Olympics is the equivalent of several big events all rolled into one as it is so well organised. And for three sessions in one day you are paying the cost of three big sporting events for one day. If you went to 3 of any big events you would be paying the same if not more for it. Stop thinking of it as an alternative to walking through Hyde Park on a sunny day with the family and start thinking of it as being the same as going to a premier league football match, a take that gig and Peter Kay at the O2.

#8 Justin

The internet is sprawling with people such as yourself who relish the Olympics as yet another opportunity to spout their self-pitying, 'why isn't everything run for my convenience' attitude to life. As you said, there's nearly 70m people in the country, only 6.6m tickets, that's 0.1 ticket per person across the Olympics and yet you want one each for your whole family for a premium event. And because you can't have that you claim the system is unfair. If you and your offspring, which you chose to have, all get tickets then that's just fewer tickets for another family.

Almost all the events allow 6 tickets or more to be applied for, you can go to any of those as it's only those premium events that are limited to 4, and yet you want special treatment just because you're a family of five. Well, I've got 4 mates who all want to go to the opening ceremony together with me but guess what, we can't either. If you're really determined to see a premium event why not apply and if you're lucky use it as a motivation for your kids to behave for the next 12 months, if they don't they stay at home, if they do then you or your wife misses out. It'd be a harsh lesson but life's just like that sometimes, it would do them good in the long run. Otherwise go and watch something else like 99% of us will have to do, it's not as if there aren't plenty of options.

Anyway, I've made my application and at least I'm in with a chance, and if I get drawn out the hat I'll gladly pay and won't bombard the internet with whining about the cost of travel and food and hotels because this is the only time in my life that the Olympics will be happening this close to me. I'm not sure what all the moaners are waiting for but these games ain't ever coming any closer or getting any cheaper so it's now or never if you want to see them in person.

It's not just you, the outbreak of negativity is astounding. They moan if we can't stage a successful bid yet moan if we do. Londoners moan it increases their council tax and congestion yet non-Londoners moan it's not nearer to them. They moan if it's paid for by taxes, yet moan if it's paid for via tickets and still moan if it's paid for by sponsors who expect their share of tickets in return. They moan if there aren't enough tickets yet moan if there's empty seats. Unless the Olympics are happening for free at the end of their street with a guaranteed ticket for every event some people are never happy. And don't get me started on people who have 6 weeks to apply then leave it to the last minute and wonder why they and the 1000's of other who can't get their act together slow the system down.

I'm a bit negative myself generally but I'm totally thrilled about the Olympics being in my country, although to be honest my excitement is starting to be dulled a little by these killjoys so if you've nothing positive to say then please go to Spain now and stop ruining it for the rest of us.

I have ordered around 8 pairs of Olympic tickets and I am looking forward to see if my application is successful, however I feel it isn't fair that some people have ordered way more tickets than they really want in the hope they may get a small proportion of these events, this then leading to large credit card bills that they cannot afford.

#18. davidbrent

"It's not just you, the outbreak of negativity is astounding. They moan if we can't stage a successful bid yet moan if we do. Londoners moan it increases their council tax and congestion yet non-Londoners moan it's not nearer to them. They moan if it's paid for by taxes, yet moan if it's paid for via tickets and still moan if it's paid for by sponsors who expect their share of tickets in return. They moan if there aren't enough tickets yet moan if there's empty seats. Unless the Olympics are happening for free at the end of their street with a guaranteed ticket for every event some people are never happy. And don't get me started on people who have 6 weeks to apply then leave it to the last minute and wonder why they and the 1000's of other who can't get their act together slow the system down."

--------------------------------

Well said. There are two kinds of people in this world. Those who are positive, talented & good enough to compete in an Olympics. And those who moan, aren't & don't. Take your pick.

Does anyone know if LOCOG will be announcing exactly which sessions will be going to ballot? June 24th seems a long way off and I'm feeling a little impatient (like #18 davidbrent I too am thrilled about the games being in this country - just don't let the whingers get you down). If we know which sessions aren't over-subscribed we can work out the tickets we definitely have and then wait to hear about others in the ballot.

If you're wondering which sport to go and see - I recommend men's hockey for real excitement and all-round entertainment. It's fast and powerful, the players show skill and team-work. Lots more goals than soccer and often nail-biting results. What more would you want?

I've been to Wimbledon, to the Six Nations (in a box no less); seen the Tour De France flash by twice (once by mistake when we came across a blocked road on the way home to the ferry if you can believe that) and I actually enjoy all of them better on TV - you are much closer to the action, you get replays, expert comment etc. In the case of distance events (marathon, road cycling etc you see the whole race on TV, not just a snippet)

In the case of the Olympics, you will get to see multiple events from your arm chair; at the stadium etc, just the one you paid for. Most are quick too - 10 seconds for the 100 metres. It was this that put me off applying for most events in fact - a lot are very short.

The atmosphere and being part of it all count of course, but I''s say don't beat yourself up too much if you fail to get the tickets you wanted is my view. A lot of the pleasure derived from these events is the one upmanship of saying you were there IMHO.

Wimbledon is the best value to see live of all the ones I have seen - you may rarely see the ball (and I miss not seeing hawk eye replays), but at least you get a whole days action.

I don't work for the Ö÷²¥´óÐã by the way!

I have applied for over £2k worth of tickets and am feeling a little nervous that they might all come in! One thing that I have never found explained is that will we either get all that we apply for (per event) or none at all e.g. If I apply for four 100m session tickets I will only get all four or none at all and not perhaps two or three. This would make sense.

@davidbrent well said :)

@Angbur, I think the slight problem with this is that oversubscribed might mean all ticket levels are oversubscribed. A session could be not oversubscribed in general but all the cheap ones could be oversubscribed ten times over, if you see what I mean.
So knowing which events are 'ok' wouldn't be guaranteeing you your tickets.

A list would be a good idea for a rough idea though. But even if you're in a ballot, it's better than having no chance atall.Odds on each ballot would be good, but then again it might be that your price level is oversubscribed but theres tickets available on the higher levels, if you don't mind paying a little more, which I guess might be what the tickets being sold in the summer will be.
The oversubscription of the £20 tickets would be the biggest issue (proving the idea that you couldn't really go for £20 as so many people applied) so I'm not expecting those figures to be released until after the games.

I have gone for something slightly over the average by requesting 15 tickets (3 per session for 5 sports). The whole lot has come out at around 600 Pounds even if I get everything at the maximum price. That does not seem excessive for the experience of a lifetime. Two of the events that I have requested were among the "Big Six" to sell out fast (surprisingly, the Triathlon and the Cross-Country of the three day event). I rate my chances of getting tickets for the Gynmastics Finals as being only slightly greater than of me being elected Prime Minister, so I have to admit that I don't feel optimistic at all of getting anything. The swimming (a morning session without Finals) is also looking dodgy. Probably my best chance is the Athletics morning session with the 100-m Heats: my daughter wants to see Usain Bolt and Oscar Pistorius and to me seeing them in Heats gives me the best chance at a reasonable price. Just feeling the atmosphere will make it worth the effort.

I'd have tried something like Handball or Hockey, but as you have no idea at this stage who you might see (Botswana v Qatar at Handball is better than nothing, but the prospect of ending up with a game like that rather one of the GB matches is a bit of a disincentive).

Given that nobody has mentioned football a great deal (aside from the opinion that a GB team will be a waste of time) I'm pretty optimistic of getting the tickets I applied for / could afford. Some of the mens' qualifying matches are being played back to back (July 29th / Aug 1st) in Coventry, so 2 matches for £20 seems like great value to me ! What's even better is that kids tickets are slightly cheaper too. Fingers crossed for May 10th onwards.

I read today that the next stage to weed out duplicate applications from the same households (which is what i assume the de-duplicate applications in yesterday's press release refers to). I don't seem to remember this being a restriction when applying. From what i remember you had to have an unique email address and use one Visa card for each application.

I'm concerned that i may have one of my applications rejected. Hopefully the de-duplication refers to selecting too many tickets for one particular session (which i didn't do).

If anyone knows what the de-duplicating of applications refers to please let me know.

Thanks

I've applied for my tickets and am waiting with anticipation along with many others to see what we actually get. Having the Olympics here in the UK is something I am excited about and I'm hopeful that we get to see some of the action in person.

That said, it doesn't mean I have to like the prices being charged. @davidbrent, @opaqueentity, please don't confuse people expressing an opinion in a freely democratic society with incessant whinging. They are as free to air their views as your are to share yours, of course.

I can be hugely excited about going and dislike the high prices at the same time, why can't others?

Some food for thought though... @opaquentity #17 you compare the Olympics to attending other major events and justify the costs on the grounds of comparable pricing. Shell, BP, Esso, Texaco etc all use the same argument for the price of fuel. Just because it's 'competitive', doesn't make it reasonable. The right as a society to protest such issues is fundamental to what we are in the UK - the more we sit down and accept things we don't agree with, the unfairer the place gets. Just sayin'...

And @suzkid #20, I wish life were as simple as the black and white picture you present of people. There are in reality more than two types of people and some won't agree with your views and some will. Isn't that what makes life interesting?

Roll on the Games and good luck to every poster here who applied for tickets. I hope you get what you want and add to what will be a great atmosphere, I'm sure.

I applied for tickets for my family, plus respective girlfriends and boyfriends. We are not all planning to go to the same events, but I have just discovered that they recommend that the the lead booker is in attendance at all events. Whilst this is achievable in my case, as none of our chosen events clash, it is waste of my time and will just add to congestion.

If this was the rule then it should have been made clear.

I have asked the Ticketing Team for confirmation of the position, and the response was that they would be "sensible" if the lead booker could not attend. Not very re-assuring and I would not be prepared to take the risk that my son might be refused entry.

The whole ballot process sounds pretty fair overall, so let's hope it works hassle free. my two main gripes, however, are:

1) the greed of organisers in solely allocating payment of the tickets to Visa. I have a Mastercard Credit Card and would be happy for the funds to be taken from that (up to £4000 if I am successful in everything), as it gives me a month to get together the money from other accounts and relatives who would attend the events with me. Alas, I can't use a Mastercard, only Visa. This means I have had to use my Visa debit card, meaning, IF I am successful, funds will just be taken straigth from my account, with nio pre-warning of how much and for which events. The alternatives to Visa, of making out the full payment amount via a cheque or postal order are even more inconveniencing. I'm afraid corporate greed has got the better of the organising committee rather than consideration for the funds.

2) The insistence that one needs the said funds in their account by 10 May (in my case £4000), but no guarantees when this money will be withdrawn and how much will be withdrawn. So, I need to find £4000 for tickets that I may not get and have this money sitting in my account for up to a month on the offchance that I may get lucky. I am quite happy to get together the money that I owe, but I should be told what that is before it is actually taken.

In short, the whole payment process is unfair on the general public: 1) we should be able to pay by whatever means we want, not just through the company that pay the organising committee the most money; 2) we should be told for what events we have been successful in getting tickets for and how much we owe, before the money is taken.

I'd love to see the silver-tongued fellow Lord Sir Coe and answer this one!

i've only applied for events that i actually want to see. all of these people that have applied for multiple events that they have no interest at all in, are only clogging up the system, and taking potential tickets away from genuine fans. i hope many of them get their fingers burnt and are left with big bills and tickets they don't really want.

I noticed last night while sitting in a traffic queue that BP garages are offering the chance to win tickets for the Olympics. How come ? Is this fair ?

Can you help with this, please? There seems to be no way of contacting the organisers.

I applied for tickets late on the last night but in good time, in good faith and the system could not cope.
Here is the confirmation of that.
"An error occurred while processing your request. Reference #30.10f2645f.1303854955.544......"
What responsibility do the organisers have in this situation and what can I do about it?

#28 The Team. Re duplicate applications - my understanding was the same as yours. Every application must have a unique Visa card and email address but each application can apply for as many tickets as they like, up to the session limit. "Households" doesn't come into it.

#32, Danny

I polled my family. My wife wanted the gymnastics. My daughter wanted to see Usain Bolt. Both like swimming, which made a swimming session a must and the triathlon an interesting alternative. We also went for the Three Day Even cross-country because it is spectacular and we like horses. That's 5 different events, but only one session per event, in part because I wanted a mix of venues to get a proper flavour of the event. As it turns out, I reckon that if we get 2 out of 5 we'll be doing well, mainly as we are picking category "D" in most events to be able to take advantage of the "pay your age option" for my daughter. I just hope that we do not end up empty-handed. Even if we get all five we have not spent much.

My only gripe with the way tickets were sold is that there was no option to apply for a whole days worth of sessions - where you either got all or none. If i end up with just the afternoon handball session i applied for its a lot of money for travel for 2 hours worth of action.

The Manchester and Birmingham bids were not supported by the money people in London that's why neither city had a realsitic chance, so don't tell us it was simply London's turn to bid. Like most things in the UK - Londoncentric. Don't get me wrong I am really pleased that we have the Olympics here finally, national pride far aways any other concerns; but this country certainly has a lot to learn about itself. The pwers that be in London care not a jot about the rest of the rest of the country.

Does anyone know how the allocation process works?
The application allowed a price band to be identified and also a maximum and minimum price band that an applicant was willing to pay. The order in which tickets for each price band are allocated for an event will have a big impact on the chances of getting tickets.
If the cheapest priced tickets are allocated first to the people specifying that price band, then anyone who has opted for a higher price band but indicated that they are willing to buy lower priced tickets has probably wasted their time specifying the lower price.
Equally, if the highest priced tickets are allocated first to the people specifying that price band then anyone who has opted for a lower price but indicated that they are willing to buy higher priced tickets has probably wasted their time specifying the higher price.
I seem to remember that this question was raised in the Q&A section of the Olympic tickets website but the answer was that it had not been decided.

I have takena big risk and only applied for two tickets for one athletics event. Hopefully, as there are no medals on offer, and I assume it is therefore "less popular" I will be successful; otherwise it's watch out for the second sale. I think it will be an amazing opportunity to take my young son to see a global exhibition

I'm hoping to get all of my tickets... opening, artistic gymnastics and 10m diving (both prelim)... but it seems gymnastics is quite popular.

@UnionFan
'@opaquentity #17 you compare the Olympics to attending other major events and justify the costs on the grounds of comparable pricing. Shell, BP, Esso, Texaco etc all use the same argument for the price of fuel. Just because it's 'competitive', doesn't make it reasonable. The right as a society to protest such issues is fundamental to what we are in the UK - the more we sit down and accept things we don't agree with, the unfairer the place gets. Just sayin'...

Ok then, you stand outside the Olympic park with a placard, whilst we go in and enjoy ourselves.
I'M not saying it's necesarily fair paying some higher prices, what I am saying is that if you are going to take part in any event you have to pay the price. If you don't want to pay the price then you don't take part. So totally opposite from petrol, oil, gas or electricity prices where you have no choice in the matter.
If you are getting the benefits of a big event then saying it's overpriced when you'd pay more for similar benefits elsewhere shows you are wrong.
But yes if you don't like it don't go.
Anyone that has 3 kids knows that they are going to get screwed over on ticket prices, whether it's the Olympics or Alton Towers, but hey so would I if I took 3 friends to the same place. You have more people, it costs more money.
It's not free to run such a big event, the money from the taxpayer and the lottery and the sponsors paid for the infrastructure (which of course we will get the benefit of later), effectively now the tickets are paying the costs of actually running the event.


'I can be hugely excited about going and dislike the high prices at the same time, why can't others?'

You can, but you need to be arguing about the right things. 'It's not fair' isn't a valid argument. If the ticket price is roughly representing the cost of the event is that unfair? No. Is charging £60 for a Peter Kay ticket because you can get away with it unfair? yes. Ticket touts aren't fair which is one reason they are illegal this time round.


@LordSirSteveTreacle
'the greed of organisers in solely allocating payment of the tickets to Visa'

Well if you had offered them enough money I'm sure they would have been happy to accept any form of payment. But Visa gave them the most, it's been the case for many major sporting events for years.
I suggest you complain to Mastercard to say they should have bid more, then next time theres something on you'll be ok.

And you've already had 6 weeks to move money across based

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

Unfortunately I don't own a Visa Card (Debit or Credit) and was made redundant two weeks before the ticket line was opened so cannot get a new card just for this purpose.

Thus I have no ability to apply for tickets and have been excluded by the process being limited to a very short period and to a single method of payment.

My taxes though have paid for the Games to be here and a lot of infrastructure specifically for the Games.

Could I please have that money back

In that respect

#38, Monketall

Manchester tried, I believe twice. They were eliminated in the first round with a tiny vote. The IOC response was "come back with a London bid and you will have a good chance". A regional bid has little chance save in the USA, hence successful cities have been capitals or the main residential city almost without exception (Rome, Tokio, Mexico City, Moscow, Seoul, Sydney, Beijing, London, Rio, ...) 1972 went to Munich because Berlin was still a divided city and is just about the only successful non-USA provincial bid that I can think of since Antwerp.

Of course, Montreal, in 1976: same argument. Ottawa is mainly an administrative centre, not a residential centre.

Barcelona

#30 pjashdown

I suspect that tickets will be issued with surnames printed on them and as such your family (assuming they all share your surname) shouldn't have a problem in using them (I suspect that any checks which take place will be by comparing some kind of ID with the surname on the ticket).

As I understand it though, the organisers aren't going to get too worked up over tickets changing hands between friends & family (so long as it is not for profit) they are more concerned about touts and large scale exploitation of fans.

Olympics are the greatest sporting event in the world and will be a huge success despite the best efforts of the whingeing sections of the public and the desperate efforts of our gutter press. For those grumbling about the money being taken out of their accounts and the card situation no-one forced you to apply and these regulations did not creep up secretly on you. I have ordered 20 single tickets covering 15 sports and hope to pick up more on the resales . The total cost could be over £4000 plus accomodation from Scotland I am looking at an outlay of £6000 for the holiday of a lifetime for which I have been saving for 5 years and done without a holiday for that period as well.

@Steve T
'Unfortunately I don't own a Visa Card (Debit or Credit) and was made redundant two weeks before the ticket line was opened so cannot get a new card just for this purpose.'

As has been said many times you could have got yourself a prepaid visa card, or paid by cheque or postal order. And I highly doubt that being unemployed is a bar to getting a new card.

'Thus I have no ability to apply for tickets and have been excluded by the process being limited to a very short period and to a single method of payment.'

Nope, you could have done it by post, 6 weeks is a long time to get your request in. Unless you were trapped down a mine or something you really don't have an excuse.


'My taxes though have paid for the Games to be here and a lot of infrastructure specifically for the Games. Could I please have that money back'

How much are you claiming then? Do you know the exact amount it's actually cost you? Or is it like the Royal Family when it costs something like 30p a year? And you're that desperate for the cost of a couple of newspapers back?
You can't have the small amount it is, but you can have the freedom to watch the games on tv for no additional fee and you can use the facilities created after the olympics has finished.

I'm highlighting another visa problem, with payments now about to be taken, which visa should have had a solution for before now!

I have been contacted by my card provider today about an attempted fraud on my visa card for £2. They have said they are putting a stop on the account. But this is the card I used for my Olympic ticket application and so a payment might (hopefully) be due any day soon. This is NOT my fault and not within my control, so I threw a complete fit with my card provider and said they can’t do that and that if they do I will close all my other bank accounts with them and will never ever have a visa card again. I'm sure I won't be the only person this happens to over the next couple of weeks. Is it the olympic system that has been hacked for people’s card details perhaps?
My card provider have referred it to their ‘head office’ but I'm not confident they'll do anything (I suggested they stop anything other than the olympic ticket payment going through; that seemed like a reasonable and practical suggestion) and am very concerned that my ticket application (if successful) will be rejected because of this.
I had no complaints about the whole ticket application and lottery thing until now..........but Visa need to deal with this situation fast!

I applied for 3 tickets for 3 events for me and my daughters. I know that they want to go to the only UK Olympics in any of our lifetimes.
I avoided the mens 100m final and went for the 200 instead. 19 seconds of Usain Bolt beats 9 seconds of him.
I also went for the absolute cheapest tickets for the closing ceremony.
Just to make something of the whole games, I also applied for an early round of the beach volleyball. I have no idea about the sport but I can't imagine a similar event on Horseguards' Parade again and just feeling the buzz of such a big event is something I witnessed at the 2006 World Cup.
There are plenty of skeptics before the event but things like this are one-off events and create a fantastic atmosphere.

Opaqueentity

I worked abroad for 9 years and had no credit history when I returned to the UK. There's a thing called a pre-paid credit card you know.
I got one of those (MasterCard) and then told my bank 18 months later that if I didn't get a credit card (Visa), I'd go somewhere else.
I still keep the MasterCard as FIFA works with them and the IOC works with Visa (both exclusively).

Oops! Sorry, I meant to address that to Stevie T.
Opaqueentity was giving the same advice as me.

It makes sense to have a prepaid credit card for online transactions and so that you have both of the major card providers covered.