Bitchin' About: Convenience Fees

I hate convenience fees.

Firstly they are inappropriately named. Unless of course I can go take a pee on Ticketmaster's premises. They should be called Greedy Bastard Fee. (I think I'm going to call them that from now on actually.)

Secondly, they don't make sense.

Convenience means that you are doing something with little effort. I take this to mean that when I go online, in my underwear, to buy a ticket it's convenient. Yay convenience!

But also, the fact that I am going through a computer who has some code input into it and no one has to be behind the counter at 2am in the morning is convenient for both Ticketmaster and whatever place I am buying my ticket from, in this case AT&T Center.


There is no one wearing a blue Ticketmaster polo or an AT&T Center shirt on shift 24/7 asking me what seats I'd like to buy. Nope. There is nothing like that online. In fact, after two minutes or so your tickets are forfeited and you have to go through the whole process again.

That's not convenient. That's annoying.

So I feel that the fee should even out. It's not like a one-sided thing here. You're not having to pay someone minimum wage to stand behind a counter for 24 hours! You're saving money! That is convenient for you!

The fee prices are crazy in themselves. There is no 1$ convenience fee.

This ladies and gentlemen is an example.

John and I bought tickets to the Nine Inch Nails concert that will be coming to San Antonio, November 5 at the AT&T Center.

He totally looks better now. 

I already know that driving all the way down to the AT&T Center is so much cheaper than actually buying them through Ticketmaster.

Now, we bought nosebleed seats. We'll have to arrive 2 hours early and with climbing gear to find our seats before the show but I kind of refuse to waste, I mean spend, 100something dollars on tickets.

But our seats are Section 230, Row 13, Seats 1 & 2.

Which is RIGHT NEXT TO THESE.

So how much money did I save driving down to the AT&T Center? A lot.

Our tickets came out to 75$.

For those of you who can't math (like me - I had to use a calculator) that is 30.52$ in savings.

Hidden, or not so hidden, are crazy fees that DON'T MAKE SENSE.

Please, for the love of god, tell me why I would have had to pay 22.30$ for a service fee. What service do you provide? I hear that bands complain all the time that they have to pay so much to the facility. And yet the facility fee is a separate charge all it's own. 2.00$. I can afford to pay 2.00$ for the janitorial staff or whatever.

So where does the 22.30$ go?

Who are you paying that to?

Oh, what it goes into your pocket? To your child's college fund?

I wouldn't doubt it.

Then there is an order processing fee. What the balls?

What the hell is an order processing fee? You're the damn Ticketmaster website-- that is what you do! You're made to process my order.

You're a website. No people are there. It takes you 6.38$ per transaction to keep your website alive?

I seriously doubt that.


I'm really picking on Ticketmaster here because I just purchased the tickets but hidden fees are everywhere. Check your Sprint account lately? They have weird fees too. Because you know, 80$ for unlimited doesn't cover the entire cost of whatever.

Then there are places like colleges that add fees onto your tuition. Library fees, book fees (don't we have to buy our own?), lab fees.

According to the College Data website the average yearly tuition of a public in-state school is 22,261$.

It also talks about fees that are included in cost of tuition: student government, parking fees, local bus services.

I have to believe there is an easier, more efficient and better way to go around these fees.

So the next time you see a convenience fee, get mad at it, yell about it and call it what it really is: The Greedy Bastard Fee.