We get asked about our ticket prices often. It makes sense: Most of our users are travellers, and a big part of any well-planned trip is finding the right deal.
Here’s our short answer: the prices listed on Sports Where I Am are competitive with similar tickets you can find on other sites selling tickets to sports events. In some cases, our prices will end up cheaper than competing sites, in some others, slightly more. Generally, it’s a few dollars either way, and we like to think that our traveller focus and hands-on, Australian-based support more than makes up for it in those scenarios.
We encourage you to make the comparison yourself when you’re planning your trip, but you need to make sure you’re comparing the total amount you’ll pay coming from Australia.
So here is our step-by-step guide to make sure you’re comparing accurate figures.
Disclaimer:
It’s important to note that a number of the tickets listed on Sports Where I Am (and from the sites we’ve compared ourselves to in this post) come from the secondary ticket market, where prices are influenced by demand and can therefore be higher or lower than face value. We do also provide tickets direct from our partners which include teams, venues and leagues. Either way, all tickets on SWIAM are backed by our 100% guarantee.
Here’s what to keep in mind when comparing our prices to a competitor website:
Our prices default to your local currency
When you’ve got multiple browser tabs open during your trip research, it’s easy to miss this part. We have 8 different currency options available to view our ticket prices in, which comes in handy to avoid extra bank costs (more on that later).
It can be jarring, though, to see a competitor site listing tickets for $25 and then seeing ours at $45 (such as in the Example Event 1 graphic above).
So the first thing to check is what currency you have your SWIAM tab set to.
The price will be different once it’s in your shopping cart
As mentioned above, we don’t set the actual ticket prices for individual games – they are fed through from our international suppliers. One thing we do have control over, though, is our booking fee. We have made a consistent 15% Booking Fee across all tickets sold through Sports Where I Am, in order to absorb any delivery, currency conversion and customer service costs.
So why not display the booking fee automatically on the prices shown in the seating map view? It’s a good question, and one we’ve given quite a lot of consideration. Ultimately, we have decided that we want to be as transparent as possible with our pricing. In order to do this, we felt we needed to clearly distinguish between what is the cost of the ticket set by our suppliers and what is the booking fee charged by us at SWIAM.
It’s important to note that with SWIAM, the price displayed in your shopping cart is the same that you’ll see on your bank statement. There are no follow-up costs that will be added to this figure afterward, as there would be for international transactions made with ticketing sites based overseas.
Your bank won’t give you the same exchange rate as X-E or Google
Note: If you are using SWIAM and you have your local currency selected, you will not be impacted by this part.
Many users will take the price listed in their SWIAM shopping cart and/or a price displayed on a competitor’s website, drop that number into Google, get a currency conversion from either Google or X-E Currency Converter, and then inform us of the difference between our prices and competitor’s prices.
Unfortunately for travellers, there is a hidden cost here that you will not notice until you’ve made a transaction: Your bank probably gives you a much worse exchange rate than Google or X-E displays.
For example – the above screenshots show that a prominent Australian Bank offers its customers an exchange rate of around 65c USD per $1 AUD1, whereas Google/X-E have the currency conversion at around 69c2.
The result of this difference is that the bank effectively charges you around 4c per dollar of your order before you’ve paid any other fees (see below).
If you’re comparing our price to a competitor’s, though, it’s worth checking the exchange rate that your specific bank would charge you.
Here are links to the currency conversion calculators for the primary “big four” banks in Australia:
Your bank will charge you an international transaction fee (usually 3%)
When making a purchase in another country, your bank will charge you an International Transaction Fee calculated as a percentage of your total order. This is separate from the difference in exchange rates mentioned above.
For most banks, this is 3% of your total order.
Here are links to the International Transaction Fees explained for each of the Big Four Banks:
Again, if you’re an Australian user and you are using SWIAM for your booking, this part won’t impact you.
Our travel-focused customer service team is on hand to answer any questions you have on-the-go
As these examples show (as well as the many, many other tests we ran), our prices are generally within a few dollars of our main competitors when it comes to tickets to sports events. Sometimes a little less, sometimes a little more.
So it’s also worth mentioning that our Australian-based customer service team is on hand to talk you through any questions you have in the lead-up to your event, and that we offer our assistance through the perspective of a traveller. We have had customers call us in the week leading up to their event needing to change their delivery method, or contacting us on Messenger as they approach the gate of their event with last-minute questions. Our service has been designed with these travel-specific circumstances in mind.
Call it a shameless plug if you will, but this type of assistance it’s certainly something you should weigh into your comparison if you’re flying around the world to tick an item off your bucket list.
So, when comparing our prices to other sites, remember:
Check the currency that you’re viewing SWIAM’s prices in
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Add your items to your shopping cart to see what the total cost is including fees (this applies to other sites, too)
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Use the currency converter from your bank (rather than from Google/X-E)
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Factor in your bank’s International Transaction Fees
If you do all of this and still find a notable discrepancy between our prices and our competitors’ listing of the same (or very similar) tickets, make sure you contact us.
