The Big ScoreBig Experiment: Get the best Name A Ticket Price deal

UPDATE 10/14/16: Use Extreme Caution purchasing from ScoreBig!  In October 2016, ScoreBig encountered “an unexpected liquidity crisis” which lead to them ceasing operations temporarily.  Their communication to buyers at that time indicated that “there may be an issue regarding the continued validity of the tickets you purchased”.

Editor’s Note: Anita, our Lab Manager, was previously introduced in the same post in which I introduced Extreme Stacking: Introducing Extreme Stacking (and our new Lab Manager). Since then, Anita has conducted experiments, kept the Lab table up to date, and contributed to our Extreme Stacking Page. Now, new experiments have come together to result in a potentially spectacular extreme stacking quadruple dip with ScoreBig. What follows is part 2 of a series researched and written by Anita…
-Frequent Miler (AKA Greg).

The Big ScoreBig Experiment, Part 2

By Anita, FM Lab Manager…

Event ticket seller ScoreBig offers rewards and bonuses through a variety of portals and partners, offering the tantalizing possibility of double, triple or even quadruple reward stacking.

In the first post in the ScoreBig series, we looked at ScoreBig’s pricing options and interfaces and found that when the Name A Ticket Price (NATP) option is available, you really can score a good deal.

Get the best Name A Ticket Price deal at ScoreBig

It turns out that there is a small hack that may allow you to get the best possible price when you use ScoreBig’s Name A Ticket Price.

For this experiment, I wanted five tickets for a baseball game. On the NATP-enabled version of ScoreBig, I found Field Plaza sections 244 and 246 (blue flags) with published price tickets available, and Sections 243-246 (green sections) with the Name A Ticket Price Option.

Because the section numbers are annoyingly cut off in the summary above, note a few things:

• The $73 published price option is Section 246 Row AA with up to four tickets available.
• The $39 published price option is Section 244 Row KK with up to six tickets available.

Because I’m bidding on 5 tickets, it is a reasonable theory that I’m bidding on the 244 Row KK seats, yes?

See the red crossed out $39 next to the Make Offer link? Recall that with Name A Ticket Price you’re guaranteed to pay less than box office, and a quick check of the box office shows that Field Plaza seats are $37 each before fees. The fees at this venue are variable (based on how many tickets, phone vs. online purchase, etc) so $39 for after fees is definitely in the ballpark.

The Success-O-Meter

Once you click on the Make Offer tab, you can enter prices and see the chance that your bid will be accepted on the ScoreBig Success-O-Meter.

Based on my bidding experiences, I’d set your price range starting from the lowest price that gets you to the first green bar. Lowball prices in the orange and yellow sections were declined. For these tickets, $24 was the lowest price that got me to the green…

…and $29 was the lowest price that a got me a sure thing.

I checked Stubhub listings for the same sections and found 1-6 tickets in Section 244 KK for $45 each. (This is not coincidence. The same tickets are frequently listed multiple places.)

Seat Geek also had 1-6 tickets in Section 244 (but in Row GG) priced at $26.

(A quick aside about Seat Geek: Seat Geek aggregates listings across a number of online resellers including ScoreBig. Because tickets are frequently listed in multiple places at very different prices, Seat Geek can be a great price comparison resource.)

If $26 buys these seats from Seat Geek, $26 should be the maximum I would pay for these seats through ScoreBig.

I wondered if I could save a few more bucks, so I submitted a bid for $24.

Before I got my answer, I had to enter delivery information and billing information (including any coupon or promo codes*). Next I had a chance to review my bid and agree that the sale would be final if my bid was accepted. I also learned that if the bid was declined, I would not be able to make another bid on the same seat rating for 1 hour.

The result:

The bid of $24 was a bit too low, but I was offered the opportunity to purchase at $26.26 each. $26 was the listed price on Seat Geek. That was very interesting.

I declined the counter-offer because I wanted to try again at $25, but by the next day, the seats were gone.

*I will cover ScoreBig coupons and promo codes in detail in the next post, but take note of the $37 coupon used in the unsuccessful bid attempt above. After a previous ScoreBig successful Name A Ticket Price bid was accepted, I was given the opportunity to send a coupon to someone in the amount of my savings which was $37. The coupon was good for 30 days and had no minimum purchase requirement.

The Seat Geek “Tell”

I switched to a different event to try again. I found a pair of tickets I wanted and did a price comparison:

• Box Office: $52
• ScoreBig Published Price: $64 (Section 105, Row A)
• ScoreBig NATP Max: $55 (the red slashed price for Sections 105, 106, 107, 108)
• Seat Geek: $35 (Section 105, Row B, Source ScoreBig)

The Success-O-Meter showed that bids of $35-$40 were in the green range. And I didn’t want to offer over $35 because I could buy them from Seat Geek for $35.

In my previous attempt, the lowest end of the green range didn’t result in a successful bid, but this bid of $35 was accepted without any counter-offer.

And I got Section 105, Row B.

ScoreBig is tipping us off to the lowest winning bid with their Seat Geek price. I can’t guarantee this will always happen, but I’d wager it will. In any future bids, I’ll use the Seat Geek price (or maybe $1 lower?) as my bid.

Why not just buy from Seat Geek?

I’m sure many of you are wondering why you shouldn’t just buy from Seat Geek. The price is the same as ScoreBig, and you know your section and row number. And if you use a cash back portal, you can earn 7% cash back at Seat Geek.

The answer is that ScoreBig offers Extreme Stacking opportunities well beyond 7% cash back, and we will cover that in detail in the next post.

This post was written by Anita, FM Lab Manger.  Anita actively researches new Extreme Stacking possibilities and maintains the Frequent Miler Laboratory page.

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