If you’re a diehard Chelsea fan, then it doesn’t get better than a Chelsea Season Ticket. This will guarantee you Chelsea tickets to every home Premier League match. The problem is that there are a lot of Chelsea fans who want exactly the same thing. Combine that crazy demand with a limited supply, and it makes Chelsea FC Season Tickets extremely difficult to get.
The short answer is that there is no waiting list for Chelsea Season Tickets. Instead, using Chelsea’s Loyalty Points system, you need to attend a big number of Chelsea matches in a given season and hope that you have accumulated enough points by the summer to qualify for the right to apply for a season ticket.
In reality you need to be more loyal than 99.9% of Blues fans, and give up a lot of your time during that season. Read on and we’ll explain just what you have to do to get a Chelsea Season Ticket.
How Do I Apply for a Chelsea Season Ticket?
Whereas most Premier League teams have a waiting list for season tickets, things work a little differently at Chelsea. Instead of joining a queue, you qualify for the opportunity to apply for a Chelsea Season Ticket by earning a certain number of Loyalty Points in a given season.
Fair to say, Loyalty Points are crucial for many aspects of being a match-going Chelsea fan. We’ll explain why in our in-depth guide to Chelsea Membership.
Now, the tally of Chelsea Loyalty Points that you have to earn changes with each season. And even if you do reach the required points threshold, that is no guarantee that your application will be successful.
The application period is a narrow, week-long window in June. You have to fill out a form, stating where in the stadium you would like to sit. You get up to three picks, and you are able to request to sit next to an existing Chelsea Season Ticket holder.
How Do Chelsea Loyalty Points Work?
If you’re wondering how you earn Chelsea Loyalty Points, the answer is in the name. You need to be loyal to Chelsea FC, and show up to a lot of matches throughout the season. To ensure that only the most committed fans can qualify for a Chelsea Season Ticket, less glamorous matches actually count more.
That means, big-time matches against teams like Arsenal, Spurs, Manchester United, Liverpool, and Manchester City, give you one (1) Chelsea Loyalty Point each. However, every other Premier League game, be it home or away, actually counts for three (3) points.
Most lucrative of all are the cup competitions, offering five (5) points each, but there’s a complicated breakdown. You get five points for the early stages of the domestic cup competitions (home and away), UEFA competition group-stage matches, UEFA competition away matches (excluding finals), the UEFA Super Cup, and the Fifa Club World Cup.
How Many Chelsea Loyalty Points are Needed for a Season Ticket?
The answer changes from season to season. It all depends on factors like the rate of renewals among existing Chelsea Season Ticket holders and how many matches Chelsea play.
For instance, in the summer before the 2023-24 season the club announced that you needed 136 points to be able to apply. That figure was largely the same as summer 2022 when the threshold was 147. The two previous seasons were of course disrupted by Covid-19, but before 2019-20 the necessary total was 129. Before that, the total for 2018-19 was 113.
So despite some minor deviations, this goes to show that obtaining a Chelsea Season Ticket has only become more difficult over time. You would need to put a priority on less glamorous Premier League games, and on home and away European group stage games, if Chelsea qualify.
Remember, Loyalty Points do not roll over from season to season. If you fall short of the necessary total, then you need to try again next year.
How Many Chelsea Matches Do I Have to Attend for the Chance to Buy a Season Ticket?
Those loyalty points totals translate to an incredible number of matches that you need to attend. If you want the chance to purchase a Chelsea Season Ticket you need to devote an entire nine months of your life to following Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, across England, and overseas if Chelsea are in Europe.
So, during a successful year for the club, the total available Chelsea Loyalty Points is between 160 and 180. This is assuming that Chelsea will reach the latter stages of European competition and have long runs in the FA Cup and EFL Cup.
By our estimate, the 2023-24 total of 136 points is extremely difficult to achieve. You would need to attend around 80% of all Chelsea matches. In a successful season that would be somewhere in the region of 40 games. As we have mentioned, a lot of those would need to be the kind of matches only diehard Chelsea fans would attend.
We’re talking about long-distance away games in Europe, or week-night cup and league games away at smaller clubs in the North of England.
And in the end, you may get unlucky. Due to the high demand for Chelsea tickets, you may not be able to snag tickets for Chelsea games when they go on sale to members.
Also remember that you don’t get Loyalty Points for Chelsea tickets purchased via the Ticket Exchange. So as well as being ready to travel at the drop of a hat and spend a large amount of money on General Admission tickets, you need a lot of luck to hit that Loyalty Points goal.
Will It Get Easier to Buy a Chelsea Season Ticket?
Some of that question depends on Chelsea’s recent bad form continuing. It’s normal for fans to give up their season tickets when their team is doing poorly. But it’s important to remember how much of a saving Chelsea Season Ticket holders make.
General Admission tickets for Chelsea matches at Stamford Bridge cost between £60 and £71 for seats with unrestricted views. As we’ll show, that is much more expensive than the per-match cost of a Chelsea Season Ticket.
So purely from a financial perspective, season ticket holders will want to keep their place.
How Much Does a Chelsea Season Ticket Cost?
So, on the slim chance that you qualify to apply, you then need to factor in the price of a Chelsea Season Ticket. This is one of the areas where the club has earned a lot of praise. Between 2011 and 2024, the price of a General Admission Chelsea Season Ticket was completely frozen, and didn’t even increase with inflation.
This made Stamford Bridge a relatively affordable place to watch football, despite the enormous success enjoyed by the club over the past 20+ years.
In 2023-24 a Chelsea FC Season Ticket ranged from £750 to £940. The cheapest seats are in the lower tiers of the Matthew Harding Stand and Shed End, which are both shortsides. The most expensive General Admission Season Tickets at Chelsea are in the Upper Tier of the East Stand, with some of the best views of the pitch. For a complete guide to this layout, check out our Stamford Bridge Seating Plan.
For Juniors (19 and younger) and Seniors (65 and over) there are significant discounts. In 2023-24 the price ranged from £380 (Shed Lower, Matthew Harding Lower) to £450 (West Lower). Finance options are available for all Chelsea season tickets, allowing fans to spread the cost out over the year.
At the time of writing in April 2024, it was expected that these prices would change for the 2024-25 season. The extent of the price rise was unconfirmed, but was expected to be more than the 4% that the Chelsea Supporters’ Trust had deemed acceptable.
How Many Chelsea Season Tickets Are There?
According to the most recent estimates, there are 28,000 Chelsea FC season ticket holders. Clearly, that is a high proportion of Stamford Bridge’s total capacity, which is 40,341. You start to realise just how difficult it is to get hold of a season ticket when you see that there are almost 100,000 people with Chelsea membership. In theory, these people are competing against each other for around 6,000 tickets on sale on a typical match-day.
In the end only the tiniest fraction will gain anywhere near enough Chelsea loyalty points to even have the right to apply for a Chelsea season ticket.
How Do I Get Premium Chelsea Season Tickets?
When it comes to premium season tickets at Stamford Bridge, there’s a different set of rules to follow. The premium Westview Season Ticket (in West Stand Upper), and the various Club Chelsea Suites and Private Club Boxes all have a waiting list.
You join the Westview and Club Chelsea list with a £120 deposit, and this rises to £300 for a Private Club Box. When the time comes, your dedicated account manager will let you know if you have secured a place for the new season.
So how much does a Westview Season Ticket cost? Unlike the General Admission Chelsea Season Tickets, the price of a Chelsea Westview Season Ticket has risen in the last few years. This has followed a complete renovation of the West Stand Upper concourse, with two 360° bars, a food hall and three new big screens. These padded seats cost between £1615 and £3685 for the season.
When it comes to Chelsea hospitality, the price of the suites in the East and West Stands begin at £4,030 at the Captains’ Bar and rises to £12,490 at the Executive Club. Club Boxes meanwhile cost £90,000 a year. All of these hospitality packages give you access to all Premier League home games, but also all home matches in the domestic cups.
Buying Chelsea Tickets Via Resellers
When you add everything up, your chances of snagging a Chelsea FC Season Ticket are remote to say the least. You need a lot of time, good fortune, and a level of dogged dedication that would put 99.9% of Blues fans to shame.
If you want to take luck out of the equation you can track down Chelsea tickets on the secondary market via Ticket Compare. We give you access to a selection of trusted marketplaces with reliable sellers.
It’s a sensible option for fans who are only in town for a specific game, and don’t want to go through the trouble of securing membership, wasting time in online queues, or trawling the Chelsea Ticket Exchange.
