Pros

Proactive and informative customer service by email or WhatsApp
A comprehensive choice of tickets for La Liga fixtures
Sleek and easy to use website
Very competitive pricing

Cons

Limited availability for non-Spanish football
No PayPal payment option

Is Football Experience legit?

Football Experience is an international secondary marketplace, specialising mainly in European domestic competitions, with an emphasis on La Liga in Spain. Whether you’re fulfilling a lifelong dream by attending El Clásico, or want to see your favourite Spanish team in the flesh, Football Experience is an excellent option. Read on for a detailed analysis of Football Experience, covering everything they do well, and some of the things customers thought they could do better.

Based in Spain, Football Experience is a secondary marketplace offering genuine resold tickets for several leagues around Europe, as well as for competitions like the Champions League and Europa League. The company’s success is built on a 100% guarantee concerning ticket authenticity, customer service and timely delivery of tickets.

Football Experience also guarantees seating in pairs, and offers single-only seats at a lower price. However, if you’re attending a match in a larger group you need to be prepared to pay for the privilege of sitting together.

Once the purchase is made, the company’s proactive and helpful customer service kicks into gear. There’s a WhatsApp account on hand to answer questions and set your mind at ease. In the build-up to a game you also receive a series of unprompted updates via email, usually automatically generated.

What Does Football Experience Offer Compared to Other Secondary Marketplaces?

Thanks to the company’s location, Spanish football is Football Experience’s main focus, but the company offers resale tickets for a variety of other European domestic leagues. These include the Premier League, Serie A, the Bundesliga and Ligue 1. You can also search for tickets for the domestic cups in these countries, as well as for the Champions League and Europa League.

One of the tricky things about specialising in Spanish football is that the exact dates aren’t confirmed until around three weeks before a match. Then you have to wait a little longer for the kick-off times to be nailed down. The dates and times are kept fluid until as late as possible because of factors like weather, television schedules, conflict with domestic or European fixtures, to name a few. It’s not ideal if you’re planning a trip months in advance.

La Liga’s policy on fixtures has been the subject of hot debate for decades. What it does mean if you’re buying tickets is that—unless you’re highly flexible when it comes to travel arrangements—you need to be 100% sure that the match is going ahead at the right day and time for you before you book. As is normal on secondary marketplaces, Football Experience does not provide refunds in any circumstances, including if a match is postponed. However, your ticket will still be valid for the new date/time.

Before you purchase your tickets, Football Experience anticipates these issues by providing a list of important details under each fixture. These cover everything that you need to know before you buy. As well as explaining the policy on postponements it also points out that there’s a 30% charge if you want three or more seats together.

The Buying Experience with Football Experience

Now we’ll take a look at the full process of buying a ticket with Football Experience, and bring up anything that you need to know.

Football Experience Guarantee

One of the first things that catches the eye on the Football Experience landing page is the company’s “100% Guarantee”. This entails:

Genuine tickets
Timely ticket delivery

Football Experience also promises that you will receive the category you purchased or a better one. If not, they say you will get 100% of your money back.

Finding Tickets on Football Experience

The Football Experience user interface is clean and clear, but may be subject to change. Anyway, this is what we encountered when we searched for tickets for FC Barcelona vs Rayo Vallecano:

The landing page has a dropdown menu allowing you to select competition or club. You can also see the company guarantee, and the ever-present disclaimer about prices being above or below face value.

The FC Barcelona team page has a list of fixtures. Notice the date and the time. If these are posted in the fixture list it means that they are confirmed.

After clicking the fixture, you get a selection of tickets, beginning with singles.

Further down this page is a list of disclaimers that you absolutely need to read before purchasing. Note the 30% fee if you want to buy 3+ seats together.

Hovering over a ticket will highlight the section within the stadium.

Afterwards you can proceed to payment. Notice the ten-minute countdown at the top of the page.

Trying out Football Experience’s Customer Support

Knowing how changeable La Liga scheduling can be, we thought we would test Football Experience’s customer service with a query involving the fixture time.

As you can see, the response came in just five minutes, and was highly courteous. It did redirect my query to the official organiser, without providing a link. So, full marks for response time and politeness, but maybe the answer could have been more helpful.

Football Experience Terms and Conditions

If you’re buying football tickets on a secondary marketplace, it’s vital that you take some time to read the company’s terms and conditions to know where you stand. Unfortunately, Football Experience’s Terms and Conditions are not easy to locate on the site.

In fact, we had to come out and do a google search for them. But the page does exist, and is full of information to help clarify the rules of the game, so to speak. There were also a few typos, which we have kept in unedited.

5.1. As footballexperience.com is a secondary ticket market and not an official organizer, all orders are final and binding and cannot be cancelled or altered.

As we’ll see, a few people who have registered their dissatisfaction with Football Experience have run afoul of their refunds policy. Say a buyer had to change plans and couldn’t make the trip, well the purchase is binding and they will not receive a refund. Nevertheless a few people with this kind of experience have left negative reviews online.

5.5. In the case the organizers have postponed a match, no refund will be offered. The tickets for the original date of the event are valid for the rescheduled event. If an event has been cancelled and not rescheduled, no refund is possible.

This is a crucial detail to take on board. Some resale marketplaces do offer a refund if an event is cancelled and not rescheduled. It’s important to know what you’re getting into, and that you’re assuming all of the risk once you make your purchase.

6.1. Football experience® will deliver your tickets on the night before the match, please note that the delivery might take up 12 in the midnight.

Many customers understandably get nervy in the countdown to a game, particularly if they have splashed out on tickets. Football Experience cuts things fine by providing the tickets within 24 hours of kick-off. It’s worth taking this on board before you jump in.

6.2. The tickets delivery will depend on the type of the tickets available in the markets; if it is electronic type, it will be sent tom your email address on the night before the match. If the tickets are physical type, it will be delivered to your hotel reception also on the night before the match.

It’s also important to remember that the tickets available on Football Experience are often physical. So you need to be prepared to make arrangements to receive them, which does add an extra layer of uncertainty to the transaction, and will require some careful planning.

Football Experience Reviews from Other Sites

For a definitive account on Football Experience’s customer satisfaction, we looked up their review page on TrustPilot. As you can see, they have a solid 4.0 average from 163 reviews. Where necessary, Football Experience has responded to the occasional negative reviews on TrustPilot, usually to express their regret and restate their customer policies to people who were unaware.

Football Experience Positive Reviews

The vast majority of transactions with Football Experience go off without a hitch. Bear in mind that for many people, these matches are the centrepiece of an entire trip and the realization of a long-term dream. So it’s no surprise that their praise is enthusiastic when things go to plan.

One topic that comes up repeatedly is Football Experience’s WhatsApp service, helping to allay any fears in the build-up to the fixture, and answering queries about anything, from seat location to ticket pick-up arrangements.

Another point of praise that comes up is value for money. Now, it bears repeating that sellers set the prices. Occasionally this may be below face value, so it seems that plenty of Football Experience customers get lucky. Other positive reviewers are aware that they may have paid over the odds, but see an inflated price as something worth paying if it means guaranteed tickets.

When the tickets are delivered, whether by email or physically, they are accompanied by clear instructions to help smooth the process of attending the game. Throughout everything, speedy WhatsApp communication gives customers all the info they need.

Football Experience Negative Reviews

The company’s business model means that it cuts it fine with deadlines. As a consequence, many of the less positive reviews are left by anxious buyers worried that they don’t have tickets with the game so close.

This might be e-tickets sent by email, or, even more troubling, physical tickets that have to be delivered somewhere like a hotel reception. Many of these reviewers then leave an update, saying that everything went smoothly in the end, without changing their star rating.

It’s also a fact that when you purchase tickets from a secondary marketplace, the physical ticket will have a different, usually lower, price to what you paid. Some customers were bothered by this discrepancy, even though every page on the Football Experience website features the disclaimer, “Prices are subject to seller’s and may be below or above face value”.

Other customers wanted refunds, for a variety of reasons, from match postponements to their own change of travel plans. As we covered above, Football Experience does not offer a refund in these circumstances. This is completely normal practice on secondary marketplaces, and needs to be taken into account before you make the purchase.

Finally, a bulk of negative reviews come from people who order multiple tickets (three or more) and are upset because they were unable to sit together. As we talked about above, you have to pay a 30% fee to guarantee group seats.

Verdict

Forward planning is absolutely essential when you’re dealing with a reseller like Football Experience. Luckily, the company makes clear exactly where you stand, even listing important disclaimers on the fixture pages. Beyond that, purchasing tickets and choosing location is a breeze, while attentive customer service brings peace of mind and makes it easy to attend the biggest games in Spain and around Europe. A drawback is a hefty 30% surcharge on the price of your tickets if you’re in a group of three and want to sit together.

VISIT Football Experience