Jonathan purchased the heavily promoted Padres’ “loaded tickets” for his family, each costing $40 which includes a $20 credit toward concessions at the park. The family arrived at Petco Park where confused employees told them to wait in several different lines because nobody knew how to process their tickets…strike 1. During the game, Jonathan thought he would go and redeem the concession money on his tickets by getting some food for his family. However, the food-stand employee balked at Jonathan’s loaded ticket, so Jonathan spent $40 out-of-pocket for food…strike 2. After a month of phone tag and a half-dozen calls, park officials refused to compensate him for the money he spent on food at the park…strike 3, yer out. His letter, inside…

Hi there,

Stumbled upon your site a few months ago and was greatly relieved to see that we little folks could actually do more than crawl through customer “service” hell with little satisfaction. Here is my regrettable story:

I recently moved my family to San Diego and decided to attend a Padres game. When I called I was told about a new promotion called a “loaded” ticket deal. You spend $40 per ticket and each ticket comes with $20 in concessions (of course you have to spend it all on the same game day). Sounds too good to be true, right? Well it is.

After jumping on those tickets, I was also talked into prepaid parking. They neglected to mention that it was nearly ten blocks away ( in a bad area of town and not worth the $10 plus service charge at all). After a nice long wait in line at the window I was informed that the front gate could issue my proof of prepaid parking but not my “loaded” ticket. No one could explain why, I was simply directed to wait at the turnstile and swipe my credit card but of course this did not work either. We were rerouted right back to the same ticket window where I received my proof of parking, to wait even more and watch the same group of people scratch their heads and make phone calls in an attempt to figure out the issue.

Finally finding our seats in the second inning, my wife asked me to head to the concession stand and get some food because we were now tiered, hungry, and in unpleasant moods from the long delays. Since my goal of being in our seats before the first pitch was utterly destroyed I figured I could make things a little better with some beers and decent ballpark food. After waiting in line for the entire third, fourth and fifth innings (not the three up and three down kind either) the gentleman at the register handed me our food and drinks and informed me that our tickets were not loaded at all! I fork over $40 more dollars and upon returning to my wife and daughter we decided to go to guest services to make a complaint and then leave.

Of course I had to leave three messages with different departments before receiving a call back. Then we played phone tag for over a month (six or more calls)to be told that they could not offer me any money back. They would only offer us some more tickets but no apology, explanation or money back on the concessions.

So if you live in or near San Diego and like baseball, don’t forget the LA Dodgers, Oakland A’s and LA Angels are just a stones throw with cheaper prices!

Sincerely,
Jonathan [redacted]

We understand why you are in a foul mood, Jonathan. We usually watch baseball on television while lounging in our underwear and now we remember why. It’s dehumanizing to be treated like human cattle while at the mercy of incompetent employees. Considering the error with your tickets, we can’t understand why Petco Park won’t step up to the plate and reimburse your food money.

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