planholder renewal thread

[dobrojim]

(my now open letter to my rep re renewal and current status as a planholder)

Last night for the first time I tried to use Mon rewards to exchange some unused tickets
for the 2 available games.

I successfully logged in, selected my 2 tickets from the Spurs game that I was unable to attend
but it kept giving me an error message that the number of seats exceeded the number I was trying to get.

Also, not sure how much of this you overheard in the suite Monday night but I want to let
you as my rep know my feelings regarding renewal.

I will grant that the team has made some progress this year. That said, the majority
of that progress is simply because John Wall has played in every game and from
Trevor Ariza having a career year playing next to John.

I think it is unfair for management to ask planholders to renew their plans
with an increase (more on that in a minute) when Mr Leonsis has given us
no indication, say nothing of assurance, that GM Grunfeld will be dismissed
after this year. This is clearly an overdue change which I can cite chapter
and verse to support.

I have had 2 seats since becoming a planholder and attend games
with one or the other of my 2 daughters. The older one is graduating HS
this year and will be away from home in college next year. The younger
one who is a HUGE Wizards fan also plays HS basketball which makes
a number of games between mid-Nov and early March difficult for her and me to
attend. She also has to get up at Oh-dark 30 on weeknights for school.
So buying a full plan has some downside risk for me. But here is the
clincher. I find it hard to justify paying a price increase when there are
a huge majority of games where it is nearly impossible to sell my seats
without taking a loss. Heck, sometimes I can't even give them away.
If my experience over these years as a planholder had been better
in re-selling tickets to games I can't go to, I would have no qualms about
renewing.

If I could, I'd go to every game. But it's going to be hard to find a companion
for many games next year given my family situation. Buying one seat is not
a good option either as it is almost impossible to sell a single ticket.

I like my seats. I like my neighboring plan holders. But until DC really
adopts the Wizards in a more passionate way, which would allow
planholders like me the opportunity to not take a complete loss on
unused tickets (the new rewards system I can't even get to work
and it doesn't seem nearly as generous as the old system), I find
it hard to accept a price increase.

If I wanted to go to every game next year, I could do it much less
expensively just by buying tickets second hand, with a few notable
exceptions such as when marquee teams visit. Those games are exciting,
but they're also frustrating from the standpoint of a Wizards fan
given how evenly split the crowds are.

Keeping Mr Grunfeld and raising ticket prices gives me considerable
pause in my decision. I hope you will share this up the chain of command.
I would welcome any opportunity to discuss this further if that would
be helpful.