You’ve probably heard of convenience charges plenty of times, but do you understand what they are? Convenience charges are those pesky fees different vendors charge you when you use their services. Wait! What’s that? You are charged a fee for patronizing a particular vendor? How does that make sense?
Typical convenience charges can be found all over the place. For instance, in some counties you are charged a convenience fee for paying your property taxes online with a credit card. Another classic example of a convenience fee can be seen when you purchase cheap tickets
Avoiding some convenience fees is as easy as licking a stamp. In the case of paying your property tax bill, for example, you can simply write a check to your county government, place it in the mail, and forget all about that convenience charge. You can make the whole process even simpler by setting your county up as a vendor in your checking account’s online bill payment software and letting the bank process your check.
Planning ahead can also be key when squashing convenience charges from your life. Waiting until you no longer have time to mail your payments can lead to additional fees for paying your utility bills online or over the phone. Use a calendar or bill organizer to ensure that you always make your payments early enough to avoid unnecessary fees.
Other convenience fees are harder to avoid. Ticketmaster fees, in particular, are notorious for being hard to stamp out. In theory, you can drive to a Ticketmaster box office to purchase your tickets in person and avoid being charged a convenience charge. However, many theatres and concert venues operate their own box offices. Although they may use Ticketmaster’s system to manage their ticketing operations, they are not an official Ticketmaster location. In those cases, there is no way to avoid paying a convenience charge when you buy tickets to these events. Find cheap concert tickets!
Sometimes, the best you can hope for is minimizing the impact convenience charges have on your life. Paying with cash or a check to avoid unnecessary convenience charges will help. Another way to save money is to buy Cheap tickets
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Great tips. I landed here when searching google for Convenience Charges …. Ticketmaster was going to charge me $30 for fees on tickets to go see a concert. Guess what … I’m not that big a fan.
Really good tips. My question/comment would be, if there are no “local” Tickemasters to drive to, what would be the alternative (I know, pay the convenience fee)? So, IMHO, Ticketmaster is making it inconvenient to bypass the convenience fee by not having local departments where you can drive to and pay.
I bought a ticket paying 9 x 2 = 18 + $ for Convenience Charge!! I never knew these kinda things. Worst part is they charged me Facility Charge + Order Processing Fee again !! All together 30$ extra for no reason.
Good bye to Ticketmaster !! Never again I will repeat this mistake.
I never realized conveniece charges were so expensive, ticketmaster wanted a $10.25 conevniece charge for each ticket and i wanted 2, guess i wont be seeing that concert
go to theater and purchase the ticket
this will help u to save your convenience charges
“You’ve probably heard of convenience charges plenty of times”…er, nope. Not until I moved to America. I get absolutely furious when utility and other companies want to charge me for paying my bills online – saving THEM the cost of someone to open an envelope and process a cheque. The rest of the world would laugh themselves stupid at being charged such a ludicrous fee. In fact civilised countries give you a DISCOUNT (normally around 5%) for paying online, because of the obvious savings to the company.
Convenience charges are just a convenient way for Ticketmaster to charge you more. Goodbye Ticketmaster.
Wish I had read this first. Just bought tickets and was charged an extra $50.00 for tickets to Monster Jam (the tickets were only $25.00). Could have went in person and paid only $2.00 extra per person but that is not stated on the website. The convenience fee is stated but NO Where does it state how much until the very end when you are on a timeline to buy the tickets, being led to believe you will lose the tickets if you do not buy. It is criminal and should be illegal!
Sure enough, I’m another one who just decided to skip a Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert that got too expensive with $57 of convenience, facility and other fees on top of the four tickets. The prices went from $186 to $241. Not going to happen! The tickets are only available online. What a rip-off!