Ahead of Saturday's game against Port Vale, chairman Robbie Cowling has provided information about a new Privilege Card, which will help supporters to earn loyalty points through the season!
As part of our move to being cashless at the JobServe Community Stadium on matchdays, we have introduced a stadium card which can be used to pay for items at any of the tills. It will also be usable at the touch screen tablets in the hospitality boxes and also the new touch screens that we will be shortly introducing into the Layer Bar and eventually the concourses.
We have called this card a 'Privilege Card', as the card holder will earn Privilege Points each time they use the card at the stadium. The points accrued will be equal to 5 points for every £1.00 spent and details of the actual privileges will become available soon and throughout the season.
Privilege Cards can only be used around the stadium for food, drink and retail purchases but not for match tickets.
I believe my IT team have done a great job, and using the system is really intuitive, but I hope the following short guide will be helpful.
Please note: For your first online deposit onto your card, Colchester United will add a further 10%! So put £50 onto your card and we'll add a further £5!
Using A Privilege Card
To add money onto a Privilege Card is simple and can be done either by visiting one of the dedicated kiosks around the stadium on matchdays or online by logging into your account at www.colutickets.com.
At A Kiosk
On matchdays there are dedicated kiosks in each of the 4 stands, North, East, South and West where you can pick up Privilege Cards. You can place cash onto the card at the kiosk and use the card immediately or alternatively you can take the card away and add cash to it by going online.
Online
Once you have logged in to your account at www.colutickets.com you will want to do one of the following:-
- Link the Privilege Card you picked up from the stadium to your account and add funds to it
To do this you simply follow the link on the dashboard that says ‘Add an existing Privilege Card to your account’ and then enter the unique 12 digit code in the appropriate field.
Once a card is linked to your account your dashboard will provide you with details of the available funds and the points collected. If you added funds to the card at the kiosk then the dashboard will display the amount remaining and points earned through your current usage. Otherwise the values will be £0.00 and 0.00 respectively.
If other unattached cards are linked to your account and these also had funds added at a kiosk then those funds and any points accumulated will also be transferred to your account.
Funds can be added by simply clicking on the link that says 'Top up your Privilege Card' and following the payment instructions.
- Create a Print@Home Privilege Card
To do this you simply follow the link on the dashboard that says 'Get a Privilege Card', enter the amount you wanted added to the card, click the ‘Next’ button and follow the payment instructions.
Privilege Card Benefits
The obvious benefit is the points that can be redeemed for the privileges but beyond that there are many great reasons to use Privilege Cards.
- The funds on the card never expire so what isn’t spent at one game can always be spent at another.
- Funds can be added to a Print@Home Privilege Card prior to a fixture. This can be beneficial for a number of reasons. For example, a parent may not be accompanying their teenage child to a game but wants to provide them with funds that they know they will only spend at the stadium.
- Multiple cards can be added to a single account or multiple versions of the Print@Home Privilege card associated to a single account can be printed. This allows multiple card holders to spend from a single fund. The following are just 2 examples of where this is a benefit:-
- A family can link multiple cards to a single account so that each family member can spend individually. For example the Adult family members want to buy alcohol in the Layer bar but the rest of the kids want to buy hot food from the concourse.
- A large group of fans attend a game and would normally put funds into a whip. The funds can be added to an account and each member of the group can have their own Privilege Card which is linked to the single fund.
- Because the funds are held by the account it is easy to remove access to the funds from a particular card by simply deleting it. For example, if you lose or misplace a card it can be deleted so that no one else can access your funds. If it’s found again it can simply be re-linked.
I hope this guide does prove useful and the Privilege Card is as well received as I hope it will be.
Robbie Cowling