Colchester United Chairman Robbie Cowling has issued the following statement concerning ticket refunds and attending matches during the 2020/21 season.
The ability to claim your refund online is now live and as I have previously alluded to, various options are being provided. The options include transferring funds onto a Privilege Card for later use, a full refund or the option to add the funds to the Club United fund.
To process your refund, you simply need to log in to your account at www.colutickets.com and to help you decide what refund option you prefer, I have provided a little bit of information about each of them below.
The Refund Option:
No one should feel guilty for simply asking for their money back in full. You bought tickets to games that the club could not play and you are entitled to a full refund.
Firstly, you need to be aware that this system does not automatically put the money back into your bank account. There were just too many variables for this to be possible so the refund option will add your details to a refund list which our Ticket Office will deal with as quickly as they can.
If your refund relates to an annual subscription, your refund has been calculated as follows:
1. We have determined the value of the subscriptions you have paid.
2. We have determined the value of the games that were available to you.
3. We have refunded the difference.
In some cases, annual subscribers have been provided with more value than their subscriptions paid for and they actually owe the club but this system does not attempt to deal with those.
The Club United Option
The Club United Fund will hold a pot of money that belongs to the club but the releasing of the funds will be determined by whichever fans have placed the funds with Club United.
For example, if 1,000 fans choose to transfer their refund to Club United and that represents a total of £100,000 then the Club United fund would have 1,000 fund-holders who will be able to control what projects will benefit from the funds they donated.
The full value of the fund and a particular fans share of the fund will be available via the dashboard once a fan logs in to their account on the ColUTickets website.
The club or anyone with any unallocated Club United funds can propose something that they want to be purchased by the funds that are lodged in Club United.
If the club approve the proposal, then those with Club United funds can choose to pledge all or some of their funds to that proposal.
We are still developing the Club United portal and expect it to be available during September.
Please note that once funds have been donated to Club United, they can’t be refunded.
The Privilege Card Option
If you are not already familiar with our Privilege Card, then please click here to read the information I provided when the card was released.
We have recently added the facility to pay for match and season tickets using the funds that are on a Privilege Card too.
I appreciate that the option to transfer your refund to a Privilege Card is likely to depend on when you are able to use those funds.
For example, if you use a Privilege Card to buy food and drink on match-days at the stadium, then it will depend on when you are likely to be attending games at the stadium again.
We are in fact working on a new product that we have designed to work specifically with Covid-19 restrictions which we are calling a CUFC Match Permit. We plan to have it on sale before the first league game of the season and we believe fans in restricted numbers will be allowed to attend games again in October.
A CUFC Match Permit will provide either:
1. Access to the game at the stadium when we are allowed to let you watch it there; or
2. Free iFollow access to both home and away games, whilst we are not allowed to let you watch games at the stadium.
Click here if you want to know more about our plans for the CUFC Match Permit.
And finally
I hope this has been helpful to you and thanks once again for the patience shown to the club during these difficult times.
Robbie Cowling