Membership

[Sutekh]

Really don’t get what the club are doing with their membership schemes. Why are they abandoning the established loyalty “scheme”?

Seems towards the end of last season they introduced a Royalty card scheme which I knew nothing about (unsurprising given the club’s utterly cr@p approach to communication) until the club’s message earlier this week explaining they were changing everything.

I presume this Royalty card is a virtual card that just adds points to your online account and then gives you a free game when you get round to buying tickets online for the 7th home match you want to attend?

Thinking perhaps there’s other ways of doing this sort of thing. Norwich, for example, get their casual fans to pay £25 to annually register for home and/or away “clubs” which entitles fans in each club to buy tickets for home/away games based on how regularly that fan has attended home/away games previously.

[buddy1983]

The problem for me is not being able to load my tickets onto the member cards, the NFC on my phone doesnt always work and I dont trust it enough to put my ticket on there and then have issues getting in.
Also my kids dont have phones they can use so I will have to print paper tickets off for them every time, just seems like a step backwards.

[RG30]

I don't think it has been communicated particularly well but no real beef with this. Makes the process of buying a ticket easier with a non matchday/matchday price without the need to apply a membership discount.

Loyalty points are still in place and as the article says if you buy tickets for x amount of home games you will get one free.

[Royal Monkey]

I can’t find anything about this on the OS. Has anyone got a link to where the club has posted the info about how this works ?

[Silver Fox]

I had literally no idea they introduced buy 6 get 1 free last year, looks like Junior is 2 in already which is nice

[RG30]

We’re making some important updates to our matchday ticketing process for the 2025-26 season to improve the experience for all Royals supporters.

Please note: the information below applies to individual match ticket purchasers only – it does not apply to Season Ticket Holders.

Farewell to Membership Cards

To simplify the ticket-buying process and make accessing the stadium more seamless, we’ve decided to retire our Membership Scheme.

This means:

Membership cards are no longer in use and will not work at the turnstiles.
Going forward, supporters will not need to pay a one-off Membership fee to access ticketing benefits.
For the most convenient stadium entry, we encourage fans to use Google or Apple Wallet tickets when making a purchase online.

Ticket Prices & Discounts

While the Membership discount is no longer available, we’ve reduced our Advance ticket prices to offer better value. Advance prices will be available until midnight before matchday, after which Matchday pricing will apply.

The Home Royalty Card Returns

First launched with 10 games remaining in the 2024-25 season, the Home Royalty Card is back for 2025-26!

How it works:

For every match ticket purchased (one per fixture), you'll receive a stamp.
After collecting 6 stamps, your 7th home league game is FREE!
Once redeemed, your next set of stamps begins.
Free tickets can be used in any General Admittance stand (excluding the Away section).

Already Have Stamps?

If you were a Member in 2024-25 and attended home games starting from Shrewsbury Town on 11th February 2025, your stamps will carry over into the new season.

When Do I Start Earning?

Previous Members: Stamps counted from 11th February 2025.
New supporters or non-Members: Stamps start from your first home league ticket purchase this season.

Hospitality Info

Stamps can be earned on Hospitality purchases.
However, free tickets will only be redeemable for General Admittance areas.

Tracking Your Stamps

You can view your ticket purchase history via your Royals account on our ticketing website.
Redeeming Your Free Ticket

Once you’ve collected six stamps:

Your next home league ticket will automatically be free when added to your basket.
Free tickets must be redeemed by Saturday 2nd May 2026 (vs. Blackpool).
Free tickets cannot be used for play-off games or carried over to the 2026-27 season.

https://www.readingfc.co.uk/news/2025/july/16/changes-matchtickets25-26/

[Green]

Makes sense to me. As an extremely casual home game goer, this was one more barrier to entry. Was a ballache to sign up, and kept lapsing.

[Royal Monkey]

We’re making some important updates to our matchday ticketing process for the 2025-26 season to improve the experience for all Royals supporters.

Please note: the information below applies to individual match ticket purchasers only – it does not apply to Season Ticket Holders.

Farewell to Membership Cards

To simplify the ticket-buying process and make accessing the stadium more seamless, we’ve decided to retire our Membership Scheme.

This means:

Membership cards are no longer in use and will not work at the turnstiles.
Going forward, supporters will not need to pay a one-off Membership fee to access ticketing benefits.
For the most convenient stadium entry, we encourage fans to use Google or Apple Wallet tickets when making a purchase online.

Ticket Prices & Discounts

While the Membership discount is no longer available, we’ve reduced our Advance ticket prices to offer better value. Advance prices will be available until midnight before matchday, after which Matchday pricing will apply.

The Home Royalty Card Returns

First launched with 10 games remaining in the 2024-25 season, the Home Royalty Card is back for 2025-26!

How it works:

For every match ticket purchased (one per fixture), you'll receive a stamp.
After collecting 6 stamps, your 7th home league game is FREE!
Once redeemed, your next set of stamps begins.
Free tickets can be used in any General Admittance stand (excluding the Away section).

Already Have Stamps?

If you were a Member in 2024-25 and attended home games starting from Shrewsbury Town on 11th February 2025, your stamps will carry over into the new season.

When Do I Start Earning?

Previous Members: Stamps counted from 11th February 2025.
New supporters or non-Members: Stamps start from your first home league ticket purchase this season.

Hospitality Info

Stamps can be earned on Hospitality purchases.
However, free tickets will only be redeemable for General Admittance areas.

Tracking Your Stamps

You can view your ticket purchase history via your Royals account on our ticketing website.
Redeeming Your Free Ticket

Once you’ve collected six stamps:

Your next home league ticket will automatically be free when added to your basket.
Free tickets must be redeemed by Saturday 2nd May 2026 (vs. Blackpool).
Free tickets cannot be used for play-off games or carried over to the 2026-27 season.

https://www.readingfc.co.uk/news/2025/july/16/changes-matchtickets25-26/

Thanks

[RG30]

Makes sense to me. As an extremely casual home game goer, this was one more barrier to entry. Was a ballache to sign up, and kept lapsing.

The membership was a one off so once you purchased one, that was it. Given it was only £5 from memory for adults and had been in place for 20+ years it would be safe to assume we had a lot of "members" who in all probability attended once and that was it.

[Green]

Makes sense to me. As an extremely casual home game goer, this was one more barrier to entry. Was a ballache to sign up, and kept lapsing.

The membership was a one off so once you purchased one, that was it. Given it was only £5 from memory for adults and had been in place for 20+ years it would be safe to assume we had a lot of "members" who in all probability attended once and that was it.

Yep and fair to say they didn't get value for money out of it.

It seems a bit dated to me - having a physical member card, being part of a scheme. These days (as in last two decades) it only needs to be registering on a website - they have your purchase history, address, probably date of birth and other stuff. Why make it harder - the demographic you should be making things easier for are those yet to attend or who having attend infrequently.

[morganb]

The problem for me is not being able to load my tickets onto the member cards, the NFC on my phone doesnt always work and I dont trust it enough to put my ticket on there and then have issues getting in.
Also my kids dont have phones they can use so I will have to print paper tickets off for them every time, just seems like a step backwards.

Luckily the e-ticket also comes with a QR-style code that can be scanned at the gate so it isn't totally dependent on NFC

[buddy1983]

Ah i didnt know that, thanks for confiriming.

[Orion1871]

So I assume a season ticket card still work at the turnstile? Or do those of us who didn't want to download onto apple or Google wallet, so put it on the existing card when buying our season ticket, turn up on the 9th of August and not be able to get in?

Not really looking forward to trying to get my tech illiterate Dad who rants and raves about the movement of "everything to online", and can now only get to a few games a season to attempt to understand this.