ATG+ - Enqs 0330 102 7200 / membership@atgentertainment.com

I'm taking a party of 6 to Poppins tonight. That's almost paid for my ATG card for a year in booking fees alone, not to mention that we got a discount on preemies by booking early and going on Tuesday night. I've had fantastic value out of mine, however Manchester's two biggest theatres are both ATG so there's plenty to go for. I guess it depends on your theatre-going habits, whether you go alone or in a group etc. I also have mine on automatic renewal which makes the card about a fiver cheaper too.

Used mine for Bromley mainly.

But with the West End it is rare I book at the box office directly and if I do I travel through the West End for commuting to get to Charing Cross and I am always up there for shows stuff like Wicked I do day ticket.

If I travel out I would use if for Manchester theatres, Liverpool Empire where I might as well pay the booking fee.

To sell a theatre it shows ATG isn't in good shape as Cameron Mackintosh suggested their business model isn't great.

Anyone else had a month chopped off their membership? My old card ran to Dec 31st but the new one to Dec 1st!

I tried complaining and, after this bit of nonsense on the phone...

"Your representative said that the system shows my expiry date as 31 December, but (a) I can find nowhere online which allows me to validate that for myself (if I’m missing a whole Theatre Card membership website somewhere, do please let me know!) and (b) even if the ‘system’ knows it’s valid, that doesn’t help me if I’m buying drinks or using the cloakroom at one of your venues.

He went on, having checked with his manager, to assure me that “all our theatres know it means the end of the month”. Really? You’re going to go into print on both the card and the accompanying documentation saying that my membership expires on 1 December but I’m not to worry because every FOH staff member I ever have to deal with will know that it really runs to the end of the month... there’s a phrase that springs to mind but I don’t believe it’s considered polite!"

my email to ATG Customer Care (from which the above was extracted) resulted in this reply:

"Our records show that your current membership will collect on the 1st December 2015, as an annual Direct Debit and this has been your collection date since you joined in November 2013. We previously gave expiry dates until the end of the month as default, however we are now implementing a more precise expiry date in relation to your collection date, so we collect on the 01/12/15 and 12 months from this time is 01/12/16.

Because you have opted to pay by direct debit, your membership doesn’t expire unless you cancel the direct debit at your bank. We always send your renewal card at least 10 days prior to collection, so therefore you will always have a valid card when you go to the Theatre."

I think I lost the will to live at this point. What I should have done is point out that I was a member several years before November 2013, that was simply when I started paying by DD and renewed early as you did TM. I may yet re-open the argument.

I'm not considering cancelling but had exactly the same issue despite numerous, time-wasting attempts to overcome it, i.e. being unable to avoid a fee even when logged in as a member.  I concluded that perhaps they didn't want people to benefit both from avoiding fees and supposed discounts.  I had to email 3 times before I even received a response and then an inadequate one in poor English, so though I wrote back, I have now given up expecting a further reply, never mind a resolution.  I also had the issue of receiving an error message telling me I had to select a valid performance when I had already done this.  Convinced they had gremlins in the system but they won't even admit it, never mind apologise or offer recompense - and I suppose they can afford to ignore complaints as the ATG model seems to be based on volume rather than customer satisfaction and retention.

In London the card is hopeless really. I would say Birmingham is too, but if I lived in Manchester/Liverpool area the card is excellent.

Even though you are logged in the ATG doesn't automatically give you the discount, the website deliberately makes it difficult hoping you pay full price. Even logged in the website offers you the facility to buy insurance on your ticket for £3, even though this is covered automatically in the membership.

I a sure the A in ATG stands for avarice.

Have also had gremlins with the ATG website, but generally manage to book without the fee and with a mix of London and regional purchases (plus 10% off my bar bill!) I definitely get my moneys worth out of the membership. Guess I'll stick with it for a while longer

I think discounts on tickets in the West End are rarer (but not unheard of!), but the no-fees, free cloakroom and 10% off the bar definitely apply at West End venues.

ATG Glasgow theatres often change their price bandings on 'offer' nights so not so good a deal.
Discounts nearly always on top two price bands only and 241 deals now rare.
I still have my card as I know I can book the good value cheaper seats before tickets go on general sale and saves the booking fees.

Would it be an idea for us to post here if we find a good ATG card deal, to alert other to it as well?

The booking confirmation emails are completely hit and miss. Used to be reliable up until about a year ago but now sometimes I get one, often I don't. They're not going into my spam folder and I've spoken to ATG "Mission Control" who claim that everything is fine. It's not. And it's annoying me.