Before you torture yourself with the not always user-friendly online ticket shop, please check the new policy for matchday tickets for home games. Since the 2019/2020 season, tickets are initially only available to members (and that even only through a lottery system).
In the unlikely case that tickets become available, the booking process is as follows:
1. Go to the landing page of the official club website and select Union-Zeughaus [Fan Artikel & Tickets]. Or just go straight here. You now see a page with a header like this:
Hover over Tickets and you will then see a set of options like this:
If you are looking for a ticket for an upcoming home match, the option you now want is Heimspiele (Home games). At the time of writing, however, the only tickets on sale were for a pre-season friendly, which the Germans call a ‘test game’. So instead of Heimspiele, we’ll click here on ‘Testspiele’ and take you through the buying process.
After clicking Heimspiele, you will see a screen like this showing the games for which tickets are on sale:
This would, of course, normally be headed ‘Heimspiele’ rather than ‘Testspiele’.
Now select the match you want (in this case the only one available), by clicking on the red block with the white arrow to the right of the game listing.
You are then shown a stadium plan.
Your options will include (if tickets are still available for each):
Sektor 1 – Seats in the main stand
Sektor 2 – Standing on the ‘Home End’
Sektor 3 – Standing along the side
Sektor 4 – Standing at the other end, near the away fans
Sektor 4 tends to be the least crowded; Sektor 2 is the most lively and a place where the ultras culture should be respected (which, it could be argued, would include ‘tourists’ not going in there); Sektor 3 combines atmosphere and a side-on view.
Click on one of the blocks in your preferred Sektor. In practice, while strict checks are made to ensure that you enter the correct Sektor, we have never seen stewards make any checks to ensure that fans stand in a specific block. Just in case, however, it would make sense to pick a block either where you plan to stand or close to it. The image will now show you the block you have selected (in this case, Block N in Sektor 3):
Below the stadium layout you will see the available tickets listed. Useful words to know here are:
Vollzahler = Full-price payer, i.e. ‘Adult’
Ermässigt = Concession
Kind = Child, aged 6-12
Stehplatz = Terrace
Those eligible for concessions are club members, people with a significant disability, pensioners, the unemployed, apprentices, people in full-time education and people doing German national service. Holders of concessionary tickets may be asked to show proof of entitlement.
The price is also shown here. Now click on the number of tickets you want for each available type. They now get put into your basket (Warenkorb), the contents and cost of which are summarised bottom left. For instance, if you choose 1 adult ticket, it will look like this:
When you have what you want in your basket, proceed to the checkout by clicking on zur Kasse (To the checkout) bottom right.
You then see the following screen, which invites you to login if you are already registered with the online store, to register as a new customer or to make your purchase as a guest. As we are sure that you’ll want to come to more than just one Union game, we’ll assume that you want to register and thus make the process much easier for you in the future.
To register, click on Jetzt registieren (Register now). You then see the registration form, which looks like this (minus our notes about what the key fields mean):
The Anrede field is for the ‘Salutation’ and the options are Herr or Frau, i.e. Mr or Mrs.
The Land field is for ‘Country’. You’ll find the UK listed as Großbritannien und Nordirland and the US as the Vereinigte Staaten von Amerika.
When it comes to the address fields, you may have to cheat the system to get it to accept what you enter. As we recommend that you buy your tickets as ‘print@home’ tickets, you will probably never need to have anything posted to your home address. So just put in anything that will keep the system happy! How about: An der Wuhlheide 263, 12555 Berlin? It’s a great address! (It’s Union’s).
When you have filled in all the fields to the system’s satifaction, click the red button labelled Registierung abschicken (Submit registration).
You will now receive the following e-mail:
In short, it just confirms that you have registered. Where we have blanked out the wording in red, it shows you the user name that you registered. The next line says that your password is known only to you. And the line below that tells you that after you log in you can view and amend your personal details at Mein Konto (My Account).
Now that you have registered with the online ticket shop, you can continue with your purchase. Log in with your new registration details here:
Where it says Ich habe bereits einen persönlichen Login (I already have a personal login), enter your user name in the Benutzername field and your password in the Passwort field. Then click on Anmelden (Log in).
Once you are logged in, you then see confirmation of the details that you have entered and the tickets you want to buy. The screen looks like this (we have typed in English explanations/translations for the main fields):
Assuming, as we recommend, you want to buy your ticket(s) on a ‘print@home’ basis, you can ignore whatever it says in the two address fields.
Under payment method, choose Kreditkarte (Credit card) or ‘PayPal’. The third option is for bank transfer from a German bank. We will explain here just the credit card option. If you choose PayPal, we presume the process will be driven by PayPal and so familiar to you and pretty easy.
So, with Kreditkarte and print@home checked, as shown above, now check the terms & conditions and data protection boxes. Then click on Kaufen (Buy).
You will now see a card payment screen like this:
Check that the Gesamtbetrag (total amount) is correct (ignore the amount shown here – the screenshot is from a different transaction). Now fill in your card details and click on Kaufen (Buy).
Your card issuer may now take you through their own security process.
You are then passed automatically through the payment system’s acceptance page and then back to the online shop, where you are shown a screen containing this message:
It thanks you for your purchase and tells you that you will shortly receive a confirmation by e-mail.
It also shows you a link to download your print@home ticket(s) in PDF form (and shows the anticipated download times depending on the quality of your Internet connection). To download the PDF, click on the red link.
You will, in fact, now receive two e-mails. One tells you that your payment has been received, the other that your order has been processed. Both also contain your ticket(s) as a PDF attachment.
So you are good to go!
We hope that you find this guide helpful. If you discover that anything isn’t exactly as we have described it, please let us know and we’ll update the instructions accordingly. Enjoy the game. U.N.V.E.U.!
Now need somewhere to stay? We’ve got a few ideas for you on our Where to stay page.
