For those looking for a quick instruction manual on redeeming with SM Tickets (as of Feb 2025):
- Purchase your tickets. I’m assuming you are doing that online on smtickets.com they have some instructions
- When you can, login to the smtickets.com website
- Click your Profile Button in the top right then go down to [My Tickets]
- Click the [View Voucher] button next to the event(s) you want to see.
- Download the PDF to your device. It’s NOT your tickets, but a Claim Ticket Voucher that you’ll need to provide in order to get your actual tickets. Note that the emails they send usually contain a receipt, that’s not what you want.
- Get the PDF printed. If you don’t have a printer you’ll probably have to go to a store in the mall for this.
- Grab your ID and if you can also bring the Credit Card you used to pay for the tickets. If you didn’t buy the tickets you need an authorization letter from the CCard holder and at least a copy of their ID.
- Go to an SM Cinema between 10am and 3pm (ARGGH, why such an early cutoff time???)
- Cross your fingers and Hope, Wish, Pray that you’ll get to actually redeem your Claim Ticket Voucher for actual tickets. Yay!
- Carefully protect the tickets they give you. You’ll want to wrap them in plastic so they don’t get wet and be careful. They won’t give you a replacement.
- Go to the show, give the staff at the entrance the ticket and hopefully you can enjoy the show.
The TLDR is that I arrived too late. They now only accept ticket redemptions between 10am and 3pm, which is just way too restrictive.
This means I’ll have to go back. Which means less time with my family on Valentines day.
The Full Story
I’m hoping to see the Anna Akana show on Sunday with my partner.
But getting there means battling my nemesis. SM Tickets.
I thought I’d mastered their bureaucracy when getting the Dua Lipa tickets only a few months ago.
However just as they’d changed things up last time, they decided to clamp things down this time.
I thought I was prepared this time.
I was the one who paid for the tickets.
I had printed out the Claim Ticket Voucher.
I brought the Credit Card used, my ID and some emergency money in case I somehow still needed to get something printed out.
I had some meetings moved a little later than normal, so was already in sports gear, ready to run. Within half an hour of finishing my meetings for the day I had stretched, had a drink, kissed my wifey goodbye and headed off.
Like last time, I ran to SM Masinag, the nearest SM mall to me with a working cinema.
There’s closer malls to me, but they aren’t an SM mall or they don’t have an active cinema.
So 3.5km later I skipped past the customer care area which is no longer how you get tickets and instead went upstairs to the cinema.
I thought I was ready. That this would be a 1 shot thing.
But they had beaten me to it.
There was a sign.
Starting January 2025, Online Tickets redemption in all SM Tickets outlets will be from 10AM to 3PM daily”
It was November 2024 when I’d had the Dua Lipa concert ticket saga. Still close enough in time that this felt like someone just ripped off the bandaid, cut me again and then salted the wound.
I had multiple work meetings today. The last one hadn’t even started until 5pm. After everything, it was now around 6:45pm.
I was rather annoyed and asked WHY???
Why would they make the cutoff at 3pm when they are staffing the counter. When there’s multiple people available to help.
Someone from the back office to come out and told me that it was an order from management.
She gave me the official contact details.
My attempt at trying to make this a one shot get it and be done, wasn’t to be.
I’m usually a night owl locally and rarely available before 3pm.
The whole family is. We sometimes don’t wake up until nearly 4pm and usually don’t sleep until after 5am.
So getting to a cinema before 3pm means adjusting my sleeping schedule. It also means missing out on work, which means I have to make it up and thus cuts into my time with to spend with my family.
This was to be my personal time and I’d pickup the tickets at the same time.
However this setback meant I wouldn’t be able to spend as much time with my wifey and kids tomorrow. Which is Valentines day.
I’ve now got to get up early, head into the mall in order to meet some arbitrary deadline by some manager in SM Tickets so I can enjoy a comedy show over the weekend.
It’s a tricycle and jeepney trip or 7km round trip worth of running.
This is the part where I complain
Firstly, they didn’t update me about the change.
I purchased the tickets on the 15th Nov 2024 and paid a ₱120 fee for buying them online.
Yet I can’t redeem then electronically.
They also didn’t even email me about the change.
It’s also not listed at all on the website.
In fact in an email they just sent me 16hrs ago, they don’t mention that to pickup the tickets it has to be between 10am and 3pm.
They do mention you need to bring the printed claim ticket voucher and valid ID. Although it’s easy to mis-understand how to do that and that you have to login to the SM Tickets website in order to download a PDF and get it printed.
It’s also unclear that “any selected SM Cinema Branches” includes the cinema near me and that I don’t have to travel for a really long time to somewhere like the Mall of Asia.
They say:
Avoid the long queue! Redeem your physical ticket(s) for the ANNA AKANA: IT GETS DARKER TOUR LIVE IN MANILA before going to the venue. Just proceed to any selected SM Cinema Branches, Eastwood Mall, Lucky Chinatown Mall, or at the MOA Arena Coral ticket booth. Bring your printed claim ticket voucher and valid ID upon ticket redemption.
Even worse, when I google it, including the 3pm time cutoff I see a big 6pm closing time. You’d need to actually dig to find out that’s for some specific booth in MoA.
I don’t understand SM Tickets.
I mean, I understand that they have to produce tickets and ensure seating and payment for events.
But they seem actively hostile to their paying customers.
I’m sure they have to deal with some scalping and other issues, so some security measures are needed. But this recent change seems completely for financial or more likely accounting purposes.
There was no queue at the SM Cinema booth. There hasn’t really ever been one at that location when I’ve visited.
Even if there was, the SM Ticket section is a different computer system and different line.
I don’t understand why the 3pm cutoff rule was created.
I’d like to know. I’m going to reach out to SM Tickets to get some clarification on how they can inconvenience paying customers so much.
Why CAN’T I go pickup my SM Ticket to an event whilst also going there to watch a movie in the evening?
10am to 3pm opening hours are less than a bank and WAY less than the malls opening hours.
There’s staff right there, available.
They should ALSO have both the SM Customer Service and SM Cinema be able to process tickets, giving greater coverage and spreading the load.
They COULD also update to digital. Or at least have a digital option, with printed tickets as an alternative for those who want a backup or don’t have a good phone.
That would mean I wouldn’t need to go in at all.
It’s certainly technically possible. As a web developer I’ve worked on similar enough systems that I know I could develop it, with help from a mobile app developer. Although I’m rather busy.
Sure, you don’t want to overdo it and make it an active connection, online only system where people have to install an app. I’ve heard horror stories about tens of thousands of people crowding stadiums causing the mobile phone towers to overload and ineffective systems not providing an offline option meaning people couldn’t get scanned in.
But still, what SM Tickets are doing seems to be embracing the Philippines love of paperwork. I think the person who has developed the processes and procedures for SM Tickets used to be a part of the Bureau of Immigration.
I want to point out that this type of procedure change seems to be what the book The Unaccountability Machine points out as an issue of a weak system and likely leads to major other problems.
I highly recommend that anyone from “management” and higher read the book or at least my summary and consider relaxing the 3pm cutoff.
Right now, simply getting a ticket to a show seems more onerous than getting a visa from the Immigration department. Maybe next time I’ll have to pay someone just to navigate the red tape? If that’s the case then they’ve failed as a company and should be replaced.
Anyone looking to setup an alternative?
