Booking ice hockey tickets from overseas
 

I have been trying to book tickets to the Rangers vs Penguins ice hockey match at MSG on line but have had no success. I live in Hong Kong and apparently my credit card does not match with their system. I have even phoned them but they said they can't help. Any suggestions for me to get some tickets. Don't arrive in New York until the 29th January and the game is on the 1st February, so guessing it will be too late by then!!

An Australian couple from Mauritius puchased Ranger tickets from afar. If they see this, maybe they can offer advice.

Call your credit card company and ask them for advice. I'm sure American Express could help - maybe other issuers could as well.

One solution might be to get a prepaid card that is issued from the US, although how easy that would be I am not sure.

Also, I think some banks issue prepaid cards instead of travelers checks now (don't know if Hong Kong banks do this). You might see if one of those would work, especially if it is free to obtain. That way, if it doesn't work, you can just redeposit the money to your account and you aren't out anything.

Do you have any friends or family in the US who could charge tickets on their US card and let you pay them back?

Does your hotel have a concierge? Perhaps you could contact them with yuor CC info (that I assume the hotel will take) and they can get the tickets for you. You would need to tip - but for something like this not a lot.

I like the concierge idea. Or try Stubhub.

Stubhub is a reliable ticket-resale site -- if your credit card info doesn't work for them, you can pay using Paypal.

I have found Paypal to be a good choice for making purchases in foreign currencies when credit cards don't work. It's not hard to set up a paypal account ... just be sure you use the same email address for both the paypal and stubhub accounts. (Ticketmaster -- the MSG ticket retailer -- doesn't accept Paypal.)