What are loyalty points and Ticket Access Points (TAPs) in football?

TL;DR

Loyalty points are how football clubs rank fans for tickets when demand outstrips supply. Fans earn them by buying tickets, attending games or holding a membership or season ticket, and fans with more points buy first. The name varies by club: Brentford calls them Ticket Access Points (TAPs), Tottenham Hotspur calls them Ticketing Points and Arsenal calls them Away points.

What does “Loyalty points / Ticket Access Points (TAP)” mean?

Clubs award points for buying tickets, for attending games and often for buying or renewing a membership or season ticket. Points build up over a rolling window of a few seasons and are used to rank fans for away games, cup finals and high-demand home fixtures. When a sale opens, fans above a points threshold buy first, and the threshold then drops in stages until the tickets are gone.

Points are often weighted by match category. At Tottenham Hotspur, for example, attending a Category A game earns 1 point and a Category C game earns 5, which encourages fans to attend less popular fixtures. Some clubs now award points only once a ticket is scanned at the turnstile, so a ticket that is bought but not used earns nothing.

What clubs call them

The idea is the same across English football, but each club names and runs its scheme differently:

• Loyalty points: the most common name, used at Chelsea, Crystal Palace and West Ham United, among others. From 2026/27, Chelsea awards loyalty points for home games only when the ticket is scanned at the turnstile.
• Ticket Access Points (TAPs): Brentford. Fans earn them from home and away ticket purchases, and only the current season and the four before it count.
• Ticketing Points: Tottenham Hotspur. Fans earn them by buying a season ticket or membership and by attending games.
• Away points: Arsenal, where points decide access to away tickets. Only points from the current season and the two before it count. Other clubs run a separate away scheme next to their main points, such as Away Priority Points.
• Priority Points: AFC Bournemouth, which releases home tickets in phases to fans with enough points from previous attendance.
• Ticket Points: Manchester City, which uses them to set priority sale windows for high-demand matches.

Rules change most seasons, so fans should check their own club's ticketing policy.

How does it relate to football membership?

Points are one of the strongest reasons to keep a membership going. Many clubs only let members and season ticket holders use their points, and at many, letting a membership lapse means losing them. That makes renewal reminders, easy payment and auto-renewal critical, because a missed renewal can cost a loyal fan years of history.

How Limio helps

Points themselves usually live in the ticketing system. Limio handles the membership that earns them: it sells and renews memberships, can award points for joining or renewing via webhook, and helps members renew on time so they don't lose their points.

Want to see how Limio runs football membership? Talk to our team.