To think that £16 tickets for over 60s at the Olympics are unjustified

[Milco]

I've never posted on AIBU before and usually don't get so het up about things, but this is really annoying me!

60+s will be entitled to buy £16 tickets for the games, compared to a cheapest ticket of £20 for a younger adult and a "pay your age" scheme for 16s and under. So for a family to go to the games, it will still be pretty expensive - out of the reach of many I suspect. This seems particularly sad given we won the games on the basis that it would inspire a generation of children/young people to get into sport.

Anyone older than 59 gets a discount. Yet according to this (reliable source I think), pensioners are less likely to be living in low income households than the rest of us, and significantly less likely than children (16% of pensioners vs 30% of children). Quite a few 60+ people aren't even pensioners yet.

The 60+s are the baby boomer generation, who, as has been documented elsewhere, benenfited massively from the post war economic boom, in many ways to the detriment of future generations. They are likely to have very small (if any) mortgage, better pensions than the rest of us will ever get, and few dependents (assuming their poor DCs have managed to get themselves a job/somewhere to live)

I'm sounding like I have a big axe to grind but actually I love my parents and their 60-odd year old friends and I'm comfortably off myself.

BUT it just seems mad that as a country we seem to think that just because you are 60/65+ you need lots of extra support and perks. That would be great if we could afford lots of stuff like that, but we can't.

In the current financial climate it is totally unfair for this generation to have such protection when children and families, and young adults, are taking so many hits. In the case of the tickets, at least start the discount at 70 or 75 years of age. 60 isn't even old!!

There. Rant over. What does everyone else think. Am I being unreasonable?

yes there will be no discounted tickets for the stuff that everyone wants to see.

TBH, I imagined that the tickets would be far more expensive than they actually are. MIL has demanded kindly asked for 2012 tickets for her birthday next year. Of course she wants athletics ones

yabu

Oh well the pension age will probably have been rasied to 75 by the time we're 60 and given the mess the country's in, there probably wont be any pensions or discounts for us when we're old.

But given the comments here, all of us will consider that totally reasonable after you've worked hard all of your life.

Pfft - I thought that even the cheapest tickets would be more expensive too. So am actually pleasantly surprised, they're a price that I can realistically look to save up to be able to take the DS's. to something.

Have only read part of thread so am answering that part but my mum (61) and dad (just 62) are retired.

And (have read on a bit more now, my mum is very slender ).

I wonder if they will go to any of the events - I think they might do. Last time the Olympics were in London my nana was very pregnant with my dad :)

MaMoTTaT- yes I think that they are acceptable price when compared to sporting tickets. Perhaps not so much when they blathered on about involving everyone. But at that price I could take DS to something and not cringe at the amount I spent. I imagined that the cheapest tickets would be in the £30+ range.