For the past two seasons we’ve had a version of ‘season long’ purchasable tickets which gave us various bonuses and rewards throughout the months. I wrote a piece on tickets, and their similarity to a monthly subscription model earlier this year. Now I want to look at the value of these tickets to see whether they’re worth it.
The two sets of tickets differed slightly, where the first gave us month-long bonuses and some timed research with small rewards. The second had no bonuses but plenty of rewards from the timed research, including lots of premium items. I want to delve deeper and find out which ticket, as Trainers, we are more inclined to buy.
What were the tickets?
The Egg-Spedition Access tickets lasted one month each throughout the Season of Timeless Travels. This meant that three separate tickets were purchasable to unlock the three Timed Research stories and passive bonuses. Each ticket cost US$5.00 (or the equivalent pricing tier in your local currency).
From March 1, 2024, Trainers were be able to purchase the Wonder Ticket which lasts through the Season of Pokémon GO, World of Wonders. Each part of the Wonder Ticket was revealed at the start of each month throughout World of Wonders. For US$9.99 (or the equivalent pricing tier in your local currency), it unlocked access three Timed Research opportunities throughout Pokémon GO: World of Wonders.
Comparison
I have compiled all of the details from the two sets of tickets into the (pretty hefty) table below. Going into this, I had in my head that Eggspedition offered much more – but I was pretty surprised!
| Eggspedition Access | Wonder Ticket |
|---|---|
| Total Cost for season | Total Cost for season |
| US$15.00 | US$9.99 |
| Webstore purchase bonus | Webstore purchase bonus |
|
|
| Passive bonus throughout | |
|
None |
| Month 1 | |
|
|
| Month 2 | |
|
|
| Month 3 | |
|
|
The ticket you prefer will depend heavily on your priorities and gameplay style. Personally, I’m trying to grind as much XP as I can at the moment so being able to open 50 gifts per day and work on friendships was my favourite part of the Egg-Spedition ticket.
If you’re a newer player and have not had the chance to collect the Cherry Blossom Eeveelutions yet, the Wonder Ticket might be your favourite.
Let’s break it down
Overall, for $5 less, the Wonder Ticket gives out slightly less Stardust and XP but a lot more premium items and Pokémon encounters. What it is missing, however, is any additional bonuses.
When looking at value of premium items, the Eggspedition access ticket gave out 91 Single use incubators, which is equivalent to 4550 in-game coins. Based on the UK in-app store prices the best value coins is 14,500 coins for £99.99 which is 0.69 pence per coin. This means that with the value of incubators alone the ticket is worth £31.38 (way more than the US$15 total). On top of this we had both 90k XP and stardust, 3x Pokémon encounters and the passive bonuses throughout the 3 month timeframe.
When looking at the Wonder Ticket, the premium items are worth £8.48 which is just below the ticket value. However, you do get 27,500 stardust and 55k XP along with 14 encounters and a bunch of other non-purchasable items such as berries (excluding gift boxes).
What would we like to see going forward?
Honestly, I like the idea of a monthly or season-long ticket. These tickets keep to the monthly theme and support any ongoing storylines in Special Research. I like how they aren’t game-changing or altering in any way, meaning that F2P players aren’t missing out on Pokémon debuts or other exciting parts of the game due to a paywall.
Despite the collection of premium rewards, I am not overly enamoured with the Wonder ticket. During Egg-spedition, the passive bonuses being active constantly made it feel like I was getting my money’s worth from the ticket. I tend to complete the timed research very quickly and am left waiting three weeks until the next one. This means that I often forget I even have the Wonder ticket active.
In the future, I’d personally like to have the passive bonuses back, otherwise, it feels like I’m paying for a pretty expensive Timed Research ticket, considering all of the Pokémon encounters get immediately transferred. I’m weary of sounding like a broken record so I won’t go on for too long, but being able to open 50 gifts a day was my favourite bonus. I’d buy any month/season-based ticket to get that back. Not only this, getting an incubator every day allowed me to stay on top of my egg storage (for the first time ever). To me, the US$15 total for 3 months was worth the small quality of life enhancements it brought.
I’ve seen people say that instead of a daily free incubator, a daily free remote raid pass would need to be offered for them to buy the ticket. Some day that one free remote a week and access to a more rare Pokémon encounter would suffice.
What is your opinion?
Do you think these tickets are worth the price? What bonuses or rewards would you like to see included if they used the same model in the future? Let us know!
