How I (Almost) Paid Too Much for Bayern Munich Tickets During Oktoberfest
Want to score match tickets to see Germany’s biggest club—during Germany’s biggest ANNUAL EVENT—without paying an arm and a leg? It’s easier than you think. Just don’t do what I did.
When the chance to attend Oktoberfest in Munich comes your way, you don’t say ‘Nein’. And as a footy traveler, surely you double down and start scheming how to pair the trip to Bavaria with a Bayern Munich match at Allianz Arena. So naturally, that’s exactly what I did when my wife told me that a German colleague of hers had organized tickets for a group of us at the Hacker-Festzelt tent—The “Heaven Of The Bavarians”—during the last weekend of September. As for the footy half of the party, I was confident from the get go that I’d be able to organize tickets for the two of us, and a third for a friend on the trip. But having never done the Bundesliga before, let alone the league’s biggest club, getting match tickets for the Bayern vs Werder Bremen game happening during the most popular weekend in all of Germany was ultimately a matter of how much pain (financial and otherwise) I’d put myself through in the process. I’m sharing my experience hunting for Bayern match tickets (which is very much what it was), seated together, for the biggest home weekend of the season, so that hopefully you can experience the ultimate Bavarian footy trip one day yourself—and spare yourself any headaches until the morning after the party!
Buying Bayern Munich Tickets During Oktoberfest
On past Footy Travelers trips involving big name clubs, we’ve gone the safer but pricier routes of using brokers or securing hospitality packages (if they were reasonable enough). But as we all know, World Cup 2026 is just around the corner, and as any fiscally savvy footy traveler will tell you, we’re in crunch time when it comes to saving our pennies for all that will involve, so I wanted to avoid getting rinsed on broker fees and padded seat markups. Just as much, I wanted to see if I could successfully navigate the Bayern Munich ticket-buying process solo. Spoiler: I could, and I did!... sort of.
Demand for Bayern Munich home tickets is always high, but as you can imagine, it’s even higher during Oktoberfest. Fans traveling to Munich want to squeeze both experiences into one trip—beer tents by day, football under the Allianz lights by night. That means official tickets sell out fast, and third-party resale prices can feel like you’re paying by the sip.
Why I Chose the Official Bayern Ticket Exchange
Thanks to the extensive FFT (fellow footy traveler) network, I quickly learned that Bayern’s official ticket exchange, which unsurprisingly requires a club membership, would probably be my best bet for reducing costs. Obviously, third-party sites like Viagogo list tickets more abundantly, but prices were inflated weeks in advance when I started my search. Official hospitality packages? Starting at €400, I quickly ruled that out. The ticket exchange seemed like the best balance between affordability and legitimacy.
How Much Does a Bayern Munich Membership Cost?
Of course, going the club’s ticket exchange route comes with its own upfront cost. Here’s the breakdown for an FC Bayern membership:
Annual fee for adults (26–64): €50
One-time joining fee: €3
Optional club magazine subscription: €15 (I opted out—my German stops at “ein Bier, bitte”).
Skipping the magazine, I paid €53 total, or about $62. At worst, I figured I’d be out the membership fee for the first-hand experience and knowledge I was about to gain. At best, I’d have access to face-value Bundesliga tickets without markups.
My Experience Hunting for Bayern vs. Werder Bremen Tickets
With membership secured, I logged into the Bayern ticket site. As expected, Bayern’s Oktoberfest weekend match against Werder Bremen was already sold out (most, if not all, home games already were). The ticket exchange became my new obsession.
I checked multiple times a day until, after what qualifies these days as a “late night out” (home before midnight, MDT), I spotted a single ticket for €50. I grabbed it. With the ticket exchange’s fees, that ticket cost me €62.50—so I’d already spent €115.50 overall just to hold one solitary seat.
But I was optimistic. As the match got closer, more tickets popped up. I snagged two more: a €40 upper-deck seat and a €80 lower-bowl seat. Three tickets, three different sections. Not ideal, but I’ve learned over the years that it’s always better to have a ticket in hand than need one close to kick-off, and I figured patience would pay off.
The Downsides: Fees, Limits, and Fine Print
Finally, I struck gold: two tickets next to each other. The catch? Buying them would push me over the four-ticket limit for that match. Cue frantic juggling—I listed one of my extras back on the exchange, freed up the slot, and locked in the pair. Victory!
Or was it?
I’m sure this was buried somewhere in the German-language terms and conditions, but my vocabulary isn’t quite at “fine print legalese” level. In other words, I learned the hard way that while Bayern’s ticket exchange prices are fixed, and you can bet on recouping the entire value of any tickets you need to re-post on the exchange, the exchange platform’s fees are not refundable, nor recouped by the fees collected from the next buyer. So, every ticket I bought and resold was eating fees, which, paired with the previous fact that tickets can’t be marked up, meant that I would be down more and more money every time I bought and re-sold a ticket back on the club’s ticket exchange. You could argue that that’s just the cost of guaranteeing yourself a ticket and that it’s worth it for the peace of mind, but I had set out on this endeavor to try and reduce costs. Surely there was a way to figure something out. Indeed, there was. But first, an additional hurdle…
Reselling Tickets: Viagogo vs. Bayern Exchange
To make the stakes just a tad bit higher, the friend who had originally wanted the third ticket changed their mind. That left me holding two extras and potentially bleeding fees. That’s when I turned to Viagogo.
Unlike Bayern’s official exchange, Viagogo let me list at market prices, and I actually sold my extras for more than double their face value. Not exactly how I envisioned funding my Oktoberfest trip, but it saved me from losing $193.50 (USD) at the end of the day—a sum that’s more than a third of what I would ultimately pay out of pocket for the membership and two tickets. That’s pretty huge! Needless to say, I was able to save myself from some very expensive “lessons learned” (more on those in just a second). So what did I actually pay at the end of the day?
What I Actually Paid for Bayern Munich Tickets
When the dust settled, I had two seats together for €72 total ($85). That’s €36 ($42.50) per ticket. Add in the €53 ($62) Bayern membership fee, and I’d spent $147 overall for two tickets—about $73.50 each. For Bayern Munich tickets at Allianz Arena during Oktoberfest, that’s a solid deal.
Lessons Learned About Buying Bundesliga Tickets
In the end, I got what I wanted: two seats together at Allianz Arena to watch Bayern Munich vs. Werder Bremen during Oktoberfest. But yes, my path there was anything but efficient.
Here’s what I’d recommend if you’re trying to buy Bundesliga tickets:
Join the club early. The membership pays for itself if you actually land face-value tickets.
Be patient. Don’t hoard tickets unless you’re ready to risk fees.
Don’t underestimate resale platforms. Viagogo saved me when the official exchange didn’t. Yes, they are more costly for buyers, but they also provide greater access to tickets. Hate it or love it, you get what you pay for.
Would I do it again? Probably. Is the way I did it this first time the same way I’d do it again? “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is”. J/K—it most certainly is not. Next time I’ll try to make fewer “donations” to the Bayern ticketing fee fund.
(Disclosure: We sometimes ideate, draft, and/or refine content with the aid of artificial intelligence tools, and edit & revise it to reflect our own personalities & intended message.)