A Long Island mother looking to surprise her son with FIFA World Cup tickets ended up with an unexpected charge of more than $8,000 after she accidentally purchased a parking pass through StubHub, according to NBC New York. Elizabeth Saitta told the outlet that she had intended to buy two seats for the Brazil vs. Morocco match at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, scheduled for this Saturday.
Saitta says she thought she bought the match tickets last year as a Christmas gift for her son. She stated that the two seats cost $772 plus insurance. However, after completing her purchase, she said she noticed an additional charge of $8,100 on her account.
Saitta had mistakenly purchased a parking pass alongside her tickets, which apparently accounted for the thousands of dollars in extra charges. She said she contacted StubHub to request a refund within “seconds, maybe a minute” of completing the transaction.
StubHub initially denied the refund request before reversing its decision after a media inquiry
As per NBC New York, StubHub initially denied Saitta’s refund request. However, after the outlet contacted the company, StubHub reversed its decision and processed the refund in full. “Hallelujah! … It was just amazing,” Saitta said after learning her refund had been approved.
Ticket prices for this year’s tournament have drawn widespread complaints from fans, as even President Donald Trump told The New York Post last month that he would not pay the going rate for a seat. “I would certainly like to be there, but I wouldn’t pay it either, to be honest with you,” Trump said, after being informed that tickets for the U.S. opening match against Paraguay were starting at around $1,000.
Trump also suggested his administration could look into the pricing, expressing concern that high costs could prevent working-class fans from attending. “If people from Queens and Brooklyn and all of the people that love Donald Trump can’t go, I would be disappointed,” he told the New York Post. He added, “I would like to be able to have the people that voted for me to be able to go.”
NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani also made headlines recently after he negotiated affordable World Cup tickets from FIFA, though the arrangement came with conditions. According to the Associated Press, FIFA President Gianni Infantino defended the ticket pricing, arguing, “If we do something wrong, then probably everyone selling tickets in North America is doing something wrong.”
“We have to look at the market,” Infantino said. “We are in the market in which entertainment is the most developed in the world, so we have to apply market rates.” He also pointed to an estimated 500 million ticket requests for the tournament as further justification.
The average resale price for a ticket to the World Cup final is close to $13,000, compared to approximately $1,600 for the 2022 championship final, and the cheapest available ticket for a match at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, was listed at $1,079 on Ticketmaster, according to The New York Post.
Despite strong ticket sales, with FIFA reporting more than 5 million tickets sold, a survey by the American Hotel & Lodging Association found that nearly 80 percent of hotels across the 11 U.S. host cities are reportedly running below their initial World Cup booking projections, citing factors including visa delays, high travel costs, and geopolitical concerns as key contributors to slower-than-expected international visitor numbers. Some travelers, however, have found a silver lining, with reports of World Cup hotel bookings available at lower prices than originally paid, creating an uneven situation for host cities.
Published: Jun 12, 2026 05:26 pm