If you’re considering going to Wimbledon this year – and have an American Express card – then you’ve got an additional avenue by which to try to acquire tickets. American Express cardholders can register for a dedicated ticket lottery for a chance to purchase a pair of tickets to this year’s tournament.
Wimbledon and American Express: a marriage of confusion
Amex has been a major sponsor of Wimbledon for many years, which has given them unique access to tickets and other perks for their cardholders. But, historically, both Wimbledon and American Express have done an absolutely horrible job of communicating those benefits, in some cases making it virtually impossible for cardholders to take advantage of them.
This year is no different, as details about this lottery process are confusing and difficult to even find unless you dig into the terms and conditions – and even then it’s not all that clear. But we’ve read through it all, so let’s take a stab at figuring it out.
How does this lottery work?
For this American Express cardholder lottery, Wimbledon is making 5000 tickets available, but only in pairs, so 2500 winners will be selected.
- In order to participate, you must have an American Express card. No details are provided on whether the card must have been issued in a specific country, so we assume any American Express card is valid.
- To participate, you must have registered for the Public Ballot back in September and been rejected for tickets, as Amex states that this presale is only for those registrants who were unsuccessful in the Public Ballot. Our challenge with this: we did register for the Public Ballot in September, but have no record of being notified that we had or hadn’t won, and our online account does not provide any information as to the status of our application (other than it was successfully submitted in September 2025).
- If you registered for the Public Ballot and checked the box on your original application that said “Please tick yes to receive more information via email about the benefits available to American Express Cardmembers” and didn’t win tickets in the Public Ballot, American Express was supposed to email you a registration link for the American Express lottery on February 23.
- You must use that link to register for the Amex lottery by Monday, March 2 at 4pm ET / 3pm CT / 2pm MT / 1pm PT.
- The first round of winners will be notified via email on March 9 and will have 48 hours to purchase their tickets. 2500 entrants will be selected in the first round, so if all of them purchase a pair of tickets, the entire supply of tickets for this lottery will be exhausted after the initial round.
- Each winner can only purchase tickets in pairs, and is limited to a single pair. Single tickets will not be sold. The tickets available in this lottery are all for the ticketed show courts: Centre Court, Court 1, and Court 2. There will be no grounds passes available in this lottery.
- If tickets still remain after the first round, second-round winners will be notified on March 11 and will have 48 hours to purchase their tickets. If tickets still remain after the second round, third-round winners will be contacted on March 13 and will have 48 hours to make a purchase.
- Registrants who either aren’t selected to purchase tickets via this lottery, or were selected but didn’t actually purchase tickets, will be eligible to participate in Wimbledon’s “return platform”, where fans with tickets can resell them if they cannot attend. But any registrants who were selected in the lottery and purchased tickets will not be eligible to participate in the return platform.
What about American Express Last Minute Tickets?
This is yet another Amex/Wimbledon concoction that is incredibly confusing. They seemingly change the guidelines for this process every year, so we can’t really tell you what it’s going to look like this year. But, in general, American Express will make tickets available closer to the tournament for cardholders. The problem: it seems like there’s no official notification channel to let people know that they are for sale. Last year, hours of effort to find details about the onsale, we finally found it in a Reddit chatroom … several days too late.
As we discover details for the Last Minute Tickets option, we will publish them.
Next Steps
If you received an email from Wimbledon about this presale, make sure to register immediately so you don’t forget. If you didn’t receive an email, it’s likely that either you didn’t register for the public ballot, or didn’t note your interest in American Express news when you did submit it. If you think you did those two things, but still didn’t receive an email, reach out to Wimbledon here.
