Olympics ticket bills delayed until Monday

Olympics ticket hopefuls will now not be billed until next Monday at the earliest, the Games organisers have announced.

The Olympic organising committee, Locog, had previously told applicants that it would begin taking payments for tickets from today but yesterday it said that applicants would not be billed until at least next Monday. Locog will use the extra week carrying out ballots for oversubscribed events.

About 1.8 million people applied for 20 million tickets in total, yet only 6.6 million tickets are available. Locog hopes to raise about £500m from sales. Last week, applicants were sent an email reminding them to make sure that there were sufficient funds in their credit card accounts.

Locog has confirmed that should applicants not have the funds available they will get a second chance and will be told a date on which a second attempt to collect the money will be made.

But organisers will not tell applicants how much they are attempting to collect. Doing so might allow applicants to work out which tickets they have been allocated.

Standard prices range from £20 to £2,012 and oversubscribed events will be decided by a ballot.

Applicants have been advised they will not be told which tickets they have until the money has been collected. The latest date by which applicants should have heard is 24 June.