Pokémon TCG Pocket is finally doing something with its mystery Advance Ticket

For months, Pokémon TCG Pocket players have had a strange item in their inventories that seemingly had no purpose. Many players thought The Pokémon Company had just forgotten about it, but it’s just announced that soon you’ll be able to do something with the Advance Ticket. 

The Pokémon Company has announced that alongside the launch of the Mega Rising tomorrow, Pokémon TCG Pocket will hold a draw where players who hold an Advance Ticket – along with players who don’t – will have the chance to win a big prize. There are three prize levels, each awarded to fewer players than the last, with 100 lucky players earning enough Pack Hourglasses to open 100 packs. 

Here’s the full prize list: 

• 1st prize: 1200 Pack Hourglasses – 100 players 
• 2nd prize: 120 Pack Hourglasses – 1000 players 
• 3rd prize: 24 Pack Hourglasses – All other players 

Players who don’t hold an Advance Ticket will also receive the 3rd prize pool, something that some players who’ve been playing since the game launched aren’t too happy about. Still, the chance to win 1200 Pack Hourglasses is a pretty big bonus for those who’ve stuck around, provided they get lucky. 

The Advance Ticket was originally awarded to players who logged in between the game’s launch on October 30, 2024 and January 30, 2025, as a reward for being an early adopter. At the time, The Pokémon Company said that the Advance Ticket is something that players “will be able to use for something in the future,” but little else had been said in the 9 months since the promotion ended. 

The announcement comes after the news that Pokémon TCG Pocket would be fixing players’ concerns with the Deluxe Pack, with a change coming next Summer to enable “reprint” cards from that pack to count towards prior set completion and vice versa. The initial decision to have the Deluxe Pack’s card dex entirely separate from past sets – despite being ostensibly a catchup expansion – was widely considered TCG Pocket’s biggest misstep to date, and derided by just about every player who had an opinion on it.