So, my wife received $50 in Fandango Bucks for Christmas. She wanted to use them to see “Sweeny Todd” last night, however, try as we might, the stupid site doesn’t recognize her perfectly valid Fandango Bucks code. Either the site would claim that we entered the code incorrectly (and we tried it a myriad of ways: with hyphens/without hyphens, capitalized letters/uncapitalized letters) or it would just pass us through to the “enter credit card info” portion of the ticket-ordering process.
After 20+ minutes I was like “f-it. Let’s just buy the damn thing.” Oh, goody, I got charged a $1.00 “convenience charge” for the pleasure of using the stupid site, a “convenience” that was 13.3% the cost of the original $7.50 ticket!
I also, a long time ago, used the Fandango kiosk that was next to the theater, thinking I was smart in bypassing the line. I don’t remember if I got jacked for the $1 “convenience charge” but I do remember that the ticket purchase would NOT count towards our “Regal Rewards” program, where you get points that accumulate towards free soft drinks/candy/popcorn/tickets/etc - not even taking the receipt to the help desk helped as we were told “Tickets bought via Fandango aren’t applicable towards the Regal points system.”
So, anyway, who uses this piece of junk? And why? Is convenience worth being charged an extra 10% or more for each ticket?
Also looks like they’ve got themselves a nice little credit card scam going. I remember that from last night, but I sure as hell didn’t click yes and I made sure that all checkboxes were unchecked.
I just use Movies.com and sometimes buy the tickets online, but usually use the kiosk at the theater. (I don’t think the kiosk belongs to Fandango, I don’t remember seeing their name on it)
At peak times in New York City, say on a Saturday night, movies will routinely sell out an hour or more before showtime. I’ve very occasionally used Fandango or Movifone.com to buy a ticket in advance in such a case, so that I wouldn’t show up to a movie theater and be unable to get a ticket. I find the convenience fees galling, even though here, $1 is less than 10% of a $10.50 ticket, and mostly just try to avoid seeing movies on Saturday nights.
I use it frequently to buy tickets ahead of time (I also go to the big fancy Manhattan theaters that often sell out.) I’ve never tried to use Fandango bucks, though, but I’ve never had a problem using the service.
I have heard about a different scam / scheme going on for gift cards, where crooks write the numbers down, and leave the cards. They exit the store and then check the numbers later (A few days later) to see if the card has been “loaded”/ “Activated”. Perhaps something similar to this took place?
We have had our problems with Fandango, yet my step dad still uses it. personally I use it for show times, and just go to the theatre. This came in handy back when I lived on campus, and had two theatres about a block apart from each other.
There was a Robot Chicken or like show sketch for “Fandingo”
Fandingo’s slogan was “Why not add a dollar to the price of your movie ticket?” :smack:
So yeah the charge is a sticking point for a few people.
I don’t mind a $1 convenience charge.
What chaps my balls is when I get to the theater and line to pick up tickets bought on the net is easily 3X as long as any other line.
The person at the front of the line always will have forgotten their credit card. :rolleyes:
I have complained to the theater manager about this, and told them that if I pay extra, I should not have to wait longer.
I’ve used it, but never the gift cards. My wife and I would buy the tix online, go to dinner and then go to the movie; it worked for us. As others have said, I use it when I want to see a popular movie at a nice theater (the Uptown in DC) when there would be a line. I never noticed how much of a fee they charge, but I never had a problem with it.
I’ll use it rarely if I’m worried that a movie will sell out. Not sure about the kiosk, but the online version does accept my “movie rewards” number. That might only work for theaters owned by the same company as AMC though.
I’ve never cared for Fandango, but I did discover something interesting for my local cinema chain (Cinemark): if you register a Cinemark gift card with their website, you can use the gift card to buy tickets through their online system without being charged a “processing fee” or whatever they call it. And, it’s easy to add money to the gift card through the system, too. I never pay more than box office price, yet I get to buy early and through the net. Score!