"Moviepass" subscription service to pay for movies: Yay or Nay?

Cafe Society
1

I asked this question in a zombie thread recently and got no reply, so I’m trying once again.

I just heard about the “Moviepass” subscription service. For $35 a month, you can go to as many movies a month as you like, as long as 24 hours has passed since your last movie. (Oh, and you have to subscribe for a year.)

Now, my spouse and I go to a couple of movies a week – say, 8 a month. $35 / 8 = $4.38 per movie. This seems like a pretty good deal.

However, TANSTAAFL. Does anyone use Moviepass? Are there any “gotchas” that you’ve found? Are you happy with the service – enough to recommend it to someone else? Does anyone have any horror stories about the service?

Thanks,
J.

p.s., I’m in the US on the West Coast.

2

I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of Moviepass. Is it for a certain movie theater chain? Or can you take your Moviepass card to any movie theater?

I would guess that there would be limitations on when you can use it. A lot of movie theaters seem to not let you use vouchers for the opening weekend of the big blockbuster movies.

Since this is about going to the movies, you might have a bit more luck in Cafe Society, maybe ask a moderator to move it over there.

3

Without looking up the exact terms and going on a general understanding of how movie ticketing and passes are handled, I’d bet there are enough limitations and gotchas to make it a deal with a very slim number of satisfied users.

Do all the theaters in your area participate? Do some studios refuse to allow it to be accepted? Are there (almost certainly) blackout times and days - say, not for the first five days of a movie’s run and not on Friday and Saturday afternoons? Each and every one of these likely limitations would reduce the value of the flat fee. If you’re willing to go to some subset of movie offered by some subset of theaters and only on weekday nights, it might be a gasser.

4

The website says there are no blackout dates. Looking at the list of theaters available in my area, I don’t think there are any that aren’t covered. AMC, Regal, UA, Bow Tie Cinemas, City Cinemas, plus all the smaller independent ones.

You can only use it for 2D films however:

5

I found this article from last year where someone talks about their experience with it. It’s mostly positive.

Reading that, my main issues would be worrying about the app or my phone messing up, or losing the card. My phone overall works well but can be weird at inconvenient times. I’ve never lost any debit cards before but that could be a concern to people who do lose stuff often. Also the article is from a year ago, it’s possible some of the policies have changed.

6

The first month is $60 ($30 monthly fee + $5 card shipping fee + $25 initiation fee). Every month thereafter is $30 per month. Also, you can’t use your membership to purchase tickets through Fandango, MovieTickets, etc. So if you think a show is going to sell out, you would have to go to the theater ahead of time to get your tickets directly from the theater.

7

Do you have a Costco membership? I think they sell discounted movie tickets in the stores. So as an alternative to Moviepass, would the discount movie tickets be a better deal?

8

I already get the Costco movie tickets. They cost $15.99 for 2 tickets, or $8 a ticket, and those are only good at Cinemark theaters. The AMC tickets are $16.99 for 2 tickets. So these aren’t a bad deal, but they don’t get cheaper the more movies you go to. Conversely, they don’t get more expensive if you go to fewer movies in a month.

J.

9

Exactly. The problem with the Moviepass deal (and similar deals) is that you’re committing to a subscription service, but may not take advantage of it in a given month. So something more flexible might be a better choice.

10

In my case though, as I stated in the OP, my spouse and I AVERAGE 2 movies a week. Sometimes we see 3, though that would be hard to do in a weekend with the “1 in 24 hour” restriction.

For me, at a $35 / month subscription price, the break even point would be 5 movies a month (comparing against the Costco discount tickets). I don’t think that would be difficult at all.

J.

11

One problem is that if you cancel before the subscription expires thay charge you regular price for the movies you’ve already seen, so if your situation changes and you can’t afford to spend $35/month on movies you’re faced with a pretty big cancellation fee.

12

Now playing in Cafe Society, from IMHO. Held over! :smiley:

13

Here’s what I said about this mediocre, intrusive deal when I first heard about it: MoviePass - The more I read, the worse it gets

Has it gotten less odious since I posted that?

14

You may want to contact Equipoise; I think she’s said that she sees several hundred movies each year. So she may have an opinion about this service.

15

Update:

I signed up for Moviepass a couple of weeks ago. I’ve used it on average twice a week. It has always worked as advertised.

However, they are REALLY serious about that “24 hour” limitation. It is not 24 hours since you last signed up for a movie, it is 24 hours since the starting time of the last movie you signed up for.

One day I saw a 7:00 movie, though I signed up for it through the APP at 6:45. The next night I wanted to see a 7:15 movie. It wouldn’t let me sign up until 7:01. This worked out ok, just gave me a little less time with my popcorn before the movie started. :slight_smile:

All in all, I think I’d recommend it to anyone who sees a lot of movies.

J.

16

I plugged in my zip code and it returned a list of theaters near my apartment, but nothing indicating that Moviepass is accepted at any of them.

17

I think if the theater shows up in the list, then Moviepass is accepted there. You can try calling Moviepass to confirm.

J.

18

This is probably a good deal if you’re really into watching movies. But you’re going to have to watch at least a movie a week on an ongoing basis for it to be worth the money. Most people don’t watch that many movies so they’d be better off buying their tickets on a movie-by-movie basis.

19

Oh, I just saw this. I see that jharvey963 has already signed up and I hope it works out for him.

I do see over 300 movies a year in the theater, but my situation is fairly odd. I only pay full price for movies a couple times a year, if that. I see most of my movies (boring list spoilered)

[spoiler]1) during matinees,

  1. at the Gene Siskel Film Center where I have a membership, so all movies are $6,

  2. on theater discount days such as at the Music Box, where every Monday tickets are $7 (used to be $5, blah), and Century Evanston, where every Tuesday all movies except special showings like 3D or Fathom are $5.75 (and even then, 3D movies are only $9 which is far less than normal price), or City North 14, where every Tuesday all movies are $7.50, but I never go there anymore since CenEv started their cheaper discount day, unless they’re playing something I really want to see that’s not playing at CenEv.

  3. discount theaters, such as the Logan, where all movies are $7, or the Davis, where all movies are $8.

  4. specialty theaters, such as the Brew & View, where they have double or triple features of 2nd or 3rd run movies for $5.

  5. using Costco & Regal passes, which brings the price down to about $8.

  6. the occasional special free showing, such as the Chicago International Film Festival’s summer series at the Cultural Center, or Movies In The Park, or once in a while free passes from places like Gofobo.

  7. etc. that I’m not thinking of right now.[/spoiler]

MoviePass wouldn’t help me much, unless they change that stupid “One movie per day” rule. If they did, yes, I could use it instead of Costco passes to see multiple movies on the weekend.

Plusses:

It does seem to be accepted at all the major theaters I go to (even at the Music Box, so I wouldn’t be limited to Mondays) and several I don’t but only because I can never make a matinee after work and no way will I pay full price.

It is cheap, for as many movies as I see.

Minuses:

That one movie per day would mean I’d still have to use Costco passes on the weekend, when I’m most likely to see multiple movies.

That 24-hour rule is crazy. I get off work at 4pm most days. One matinee might start at 5:45. The next day’s matinee film might start at 5:00. That means I couldn’t use the MoviePass. That would happen a lot.

I don’t like the idea of signing up for a full year, even if it’s only for one year (after the first year, it’s month to month, not a full year contract, which should go into the plus column). I don’t have a credit card because the thought of credit card debt freaks me out. I have a Visa debit card, and the amount on it fluctuates wildly. I would have to make sure that the monthly fee would be on the card at the time the payment’s due or I’d be screwed, because…

Forget about the penalties if I cancel MoviePass. According to the TOS, MOVIEPASS can cancel the card anytime they please for any reason they please, and the same penalties apply. They could cancel me if I forgot about the payment and spent $1.00 too much on something else, so that their $30.00 is not on the card. Then they’d back charge me for all the movies I used the card on, and since they’d have my credit card number, they could keep trying until my next direct deposit paycheck and get the money. That’s a scary thought.

In the end, it doesn’t matter anyway. Even if I were to become a more responsible person and make sure the money’s on the card at the time it needs to be on the card, you have to have a smartphone and I don’t have a smartphone. I have a Tracfone, precisely because I don’t want a contract and monthly payments. I have an iPod Touch, but that’s not good enough. You have to have a data plan.

So much for that.

20

If that’s correct, they would most likely cancel you because, in their opinion, you used it too much and saw too many movies.

I have yet to see anything that convinces me that this isn’t a terrible deal and the company isn’t utterly sleezy.