MoviePass Cuts Plan to Three Movies a Month

Hmm. I love MoviePass but I struggle to see more than two or three a month, so I guess this doesn’t bother me too much.

 

With surge pricing, unless you see AT LEAST 3, moviepass isn’t even with it. This makes it even less worth it.

 

This is still so much cheaper than seeing films. I am not currently a subscriber but I am baffled by the backlash this has caused in the media.

 

What are the prices for new movies in your theaters? Here in Dallas, a single movie ticket is ~$12. So literally one movie a month is still saving money with MoviePass.

 

How do you figure that? The average movie ticket is $9. Surge pricing is not going to exist anymore.

 

I always hit up AMC on a Saturday or Sunday before noon for $6. A few times a month. New movies. Just gotta get up a little earlier. So I don’t know if this was ever worth it for me.

 

I mean, that’s 18 bucks versus 10. I usually go to the cheap showtimes too but when someone wants to go to a multiplex that charges 14 bucks on a Friday night it’s very worth it.

 

For me, with surge pricing, if I saw one movie a month, which I did more often than I thought I would, I would pay 10 a month for the service and then the additional 5 for surge pricing (which all theaters around me had from like 3 and 4 pm on even on weekdays.) A ticket is at least $12 here no matter what time of day it is. At the time I canceled my subscription they were still planning on upping to $15 a month. I didn’t know they were axing surge pricing. But regardless, the service is still not what it originally was.

 

Imagine an all you can eat buffet criticizing its customers for eating all they could eat. And then changing their policy after they paid sixteen times. And then finally saying, 'actually no - you only get this one plate.'

That's not a great way to run a business.

 

Right, it's not what it used to be. But even at $12 a ticket, you'd be coming out ahead with MoviePass even if you only saw 1 movie a month.

 

The point isn't, 'MoviePass isn't worth the money.'

The point IS 'MoviePass isn't what people signed up for originally, and the changes came so rapid fire that people literally were driving to theaters and finding out on the spot that movies weren't available/costing $5 apiece instead of free, and then there was literally no one to call or contact to figure out what's going on when there's a problem.'

MoviePass brought every shred of negative attention on itself by having the worst customer service I've ever seen, anywhere.

 

Would have paid $12 to see Eighth Grade yesterday, but my pass worked and everything was fine. I’m going down with this ship.

 

yeah, glad i never signed up.

 

What I’m saying is that when I cancelled my plan peak pricing was still happening. So at the time if I saw 1 movie a month the subscription plus the peak pricing was more than 1 ticket.

 

I cancelled when I had a kid so I’ve been out the game for a couple years. The way they went about it is shitty, sure. The long game could work tho IMO

 

Right. MoviePass being shitty and MoviePass being a worthwhile purchase aren't mutually exclusive. I'm a customer (one of the ones they took a shot at that 'stresses' the system by seeing too many movies), and am annoyed at the way they do things, but I won't cancel my subscription until there's a better option for me. So long as that option never shows, I'll stick with them.

 

MoviePass wouldn't have survived the year the way it was hemorrhaging money. The old business model was an absolute failure. In fact, most people expected MoviePass to simply fold and close up shop... yet they're trying to find a way to survive and, like you've mentioned, it still is a very, very good deal. Maybe they'll give the unlimited movies thing another try in the future after they build up their customer base and stop bleeding money.

You sound so ungrateful and entitled. So what if it's not the same lopsided deal that you signed up for? You're still getting a lopsided deal (basically 24 free movies a year); and a partial MoviePass is better than no MoviePass at all.

 

Yes. I, in fact, DO believe that I'm entitled to receive the service that I paid money to receive. If I had to guess, that's a thing you agree with me on, and expect in your everyday life on a constant basis. Say, for example, if you ordered a pizza. And then let's say, when the delivery guy got there, only half of it was there. I doubt you wouldn't complain on the basis that 'a partial pizza is better than no pizza.' And I doubt your neighbor next door would hear you complain and would respond, 'man, you seem ungrateful and entitled towards the pizza place that didn't deliver what you paid for.' Because paying for a service/product, and then receiving the service/product paid for, is how business works.

And that's the crux of the matter here: MoviePass isn't a charity. They didn't donate anything to me. They aren't a non-profit making the world a better place. I didn't win a 'see movies with this card for free!' sweepstakes. And no one forced them to offer subscriptions at a price point that was unsustainable. They aren't victims of some crisis that has befallen them; they're a business - a poorly run one with heinous customer service and an irritatingly evolving set of terms and conditions. And acting like it's anything else is, in my opinion, very, very strange.

 

They’ll be outta business in 18 months.

 

It's weird that we seemingly have people rooting for them to fail.

 

That’s what seems so weird to me, too. Although, I think studios weren’t fans of the service since it kinda throws a wrench in their box office numbers so if all the studios take advantage of this sinking ship, best believe they can sink it hard.

 

While I'm not rooting for them to fail by any means, I will say that being a customer with them the past 8 months has been kind of stressful. My boyfriend and I ended up cancelling our cards after they ran out of money and had to take out that insane loan to stay afloat because we were worried about having our bank account attached to such a volatile company. Not to mention that, despite having FIVE movie theaters within manageable distance, we had been unable to check into anything in the app because none of them had e-ticketing. So we were paying for a service we couldn't even use.

I don't think it's entitled to want the product you signed up for. More to the point, I don't think it's entitled to be wary of a company that changes their terms and services pretty much every hour. If it had been a few changes- a small price increase and a limit on movies, fine. But when every other day it's like "okay now we have peak pricing, now you have to take pictures of your stubs, now the price is going up, JUST KIDDING, none of that is true, but here's another change and curveball." It's just bad business. When you add in that it's impossible to get in contact with them regarding issues...at a certain point, being a good deal is not worth all the trouble and wondering if the service you're paying for is even going to work. I'd rather just go during the afternoon and pay $5.75 a ticket.

I would love for a better version of MoviePass to emerge, or even for the company to get their shit together and be a functioning, profitable service. But so far, they inspire zero confidence. I'm still not even clear on how they can become profitable, given that the theater and studio support they were banking on is not happening. In the end, I think that they will go under and their model will be built in by the theaters themselves. AMC is on the right track. Personally, I'm hoping that Cinemark will revamp their Movie Club, since there's one 4 minutes from my apartment.

 

I was able to justify keeping my subscription going until showtimes just started disappearing from the app. Nothing more infuriating then going to the movie theater because MoviePass had tickets available, but when you get there they're gone. There's not even a warning system for low amount of tickets so you have no way of knowing until you get there. Then if you walk into the theater, it's nearly empty and not even close to being sold out, Moviepass just ran out of money for the day.

 

i'm just really not sure this model is tenable