Have you heard of MoviePass? It’s a movie subscription service that costs $10 per month and you get access to one movie per day at participating theaters!
Yes, you read that right. $10 per month for basically unlimited movies! (Well, 30 to 31 movies — or 28 or 29, if it’s February — to be exact. Depending upon how many days there are in any given month! ;))
We love going to movies, but we rarely go because of the price tag. So when I read about MoviePass in the fall, I was all WHAT?? And I immediately started looking into it because I wanted to surprise Jesse with a membership for Christmas.
However, being the skeptic I am, I figured there had to be a catch.
Is MoviePass Really Legit?
So I researched and read reviews, I Googled high and low looking for people who were complaining about the service or who were saying it wasn’t legit or that it was a scam.
To my surprise, all I found out online was that it was really and truly a legitimate deal.
It really is only $10 per month (well, actually $9.95 per month — and Costco is currently offering an even better deal). And there are no blackout dates. As a MoviePass member, you can see up to one standard 2D film per calendar day.
And I found a few friends who had signed up for it and they could only rave about it. So I took the plunge and bought a MoviePass membership for both Jesse and me for Christmas.
(Okay, I admit, I may have sort of really wanted it myself, too. So it was kind of like me buying myself a Christmas present! ;))
Jesse thought it was a really great idea and was thrilled with the gift, mostly because it would mean that we’d be much more excited and motivated to regularly go to movies together! (Something we love doing but rarely make happen, mostly because of the cost involved.)
But he was also a little cynical. As was everyone else we talked to about it.
I’m here to happily report that, a few weeks and multiple movies later, we are S-O-L-D on this MoviePass thing. It is basically a frugal movie and theater lovers dream come true!
If you haven’t jumped on the MoviePass bandwagon yet and you’ve been the skeptic on the sidelines, too, I wanted to do a full-fledged review of the service in this post to help answer many of the questions we had about how this service actually works.
(Please note: MoviePass is not sponsoring this post. We paid out of pocket for our membership and we have no affiliation with them. Though if they wanted to affiliate themselves with me, I’d be all over that because we have become raving fans of this service!)
How to Get MoviePass Set Up
1. Head MoviePass.com and type in your zipcode to see if there are theaters in your area that accept the MoviePass cards. (There are over 4,000 theaters currently accepting the cards. I am guessing they will continue to add new theaters as their service grows.)
2. If there are theaters close to you, sign up for the MoviePass subscription. It’s $9.95 per month. OR, you can purchase an annual subscription at a discounted rate through Costco.
3. Your MoviePass cards will arrive in the mail within 8-10 business days. Please note that your account will be charged when you purchase the subscription, but your subscription dates will be adjusted to reflect the date you actually activate your card (so you’re not paying for a subscription for the 8-10 days while you wait for your card to arrive).
4. Once your card arrives, download the MoviePass app to your phone and connect it to your MoviePass card. (This just basically involves signing in with MoviePass login info and typing in the last 4 digits of your card.)
5. You can then start using your card to get in to a movie every single day! That’s it!
When I posted about MoviePass on Instagram and Facebook last week, there were a LOT of questions about how it works when you go to see a movie. We had the same questions when we signed up and had to figure out a lot of things by trial and error. So I wanted to give you a thorough tutorial on how it works. (Note: They also have video tutorials on their site that are pretty helpful, too.)
How to Use Your MoviePass Card to See a Movie
1. Go to the movie theater and pull up the MoviePass app. (You have to be within 100 yards of the theater to check-in.)
2. Select the theater you’re at and then find the movie you want to watch. Click on the showing time you want to buy a ticket for and check-in. (This does not guarantee your ticket, this just gives your MoviePass card the ability to be used at that theater within the next 30 minutes to buy a ticket.)
3. Go into the theater and go to the self-serve kiosk or the ticketing desk. Ask to purchase a ticket for the movie you checked in for. (Your tickets are not reserved; you need to go in and buy your ticket just like you would usually buy a movie ticket.)
4. Pay for the ticket with your MoviePass card. So long as you buy the ticket within 30 minutes of checking in at the theater, your MoviePass card should work and should cover the entire cost of the movie ticket. (It’s a MasterCard.)
5. Go enjoy your movie and then repeat this same scenario above as many days per month as you would like! 😉
A Few Drawbacks of MoviePass
You cannot reserve your tickets ahead of time. Well, you could go to the theater earlier in the day of and check-in and purchase the tickets and then use them later in the day (we have friends who live close to the theater who do this). But otherwise, unless your theater offers e-ticketing, you can’t login online and reserve your ticket. This means that sometimes, you could show up to the theater and a movie is sold out.
You can’t reserve your seat ahead of time. If your theater has reserved seating and other movie-goers can reserve tickets/seats online ahead of time, you’ll be left with whatever seats are left when you go to get your tickets.
You have to have two separate devices. Your card is device specific, so you cannot use one device to check-in on multiple accounts.
They currently do not issue cards to kids under the age of 18 (because the MoviePass card is a MasterCard). They are supposedly working on a family pass and I hope they offer that in the not-too-distant future!
You can’t see non 2D movies. Per their site, “MoviePass cannot support (in part or entirety) any enhanced or special screenings that involve an upcharge at the theater. Examples of those would include 3D, IMAX, Fathom Events, DBOX, ETX/RPX, film festival screenings, etc.”
As you can see above, it’s a little bit more complicated to use MoviePass than it would be to just buy tickets online or at the theater. But considering the price point, if you see even 2-3 movies per month, it’s totally worth a little extra hassle.
And if you really love movies and have the wiggle room in your schedule, you could see up to 31 movies in a month — making the price per movie ridiculously inexpensive! 🙂
Jesse and I are planning to go to a movie every Wednesday on my offline day. And we also might hit a movie a few times per month in the evenings, too. At the price of $10 per person per month, that makes for some very inexpensive dates! We also convinced some of our friends to get their own MoviePass so we can do some double dates to the movies.
(Note: We rarely ever buy any food/drinks at the theater because it’s just so pricey and it kind of ruins the frugal aspect of a MoviePass date! We did discover that AMC sometimes prints out a survey with the tickets at the self-serve kiosk and if you fill it out, you get a coupon for a free popcorn! So we’ll definitely be doing that whenever that prints out!)
Have you tried MoviePass? I’d love to hear your thoughts on it if you have!
