Saving Money on Movie Tickets
Combine Discounted Gift Cards, Cash Back, and Reward Programs. Potential Savings: $3-5 per Ticket. Difficulty Level: Low to Moderate
Welcome to Saving Money with Andrew!
When my family gets together for the holidays, we really enjoy going to the movies.[1] But each year, movie tickets get more expensive as theater owners squeeze a declining audience, offering little more than comfy chairs and reserved seating. Let’s talk about some tips to save at the theater.
Over time, there have been some crazy ticket deals - a moment of silence for MoviePass. And some theater chains have affinity programs that can be a good deal if you frequently use a single theater brand, or offer discounted gift cards valid only for certain showings at certain theaters.[2] But most moviegoers go to the movies no more than 5-10 times per year and don’t like to be restricted to a particular theater.[3]
Here’s how we save at the movies. If you haven’t read them already, the prior issues on cashback shopping and discounted gift cards will provide some helpful background for these tips:
First, purchase a discounted gift card to your movie ticket seller of choice through a cashback website. We click through Mr. Rebates (a cashback website) to purchase discounted Fandango gift cards from Raise.com. We earn 5% cash back from clicking through Mr. Rebates, and can buy the gift cards for about 14.5% off (based on our last visit). That already yields ~18-19% off. Raise also periodically sends out coupon codes for an additional 3-5% off. The gift card is generally delivered via email within a few minutes.
Next, click through another cashback website to go to the Fandango website. Cashback Monitor has a list of sites that offer cashback on Fandango purchases, but you can generally get an additional ~1% on your Fandango purchases.
Then, use the gift card to purchase your tickets at Fandango. Make sure to enter any other loyalty programs you use (e.g., AMC Stubs), and make sure you are logged in and using Fandango VIP, which is free and provides a $5 credit (though only usable within 21 days) for every four tickets purchased.
On our last ticket purchase, our total savings was approximately 25% off the effective ticket price. I’m not counting Fandango VIP credit, but that’s an additional implied 5-10% off if you ultimately use the credit before it expires.
All this takes some work, but it’s a pretty good return on time (probably about $3-5 of savings per ticket for 5 minutes of extra work once you’ve set everything up), and fun if you enjoy this kind of thing.[4]
I hope this has been helpful. If you liked it, please share it with a friend! Also, please send me your feedback, requests, and success stories.
[1] Some favorites include the recent releases Knives Out and the superb Uncut Gems. The latter even has some great economics lessons alongside the constant suspense.
[2] AMC commonly offers ticket gift cards (mostly unrestricted “Black” and more heavily restricted “Yellow” tickets) that are widely available on eBay or from certain retailers.
[3] According to a somewhat dated Harris poll, American moviegoers see about 5 movies in the theater per year (you can’t just divide tickets sold by population, because a large portion of Americans don’t go to the movies at all). The median is probably lower, as the average is likely brought up by a smaller number of “super consumers”.
[4] As usual, my disclaimer. This post is not an advertisement! I don’t make money from this newsletter via ads, affiliate links, or anything else.