For Many months now I’ve been recommending MoviePass to everyone I talk to who likes movies. It always had several restrictions that made it hard to justify:
Only one movie per day
You can only see each movie once
No IMAX or 3D (you can’t even pay the upgrade cost)
You can’t pre-buy your movie tickets, you have to go to the theater, check-in, and then buy your movies (and if you have multiple people in your party with passes, you have to each make your transaction separately, which causes longer lines at the box office)
These were annoying restrictions but overall I still considered the pass to be a good enough deal to lock myself into a year contract at $34.99/month each (Me and Barbara) and do it. It gave me the opportunity to budget my love of going to the movies to a set amount per month and not have to think about “Do I really want to pay to see this movie in theaters or should I wait for BluRay?” If I was remotely interested in a movie I went to see it, and if it turned out to suck, I didn’t care because I’ll just see another movie the next day for no additional cost.
Unfortunately yesterday MoviePass made a sudden change with no warning which I find absolutely unacceptable, and to make it worse they tried to pass it off as if it was some exciting new feature for their customers. Yesterday I received an email from MoviePass with the subject line “New Features.” This is what MoviePass had to say
Dear Nicholas,
At MoviePass, we are constantly working to build the best theatrical subscription service. We have many exciting new features coming that will improve your experience even more.
As the holidays approach, we have been receiving many requests to purchase MoviePass gifts for loved ones. Our gifting site will be available shortly, and we will notify you as soon as you are able to purchase.
We’re also excited to introduce a new feature: The Countdown Clock. This clock counts down the time until your next available screening. You will still be able to go to a movie each day, but there will be a 24-hour period between screenings. Your MoviePass app has already been updated, and you will notice these changes the next time you see a movie.
If you have any questions, please contact customer service at 877.646.2892, via live chat at www.moviepass.com, or by emailing [email protected].
Thanks again for your loyalty and continued support.
Best,
Stacy Spikes
CEO
They are “excited to introduce a new feature” What is this new feature that they are so excited to introduce? A Countdown clock. This is absolutely ridiculous. If I go to a movie at 9:30 pm on a Friday night, and then on Saturday I want to go to a matinee (which would cost them less) I can’t do it. If the last showing of the movie I want to go to on Saturday starts at 9:25 pm, I can’t do it!
For the most part, I only have time to go to movies on the weekend, but this new feature makes it incredibly difficult to go to more than one movie per weekend as your showtimes become incredibly limited.
But the most insulting thing at all is that they would have the audacity to say they were “excited to introduce a new feature” as if this was something that was going to benefit their customers. When I tried to contact them using their support email about this, I received no answer (still waiting for over 24 hours). I then went to their live chat, where they had the audacity to say that their “research” indicated that this wouldn’t affect 95% of their customers.
The only silver lining to this change is that if anyone was having trouble justifying the cost of moviepass and has been looking for a way out of their contract without paying fees to terminate early, MoviePass is giving us 14 days (Until November 13th) to cancel our subscriptions even if we are still on contract without paying their normal penalties.
Despite the backlash on Facebook and Twitter about this, MoviePass has yet to make an official statement at least apologizing for the way they went about this change. I haven’t canceled my service with them yet, because I’m waiting to see how they address the backlash. But I assure you, if they don’t do something about this to make it right, I will be canceling my service before November 13th.