Could This Be The End of MoviePass?
MoviePassé?
MoviePass, the movie subscription service that lets you watch a movie every day for a monthly fee of $9.95, has been experiencing technical difficulties all weekend – and subscribers are not happy.
The company posted an update on their site on July 27th apologizing for the temporary outages that occurred on July 26th, guaranteeing that the app was back up and running 100%.
“We have handled the issues on the back-end, and our app is now up-and-running with stability at 100%. We thank you for your patience and your ongoing support.”
However, that doesn’t seem to be the case.
In fact, many MoviePass customers took to Twitter to report more outages on Monday, saying that they’re getting the following error message in the app: “There are no more screenings at this theater today.” Also, it appears that the app is only showing titles for theaters that are e-ticket-friendly. 😩
Sidekick Angela says: “On Thursday you couldn’t get any movies, Friday, Mission Impossible was blocked out everywhere. Last night NO movies were available (anywhere minus e-tickets) and today everything has surge pricing, plus you can’t see Mission Impossible. It’s such a mess! Everyone’s theaters are pulling up that there are no movies.”
Unfortunately, these outages are happening shortly after Helios and Matheson, the owner of MoviePass, borrowed $5 million because it was unable to make certain required payments to its merchant and fulfillment processors. The total demand note was for $6.2 million, “which includes $5.0 million in cash borrowed by the Company from the Holder and $1.2 million of original issue discount.”
Do you think that MoviePass has run out of money again?
I hope not! We have enjoyed our Movie Passes so much. My husband and I purchased annual passes in March for $89 and have used them a lot. That said, it has always seemed too good to be true and the company has lost millions.
For those of us that bought gift cards at Costco, do you think that Costco would refund our money, or are we out of luck?
One person reported having luck with this on Reddit. I’d give it a shot.
I read about a week ago that the reason why these technical issues keep happening is because they ran out of money to pay for these tickets. That they posted this technical message temporarily until they can get more funds. I do think that this is the end.
I cancelled mine the other day -with the new changes they made to only show certain times, I was done. It’s a waste of money. If they’re going under, all the more reason to get out.
If this isn’t the end, it still isn’t far away. I love moviepass but knew when I signed up for it that it was only a matter of time before they went out of business. Movie theatres like AMC are fighting it too much, because they’re so set on super expensive movie tickets, they don’t wanna lose any money. Movie passes goal was to get discounted movie tickets for drawing customers in, so they would actually make some money. The theatres would benefit because people that otherwise don’t frequent the movies would go and potentially buy food at concessions stand. Theatres have fought it too long and there’s only so much you can do with no money.
I just cancelled my account. In the next 30 days, the price will be increasing to $15 and all new movies will have a 2 week black out.
I understand making changes as necessary, but the lack of communication to the subscribers is unacceptable.
For just $5 more than the new moviepass price, you can get an AMC a list plan that has zero restrictions and includes a lot more perks.
There are some restrictions from what I read about the AMC. And unfortunately doesn’t cover every theater. I wish amc had made theirs cheaper
My husband has the AMC pass: 3 movies per week, can see the same movie over and over, includes IMAX and special screens, online advanced ticket purchasing, you earn points every month for your subscription.
What restrictions are you reading about?
It seems they also increased their monthly fees today from $9.99 to $14.99. With that said, ironically, Atom Tickets launched a “Break Up Sweepstakes” today for ex-MoviePassers. The details were in this article: https://variety.com/2018/film/news/atom-tickets-moviepass-cancel-breakup-sweepstakes-1202890820/
they should limit 4 per month, 1 per day is totally a joke.
I’m so glad I canceled my membership last month.
I hope not but I am almost at my wits end if I experience any more problems in the next week I will be cancelling!
Of course this wouldn’t last. People are paying $10 a month and the company has to pay full price for each movie ticket.
I can’t imagine they are paying full price for the tickets. That wouldn’t make any sense and would be a terrible business plan. I’m sure they have an agreement to just pay a very small price. But still, I’m not sure they anticipated that some people (like some friends of mine) would go to 30 movies a month.
Katie,
Actually, MoviePass IS paying full price at most theaters. Their goal was to get other theaters on board, but most turned them down other than some very small local theaters. From what I’ve read their demise is more complicated than this, but they do pay full price for almost all tickets!
This was always too good to be true/ last. No one should be surprised by this.
They’re toast. The only reason e-ticketing is still active is because the bill on that isn’t due for a week. We paid upfront with Costco. We’d obviously like a refund, but it doesn’t feel fair to make Costco eat the cost either.
I agree with you. I wonder how people never realize that Costco doesn’t get their money back from MoviePass.
I do hope that MoviePass can operate at least for the rest of the year. I purchased the $89 Costco deal around Christmas last year and I have enjoyed using the card. With that being said, I do not trust MoviePass and would not purchase any additional service from them at any price. The progression of issues since the beginning of this year until now are more than frustrating: It started with eliminating theaters, then they made it difficult to select certain movies, then they stopped one from seeing a movie more than once, (the most bizarre) making everyone take a photo of their ticket stub (what does that prove?), to the recent system outages and preventing seeing specific movies. One pays them for a service and MoviePass changes the service multiple times during the service time.
I’ve seen 47 movies since September on my annual pass. It’s been fun while it’s lasted. At least I feel that my husband and I got our money’s worth.
Wow, that’s awesome! You for sure got your moneys worth!
I have resisted joining simply because I cannot imagine finding enough movies that I want to see to warrant the price, even the cheap yearly one. I think we have seen 4 movies this whole year, max. And I can’t even find decent movies to watch with my free codes from Redbox. Dearth of quality in my opinion. Hope people got their money’s worth who chose to particpate though!
We are going to miss this too. We have only been members for a few months. There were reasons they changed the program…example: seeing the movie only once. Some people bought tickets and then sold them to people that were going in. (Taking a picture was suppose to stop this). I did hear that if you got this with Costco they do refund the money.
Well it was fun while it lasted! (I won’t miss seeing the previews of up coming movies so many times…the show TOO much of the movie!) I wish our AMC had the reclining seats I would join that plan.
…and all the personal data they scraped from their trusting subscribers’ phones will be sold to the highest bidder for any purpose whatsoever, once they go into bankruptcy. The data was *always* the product they “manufactured” (including what you did before and after the movie based on your phone location, useage of other apps, and probably your contacts). You probably can’t stop them from giving that data to anyone willing to pay them for it. It’s not just what movies you watched. It’s everything your phone knows about you, probably.
my husband and I purchased our subscriptions through Costco last Dec. Since then, we’ve seen 46 movies each. If Moviepass goes under tomorrow, it was still a great deal. Moviepass will probably declare bankruptcy.
What is the deal with the Mission Impossible Movie never being available??
We cancelled both our subscriptions yesterday. We only use it to see big new release movies and over the past few days those are no longer available for our movie theater. Plus the popular time surcharges were up to $6. Hopefully they can figure out a way to make it more benificial to themselves and the subscribers. I would be willing to even pay a higher monthly fee!
Heard today that they are going to up the price to $15 (50% hike) and for blockbusters, you have to wait 2 weeks!! (thats a little extreme if you ask me.. 1 week would have been plenty!!)
https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/31/17634508/moviepass-price-increase-limited-first-run-movie-access
I cancelled yesterday and got a full refund from Costco. I saw 62 movies. It was great while it lasted!
You should be ashamed, not bragging. You received $400–$700 of service, conservatively, and now your going take advantage of Costco. Costco should cancel your membership.
I have to agree! I love a great deal but it’s people like you that make the good deals go away. So unethical!
Seriously? Wow, you’re very obnoxious.
Wow. You saw 62 movies… then cancelled the service and requested for a full refund. And you seem to be proud of that. What a shame. Yup, Costco should cancel your membership. That’s not scoring a good deal, that’s called taking advantage.
Did Costco sell them on their site merely from the goodness of their heart? Nope! They took a cut of the sales. If everyone else “saw the writing on the wall”, why did Costco take the gamble? Ummm, money maybe?
Point your hate to CEOs – not at those who are upset that their purchased, 12-month/365-movie, plan failed. They were sold an item that did not deliver it’s promised benefits, why wouldn’t they be entitled to a refund? The plan wasn’t ‘watch 60 movies and you’ve made it worth it plan’.
No, but it is like buying something like underwear, for example. You get 62 wears out of them with no issue and then when they no longer have the same elasticity you decide to return them. I would argue the person no longer deserves a refund after obviously enjoying the product 62 times.
It doesn’t matter how many movies they saw…..if they paid for a year and got half that time, they are fully in their rights to request a refund. They did not get the service they paid for…end of story.
Their customer service is non existent pretty much as well, we tried to call them about issues and we just got a recording and was hung up on. We also bought from Costco last December and with all the changes well be cancelling as well and not renewing next year. Well take advantage of the $5 Tuesdays and Wed in our area instead.
Mike, I agree with you. I got my subscription from Costco too and won’t ask for a refund. I saw 46 movies and got my money’s worth already. they’re too good with their return policy. Heck, someone returned a dead Christmas tree and Costco refunded their money.
My husband and I signed up at the end of May, we saw 9 movies, not bad. We cancelled yesterday because we couldn’t find a movie without a surcharge. Even movies that had been out for almost 2 months still had a surcharge. The peak pricing was ridiculous. adding an extra $6 to $8 a ticket, practically making us pay full price anyway and still having to go to the theater to check in and later take a photo of the ticket stub. We just said enough is enough. It was nice while it lasted, we knew it was unlikely that it was a sustainable business model.
Movie Pass has admitted that their long term plan was to becoming a data mining company for third party advertisers, quote “Down the line, MoviePass sees its biggest opportunity in data mining, mainly the selling of user data to third-party advertisers.”
https://deadline.com/2018/05/moviepass-parent-company-stock-dives-to-all-time-low-54-cents-1202396109/
https://fortune.com/2018/03/10/moviepass-data-gathering/
The short stock play on this is over..why play these games. Data mining is everywhere. Why do you think every time i view h2s I have to accept cookies?
If you really cared about privacy there are so many others you could go after.
So glad that we never joined even though the hubs thought it was a good idea.
Yes, I read on Forbes that they do in fact pay full price for all the tickets which was a ridiculous plan from the jump!
I hope not it was $9.95 a month I rarely go and have not had any problems when I do go. I use it maybe 4 times in a month if that much. I just found two beautiful theaters with recline seats too that do e tickets. I still have two AMC theaters that accept it as well. I live in NYC the matinee is $12 so this is a steal
The only reason I signed up for MoviePass was because Costco was backing it implicitly with their guarantee. MoviePass changed their rules several times since I purchased but these last set of rule changes and customer outages was the last straw. I paid for a year of seeing a movie a day. I did not get that, not even close. So I asked for a refund and they obliged. I’m not bragging just stating the facts.
That is really good, honestly, I felt bad for the annual members who had no way out. I’m glad COSTCO stands behind their customers.
I totally agree with you, you have no reason to “be ashamed”. This is not equivalent to buying a disposable Christmas tree and returning it after you’ve used it for it’s intended purpose. This was a free movie every day for a year (365 movies), and Movie Pass has backed out on their agreement in multiple ways. Costco should stand by their product they sold to the public. It is equivalent to buying a computer with a 90 day warranty that breaks in 35 days. You best believe I’d be returning that. And furthermore, don’t worry about Big Ol Costco. They’re doing alright. We as the consumer don’t need to take a hit on a faulty product to save Costco 🙂
How do I go about cancelling MoviePass? I ordered from Costco after Christmas too, am I able to get a refund from Costco too?
My husband and I both had issues last weekend trying to see MI fallout, not only was that movie blocked we could not check into ANY movie. Peak Price was $8 PER TICKET on every show. Our night time ticket price is only $11 here, so that is insane. Tried CS many times just got the same pre-scripted answer and we were seriously over it. We both canceled and signed up with A-List. Guys, its 19.99 a month BUT, Imax, 3D etc are included. No special card to swipe, get tickets and reserve seats in the app, show up, scan your phone and that is IT! Much..much easier. Also, I think three 3D/IMAX movies a week is well worth the price. Those are $14 each where I live. AMC is not going to suddenly change their terms every week. It’s worth the money for the convenience and peace of mind alone.
Movie Pass is here to stay. I feel like AMC is trying to do everything to kill Movie Pass but AMC’s movie program sucks! Sure MP is going through some growing pains and stumbles but it is the best deal out here. No competition.
What about AMC sucks? I’m trying to decide if I want to join; my husband already switched to AMC and hasn’t had any problems. Just curious as to what concerns you have or have heard about?
Just another update on Moviepass’s poor customer service. An email from the company yesterday stated: all new release movies will have a black out period (but they never defined how long it will be), not all show times will be available and it will change from day to day (so good luck trying to plan ahead).
Also, this official email does not mention the price increase at all. That by itself is shady enough. There has been no official notification to customers about the increase, so lots of people are going to have higher charges this month they were not expecting. I find that unacceptable.
Do all those new restrictions apply to the Costco deal from last Christmas? I haven’t seen a movie in a while and I’m not sure what we will find when we go to see one again…
They apply across the board, to all accounts.
Nope, your scenario doesn’t fit this. They bought a years worth of service. They aren’t getting a years worth so they are entitled to a refund. Unless that underwear had a year warranty on it, it’s not the same thing!