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Sinemia Good & Bad: New Halloween Promo, But $1.80 Cardless Service Fee Per Ticket

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Good afternoon everyone, I hope you had a great weekend.  In today’s post, I have good things and bad things to say about Sinemia.  Let’s start with the good news.  Right now, probably through October 31, Sinemia is running a Halloween Sale on their individual and family plans.  For an individual, the 3 movie Classic Plan looks like a great deal at $8.99 / month.  Some of the family plans look good, but none of them offer a discount over purchasing 2 individual plans.  But before you purchase a Sinemia plan, there is some bad news to share…

According to TWG reader Patricia, Sinemia has eliminated physical cards and is entirely cardless.  A few weeks ago, I wrote How to Use Sinemia’s (Complicated) Cardless Advance Ticket Purchase Feature.  The feature is a little cumbersome and not very app friendly, but at least there was no fee to use Cardless…

Dear Sinemia user,

We’ve got great news to share!

At Sinemia, we strive to provide the best movie-going experience possible and we always think of ways to develop what we offer. In our journey, we introduced advance ticket feature, 3D-IMAX-4DX option, flexible tiered plans, plans for couples and more to elevate your movie-going experience.

Sinemia Cardless, Effortless

In May, we introduced Sinemia Cardless which eliminated the need of a physical Sinemia card and the Cardless adoption rate of existing physical card owners exceeded our expectations.

Sinemia Cardless, effortless way of enjoying Sinemia, is designed to make getting your movie tickets online simpler and maximize your movie-going experience.

Now, only a small group of our members currently use physical Sinemia cards and more than 96% of our customers are already using Cardless. This had been a great transition period and now we’re fully implementing this new feature: As of October 30th 23:59 PDT, all physical Sinemia cards will be depreciated and all members will be using the new convenient Sinemia Cardless.

As an added bonus and to make sure you are all set for Sinemia Cardless, we’ll ensure all our existing physical card users that are affected by this transition will not have to pay any convenience fees & processing fees at least for the next 90 days beginning October 30th or until the end of their current monthly/annual plans.

By fully integrating Sinemia Cardless into all Sinemia subscriptions we will be able to give our members the power to get their movie tickets wherever they are, whenever they want, in a more secure way – in other words, the card will be in the app, accessible on their mobile devices.

Using Sinemia Cardless is almost the same as the old process, you will continue to get your tickets online under Planning tab as you have always done. The app will guide you through the steps and once complete, you’ll receive a one-time only payment information in order to make the purchase online, every time you want.

That’s all! Now it’s the best time to enjoy more movies with Sinemia.

Well that lasted only a short time.  Now, when you use the Sinemia Cardless feature to purchase tickets, there is now a $1.80 processing fee per ticket.

I purchased a movie ticket this morning and was charged the $1.80 processing fee.

a screenshot of a computer

I believe the Halloween Promo is tied to the new processing fee.  If you purchase the Classic 3 movies per month plan for $8.99, after paying the one time membership of $19.99, your cost to see 3 movies per month with Cardless is now $8.99 + $1.80 + $1.80 + $1.80 = $14.39.  If you divide that by 3 movies, your cost per movie is now $4.80.  That is still a really good price for me, so I will continue to use Sinemia, for now.

If you have any questions about the Halloween Promo or the new processing fees, please leave a comment below.  Have a great day everyone!


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12 thoughts on “Sinemia Good & Bad: New Halloween Promo, But $1.80 Cardless Service Fee Per Ticket

  1. Liz

    Grant – what’s your opinion on Sinemia vs. AMC A-List?
    MoviePass just got rid of most of the e-ticketing theaters in my area, so I’m thinking of switching to A-List after my MP billing period is done.

    Reply
    1. Grant Post author

      Hmm, if there is an AMC theater near you, I think AMC A-List is a great program. Here is the current AMC A-List Plan: See up to 3 movies every week in IMAX®, Dolby Cinema, RealD® 3D, digital and more for just $19.95/month (+tax).

      I’m not sure how sustainable it is for you to see 3 movies / week, but the $19.95 monthly plans sounds like a great deal. Your breakeven is probably 2 movies / month, so if you see more than that, the AMC A-List plan is a great deal. I think the Sinemia premium plans that include 3D / IMAX movies might be a better deal though, based on price.

      Reply
  2. Kalboz

    On a related topic … and as you warned me!

    MoviePass started as a great idea and offered excellent product of one movie per day promise for the price of $90/annual fee. For months it worked fine until the end of August when they started rationing movies and releasing movies only at theaters that are more than 15 miles away from my residence. I live on the Santa Ana side of South Coast Metro and the closest available theaters are either at Brea (15 miles) or Long Beach (17+ miles). There are at least 10 mega theaters (with at least 100 showrooms) within 5-8 mile radius from my house and none showing any available movies.

    Contacted MoviePass on Twitter feed and through the App and after playing time-wasting games with them since late August, I decided to take action. I contacted Alex (https://thepointsoflife.boardingarea.com/) who is exploring a possible arbitration in accordance with the T&C posted on their website.

    Reply
    1. Grant Post author

      Good luck with the arbitration case. Let me know how it goes. In the meantime, switch to Sinemia so you can actually SEE movies close to your residence :)

      Reply
  3. Chelsea

    If you get the $8.99 per month for the haloween special and chose to be billed montjly instead of anually do you know if it locks in your $8.99 per month price until you cancel?

    Reply
      1. Cameron

        From what I’ve heard, after a ‘promotional period’ the price actually will go up to the ‘full price’ (32.99 for 3 movies classic), and you have to sign up again for whatever the then-current promo is to avoid this. I’m still debating signing up, this is based on research and not my own experience. If you have other intel though that would be great news!

        Reply
        1. Grant Post author

          That would be extreme, but nothing would surprise me with these movie subscription companies. I have only used Sinemia for 2 months, so I haven’t gone past the “promotional period” yet. If I do get charged more, I will for sure let you know. Thank you.

          Reply
  4. Pingback: Sinemia Now Offering Weekday Only Plans that are 20% Cheaper

  5. karenskuality

    We signed up for sinemia last May, and we’re promised physical cards from day one (this was just before they transitioned to Cardless) but the cards never came and then voila…cardless, no need or cards any more! Yet we tried and tried to get cards cuz our local theater doesn’t let you type in CC info…only a physical card. I got the card today but now…if I use my account or advance tickets, or buy with my physical card from the box office, will we have pay that $1.80 recessing fee you’ve shown above? I can’t find this info anywere

    Reply
    1. Grant Post author

      I don’t have my physical Sinemia card yet (it should arrive soon), but I believe there is no fee for purchasing your tickets in person, but there is a fee for buying your ticket online.

      Reply

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