MoviePass - will it die a premature death or is it here to stay

I'm still on the annual plan until December, but don't think I got a special email of comfort and reassurance

movie availability is unrelated to the plan grandfathering - they're just really really aggressively restricting film options for everyone right now. the hope is that after 9/15 when all monthlies will have finished rolling over to the 3-a-month scheme, reducing their cash crisis (or maybe gradually on the way til then), they will open back up showtime availability. but we don't really know. right now it is obviously next to useless. the slenderman people cut a promotional deal with them and maybe the meg people did too.

idg the theoretical September 15 deadline tho, which is why I mentioned December, when I signed up

It seems super arbitrary even then - for instance, ok, if you're going to allow THE MISEDUCATION OF CAMERON POST, why only at Theater A and not at Theater B? Same with THE MEG.

You may have seen our previous emails about a few changes we're implementing over the next few weeks. We continue to add more new releases into the app and wider showtime availability for all users. On Monday we also announced our new $9.95 plan. To clarify, YOU ARE NOT CAPPED TO 3 MOVIES PER MONTH, you will be able to choose if you wish to continue once your plan ends on 2/6/19.

As a reminder, here are the details of your current MoviePass subscription:

You are able to see a new movie each day of the month!
You are not subject to our Peak Pricing surcharges
You may be asked to upload a copy of your ticket stub after your tickets print at the theater
If you'd like to continue your MoviePass subscription after your year is up, you'll be able to do so with our new plan. Our new plan will include up to three standard movies a month for $9.95, and you will also be eligible for $2.00 to $5.00 off any additional movie tickets purchased within the billing cycle. Discounts on additional tickets will be calculated by various factors including geography and the movie title. The remaining balance for the ticket will be charged to the credit card linked to your MoviePass account. Again, until your renewal date, you'll enjoy the benefits you've grown to love.

9/15 has to do with the monthly people having their opt-in (switch to the 3-a-month plan or quit) starting 8/15. so on 8/14, almost all of their monthly subscribers are on unlimited movies (a few suckers at some point got saddled with like a 3-a-month for $7.95 plan or something) and by 9/16, 100% of their monthly subscribers are on 3-a-month. at that point, each day they're collecting $9.95 a month from roughly 1/30th of their monthly subscribers and spending, it's hoped, way less than they are now since people will have to be choosier with their ticket picks. and, in theory, that means they will un-hide more showtimes and reduce the changing showtimes through the day to make it look less absurdly different from the real showtimes on offer from theaters.

the annual subscribers, like you and me, will continue to be a millstone until 1 year out from whenever they stopped offering new annual plans, but there will be fewer of them with each passing day.

right now, their whole game - as far as anyone can infer - is to get from one day to the next on whatever amount they get in that day from monthly charges. when they get close to that amount they kill the showtimes. until that time in the day, they're disappearing and reappearing showtimes to make it hard and confusing and probably so they have cash on hand to cover the e-ticket purchases. or something like that.

I doubt it's as fiddly as putting "new signups" on one side of a scale from "today's fees"*, they're just trying to stop people buying tickets as much as possible

*esp bcz new sign ups must be thin on the ground these weeks

rn at 02:45 p much everything is showing in the app: let's see how that's holding by 10am.

new signups don't enter into it i don't think

09:30 - no cinema in town is showing any film at all, except for one that has eight screenings of Slender Man

yeah so.... who's in for slender man????

pretty amazing how the service has evolved into three tiers: e-ticket theaters, slender man theaters, and rare oddball theaters that have only 2/3 of their offerings purged (and whose remains probably won't be there by the time you arrive). the first of these at least give me a shot at seeing Cameron Post and BlacKkKlansman this week so that's cool.

I don't know if this is true, but from what i understand, even annual sign ups are trickled out to MP on a monthly basis - so even though you paid a year in advance, the credit card company holds onto the whole amount and gives up 1/12 of it, so MP is getting revenue every day from these (as well as the normal monthly memberships).

i believe that is correct!

is there some industry-wide credit card standard for that? seems off to me

https://www.yahoo.com/news/moviepass-reportedly-enrolls-past-subscribers-231051832.html

$126 million loss in the June quarter. Shareholder is filing a class action against them for, I guess, being bad at business. HMNY trading at $0.05 today.

https://deadline.com/2018/08/moviepass-hmny-shareholder-lawsuit-quarterly-loss-1202445563/

Has shareholders suing the company for being bad at business actually ever worked?

signed up for sinemia a few weeks ago but never got a physical card and the app is a nightmare. I'm just gonna cancel - not worth the fuss. Apparently I have to really hassle them to get my refund, too.

correction: they have informed me that sinemia plans are non-refundable even though they make you pay for a year upfront lol

BS, run a chargeback through your card.

Yeah, I'm looking into how to do that.

merchant disputes (I didn't get what I paid for!!! the quality is not what was promised!!) through CC chargeback probably easier than a dispute where you indicate you gave no authorization for the charge at all and the company does.

good luck!

sorry to hear that abt sinemia! that sucks.

moviepass is currently a near-absolute joke. and yet I just successfully used it to see madeline's madeline, somehow - apparently one of three or maybe four non-e-ticket offerings you can see today, anywhere. who knows what it'll be tomorrow? but still worth hanging onto my annual membership and seeing what happens. i have a shred of hope that they get their finances just slightly stable enough that i can rely on it to see repertory again. alas, the bygone days of just a few weeks back!

haven't yet walked into an amc and used my a-list, but i've advance reserved a couple of things and that was really really painless. if you're in a situation where AMCs show a reasonable portion of what you wanna see / what's even available in your area, it's a "pays for itself in 2-3 movies a month" kind of deal. in NYC it pays for itself in one IMAX screening. most of what i want to see doesn't play at AMCs, but a fair number of things do.

the newest new idea: a calendar listing specific movies available each day (obv no guarantees that specific showtimes of these will be available, or will remain available as the day wears on)

I was so shocked that Crazy Rich Asians was working today that I went ahead and saw it, so I guess their evil plan worked

it failed, as the goal of all this nonsense is to suppress use and reduce expenses. better luck next time!

if I'f known that BlacKkKlansman was going to be one of today's two available movies citywide, I wouldn't have paid for Christopher Robin and gone to BlacKkKlansman yesterday ;_;

The collapse broadens: Annual members are all being converted to the 3-a-month limit, less than three weeks after being promised that quarterly and annual plans would not be affected until their next billing date. Just to be extra dickish about it, they also counted anything you've already watched this month towards the 3-a-month total, so in my case I can't watch anything until 9/6 (because supposedly I started my annual plan on 8/6, which is, surprise, false - they weren't even offering them!). Man they're determined to go down pissing everybody off despite having enabled us all to see dozens of movies for a song, it's kind of amazing.

Literally what cash are they covering the remaining debits with at this point?

I've discovered an amazing hack to ensure they promptly cancel your subscription -- brazenly watch completely different movies than what is on the app.

They offered me a prorated cancellation for my annual then i went to do it and it said i wasn't eligible. Lol.

The funny thing is that ever since things started going to hell I've been assuming each movie might be my last. I kinda don't wanna go down with THE MEG as my last selection tho. Tried to snag a Suspiria ticket this AM (during that brief, early window before they ratchet down to only the day's crap selection of movies), but the theater's outdoor ticket kiosk was down :( If they weren't counting this month's prior viewings against my account, I'd have hope of seeing something kinda good before I finish, but as is it's probably smart to take the prorated refund and run since god knows they'll probably be out of business this time next week.....

xpost bahaha, well there you go then

oh btw as far as the thread question: it will die a premature death and is not here to stay

The collapse broadens: Annual members are all being converted to the 3-a-month limit, less than three weeks after being promised that quarterly and annual plans would not be affected until their next billing date.

ha, I bothered to email support about this yesterday, assuming that it was a glitch and that I could get my remaining five months of unlimited back, even though there's only three movies a month worth watching

then I signed up for Sinemia and they asked for an extra ten bucks to activate my account any sooner than two weeks

the other moviepassy shakedown

also, Neanderthal: posts on the reddit suggest that the "not eligible" refund response is a glitch and they're supposedly rolling out a fix. but if they don't you could consider reporting it with your CC for a chargeback (which the proferred refund is obviously intended to avoid, but if they're making it impossible to get the refund...).

on one hand i'm tempted to take the pro-rated refund. real bitter about them changing the annual sub to this extent

otoh i'm almost at the point where i want to punish this company for screwing with us every single week and just make them bleed money until my sub runs out

sic don't fall for the $10 "acceleration" fee, they'll just give up the ghost in two weeks and you can start then. they're shady too but probably a teensy bit more stable then MP at this point

the question for me is, with my 3-movie limit zeroed out retroactively until 9/6, will I even get the chance to fuck with them by buying 3 tickets in september? i assume by then you will have the choice of a single movie per day and only be able to buy it from 8 to 8:15 AM. they have looked closely at how best to serve their users and are excited to announce this new direction which they hope will enhance your moviepass experience!

still - $9.99 for 3 movies is a fine deal, they just need all the showtimes to work again

yeah exactly

they have to be so, so, so broke to hope that it will help them to go through with the pure customer-alienating stinginess of making the movie use retroactive. with one week left in the month even! obviously they lose money with every single movie you see so nothing surprising there exactly but man. like they couldn't have done the math three weeks ago when they sent the "don't worry, annual plan folks, you'll be fine!" I really hope someone gets access to their financials and can write a great, chernobyl-esque account of the deepening disaster. "by august 20 it was clear that this latest measure had backfired..." etc. i'm basically picturing their leadership as coked-up armie hammer in Sorry To Bother You, totally in denial of all possible criticism of the business model. maybe a little of rainn wilson in The Meg and rafe spall in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. thanks for the movies, #MoviePass!

sic don't fall for the $10 "acceleration" fee

ha ha no fear

there's just a bunch of stuff at the Cinerama I wanted to see this week and tickets are $18

(No Country For Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Stop Making Sense)

Sic I’ll be at the first two of those on Saturday! I paid full price though.

I will have to because it is in less than two weeks

what seat do you have for No Country? I'll try and get nearby, gonna skip full-price Blood prooobably (once I realised it's not 70mm)

Front row balcony on audience right side

lol doxxed

I wanted to try it while I was in town but no sense in signing up now. I get kind of mad reading about people being so trashy with their membership but whatever.

Trashy not here, but like, on that buzzfeed article.