Summer blockbusters always attract a lot of movie lovers. 
These days a lot of movies are in 3D for which the ticket price alone is $15-$20 per person. Add in popcorn and a drink and you are looking at atleast a $100 night out for a family of 4. A lot of discount movie ticket options have some kind of restriction, like allowing you to watch the movie only 2 weeks after its release or asking you to go for the morning/matinee show. I have the time and the desire to go to the movie theater on Friday nights mostly, and that too during the week a new movie is released. So am I doomed to buying tickets for the ridiculously high full price? No, actually it turns out I need not spend a fortune on the tickets. With a little work, anyone can catch the latest blockbuster for a fraction of the price, without any restrictions!
Check with your employer: My husband’s company has this little vending machine for all the movie theatres near by. Some companies offer discounts as part of the employee perks. Find out if you company is part of the Working Advantage or some other similar employee discount partner. You might not even realize or might even be able to persuade your employer to join one of these. I have used Working Advantage, they have wonderful discounts for various theme parks and other attractions. If you employer doesn’t offer these, set up a corporate account yourself, get bulk tickets and share the cost with your co-workers.
Check with your school or university, even alumni association: If you are a student, in all probability your student activity center (or similar student associations) will have discounted tickets for all your local attractions including movie tickets. Example (UCLA, CSUN, NYU) Even if you are not a student anymore, its worth poking around your alma matter to check if they have any alumni discounts, like this – New York University Alumni Benefits. Even community colleges provide these sort of discounts.
Use social networking: Recently @DisneyPictures tweeted about 2-for-1 tickets and offered the code via Fandango for its recent Sorceror’s Apprentice movie. Follow your favorite movie production company or @earlybird to get all sorts of discount tweets. The discounts are not excusively for Twitter, Facebook has similar offers as well.
Use your credit card perks: If you have a Visa Signature card, they frequently have a 2-for-1 promotion. Even if there are no promotions, you can get 20% off. But if they are not running the 2-for-1 promotion and if you have a MasterCard, they give up to 35% off movie tickets.
Use your elite status: I mean student, military or senior status 
They all provide some sort of discount at the box office. Most of the time though, you can’t buy tickets online.
Check your clubs/associations/affiliations : A famous club a lot of us are part of is AAA. They offer movie tickets(Regal) up to 40% off. Other associations or membership sites also offer similar deals. For example : Angie’s List Discounted movie tickets. Even your labor union might offer something similar, check with them. If nothing works out, just get a Borders rewards card, it is free and there are lots of perks along with getting up to 35% off movie tickets. If you have your insurance with GEICO, you can get discounted movie tickets via GEICO privileges.
Buy it in bulk: If you are not a member of any warehouse clubs, you can still buy them in bulk at places like BulkTix for much cheaper than the box office. Even the movie theatres themselves sell bulk tickets, like these VIP premier tickets from Regal, good for any Regal, UA and Edwards theatres. But the corporate tickets from the movie theatres are really “bulk”. It might make sense to buy them by pooling money between friends or a Home owners association or neighbors.
Use coupons/entertainment book: Discount coupon books like the entertainment book offer discounted movie tickets. Or use RetailMeNot or similar coupon sites to find coupons to use when you are booking tickets.
Use the warehouse: Costco, Samsclub, Bj’s all of them has discounted movie tickets. You will have to buy them in packs though.
Check your banks/Credit unions: Finally a few banks, mostly credit unions offer discounted tickets to their members. My credit union didn’t advertise this (like this one) but when I asked them they said they indeed have that perk and gave me the order. It might be worth checking when you are there next time.
Saving money in the concession stands: Join the movie rewards club – AMC MovieWatchers club or Regal Crown Club for free concessions. If you are going to order that soda, go for the large size with 2 straws and ask them to hold the ice or ask for very little ice, otherwise it is 90% ice and little bit of soda. The soda will be cold enough with very little ice and you can share it with your husband/wife, instead of buying 2 sodas.
For the above mentioned clubs/associations/organizations, we are already their members for various other reasons. So why not use the full value of the membership and save where ever it is possible? If you look what discounts you are eligible for and keep that in mind when you want to go for a movie, you will never pay full price for a movie ticket again!
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
And you tell us after we have just spent all that money on Inception…
I would like to add AARP to this list. In addition to movie tickets, they also offer discounts to their members on restaurants, auto insurance , travel and much more.
Hi Suba,
There are a lot of excellent options on this list. My wife and I had to tone down the movie theater visits because of how expensive it got. I’ll definitely need to give some of these ideas a try. Thanks!
Thank you,
Timothy
Thanks, Timothy. Glad you liked it.
Yes the price of the movie tickets have become very expensive. Esp. with every other movie releasing in 3D these days…
Thanks, Timothy. Glad you liked it… Movie tickets have become very expensive esp. with every other movie releasing in 3D with an added ticket price!
Great tips!
I’d add to watch for free movie deal promotions. Toy Story 3 offered free tickets when you purchased the Blu Ray version of Toy Story 1 or 2. With coupons and store deals, I was able to score both of them for $2, plus two tickets for the movie. There was another promotion through Kellogg’s for a free ticket with the purchase of six boxes of cereal. Again, I combined coupons and sales to score those for next to nothing, fed my family breakfast and got into the movie for free. Our whole family saw the movie for next to nothing.
Another idea is to become a mystery shopper for your local movie theater. I’ve been doing mystery shops for Cinemark, AMC, and the smaller theater where they play foreign/independent movies for the past few months. I’ve seen half a dozen movies, enjoying popcorn and soda, for free, and even been paid for my time in filling out a brief questionnaire at the end.
I probably go to a movie theatre once a year. Maybe less. I don’t understand the point of paying to go to a theatre when you can stream movies at home. Now that RealD 3D is out, I suppose that’s the reason to go to a theatre — it’s the one experience you can’t replicate at home (yet).
I saw 3D TV in costco recently. They are amazing. Costly though. Once they become household commodity, there really is no need for theater I guess.
{ 5 trackbacks }