Sunday, December 16, 2007

Free Popcorn?

Beth had to work this afternoon at 2:00, but the rest of us went to see I Am Legend. Beth didn't want to see it anyway.

We went to the new Majestic theater. We've been going there ever since it opened for the Spider Man 3 opening weekend. We like to see the movies on the Ultra Screen, and we've been paying the extra $1 for the reserved VIP seats. It's nice, especially on an opening weekend, not to have to wait in line and hope to get good seats. We know where we are going to sit.

Friday Jeffrey was looking the movies up in the paper and noticed that they now have free popcorn with the VIP seating. He thought it was some kind of incentive to get people to use them. Free popcorn sounds good. So we went this afternoon and they had reserved seats available, so we bought the tickets. The total came to $34.50 - which sounded high at the time, but I didn't take the time to do the math in my head. We went and got our free popcorn - a medium popcorn for each of us. Then I got to thinking about it. There were only three of us. That was over $10 per ticket - for a matinée. We pulled the tickets out and looked at them. Printed right on the ticket was the price - $6.50. How does 3 times $6.50 come out to $34.50?

Jeffrey went to talk to someone who works at the theater to get it fixed. What did they tell him? Now, when you get the reserved VIP seats, popcorn is included. No, the popcorn isn't free. The cost of the popcorn ($5) is included in the ticket price. So, instead of paying an extra dollar to get reserved seats and then being able to buy our own popcorn if we want it - usually the large combo with a large popcorn and two large sodas with refills - now, if we want reserved seats, we are required to buy the medium popcorn. No drinks included.

They said there are signs posted. We checked on the way out. There on the price list, it does say that VIP reserved seats are $11.50 and include popcorn. It doesn't stand out. There is nothing calling attention to the change. When we bought the tickets, no one explained it. Of course, if they had, we would have bought the regular tickets. There were plenty of seats available anyway. They certainly won't be catching us paying for their stupid VIP seats and required popcorn ever again.

3 comments:

  1. That is crazy. It makes you wonder how many people didn't even realize it. Sounds like just another way to make money.

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  2. I think they're going to be hearing quite a few complaints.

    Originally we thought it was some kind of incentive to get people to pay the little bit extra to reserve seats. Now I think they saw that people were already paying for the reserved seats so why not get some more money out of the deal. Really irritating!

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  3. Yikes, now that really doesn't seem right. You shouldn't be forced to buy popcorn just to have the reserved seating... I have the feeling you guys won't be the only ones complaining!

    How was the movie? :)

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