Oh My God, Sinemia Has a New “unlimited” Movie Plan [Updated]
Cinema subscription service Sinemia just announced a new “unlimited” plan for $ 15 a month. You can only watch one movie a day, but you can watch it in any cinema at any time. Update on 3/29/19 4:25 PM : Sinemia informs Lifehacker that there are no blackouts in some movies – a common problem with competing MoviePass. That sounds good in itself – watch two films a month and you are ahead. But there is still a catch.
Last year, when its better-known competitor MoviePass failed over and over, over and over, over and over, over and over again , Sinemia kept popping up in our inboxes, trying to lure frustrated MoviePass users with promotional subscription prices and immediate payments. people 10 dollars to switch .
You know how when Uber makes the news about some terrible business practice, everyone says, “I’m switching to Lyft,” and people point out that Lyft is bad too ? Whenever Lifehacker writes about Sinemia, readers tell us their frustrations. Reader Pavel in early November:
BEWARE. Sinemia added additional fees and convenience fees. If you prepay annually, they still raise your convenience fees, and now my actual cost per movie is the same as if I just bought tickets at the box office. There is no way to waive new fees or cancel and get a refund for unused months.
A Northstar reader on the same post:
As a current and disgruntled subscriber, I would not use this service. What looked like a good deal from the outside quickly turned into an affair. A physical map should have been delivered, but this did not happen. We had to pay an additional $ 4.99 to use the “premium” service without a card, which now makes us responsible for paying for the cinema. The final straw came recently when Cinemia started charging a “processing fee” of $ 1.80 per ticket on top of other fees. I’m afraid there will only be more changes in TOS and fees from now on. If you are comfortable with not knowing what awaits you, this service may still be for you. Otherwise. Stay away!
Sinemia recently tried to address these issues with a physical debit card , but as we posted, the card has its own fees and you will still be charged a fee to buy your ticket before the day of verification. And the readers intervened. Die Fledermaus von Gotham :
I bought this service just when I decided not to use cards the first time. I live in the middle of nowhere, and there is no room for cardless in our village theater of boobies. I complained to Sinemia and got the answer, “It sucks to be you.” Now the card is returned and is it worth it? It looks a lot like a scam.
The biggest challenge is getting in touch with someone at Sinemia. This is hell in itself. The best and only way I got the answer was through Facebook Messenger. Even so, they respond at best every 24 to 48 hours. The longest answer took almost a week. Their support team is almost non-existent, so there really isn’t anyone to complain about.
A reader I hate coming up with usernames says:
I definitely regret my yearly plan with them. At the very least, if you are upgrading with a monthly billing, you can cancel it at any time. Sinemia refuses to return the money, even if the problems are already close.
Look, MoviePass is a mess, but I personally managed to use it without too much trouble and paid my money back. But I ended up in a big city with many theaters to choose from, and I tend to watch mid-range movies, often after the weekend, in 2D. And when I finally canceled my account (I just don’t watch that many movies!), I was not one of the many quietly “canceled” and withdrawn again. MoviePass worked well for me despite their best efforts.
So if you have the right cinema habits, you can probably win with Sinemia. But maybe something goes wrong, Sinemia will charge you or refuse to work in the theater, and you will end up in customer service hell. This is the risk you take if you use cinema subscription services. Perhaps consider subscribing to a specific network or local “trendy” theater instead. Or watch some more Netflix before all their movies are gone.
I think maybe we should just pay for the stuff.