Boycott Fandango!

I decided to take my two older nieces to watch Diary of a Wimpy Kid this past weekend because they always asked for the book series every Christmas and the movie just came out last Friday. There was breakfast at my parents house and since Siju was helping my parents and brother do mulch work in my parent’s yard I decided to take the kids out and bring them back for lunch and by then the boys would be done and it will be time to go home. I had a free ticket (up to a $12 value) from Fandango so I thought I could use that. The tickets were $5/each and I was purchasing 3 tickets so at the end I was expecting to pay just $10….makes sense and very simple! I go to Fandango’s site and make my purchase only to find out at the CONFIRMATION page that I was paying $1.25 convenience fee for each ticket????? What the hell is a convenience fee???? It’s not like I’m getting my vehicle registered or something….I’m buying freakin movie tickets! I just paid the equivalent of 3 child price regular tickets or almost the same price as it would have cost me to go to the movie theater and just buy 3 tickets for $15.

Ohhh wait there’s more….after I paid $13.75 for 3 tickets (and that’s with the $5 free ticket) they tell me that I have to get my tickets from the counter at the movie theater and show them my credit card. Call me stupid but what the hell was so convenient that I had to pay $1.25/ticket??? I accomplished nothing….I still have to stand in line and I still had to pull out my wallet from my purse. The guess the only thing that was convenient was that I didn’t have to speak to the cashier lady...you know because, “3 tickets for Diary of a Wimpy Kid” would have sucked every ounce of energy out of me (in my most sarcastic voice)!!!

I was outraged by this entire experience I didn’t know what to do so I did what I do best….I wrote them a complaint letter, haha! I told them that it was completely ridiculous that they were charging me $1.25/ticket to use the site. Second, I reminded them that we were in 2011, a technology era where everything is ONLINE and I could not believe that an ONLINE movie site was charging a convenience fee!!! The service they provide is selling tickets ONLINE! I was nice enough to give them a little word of advice and that if they really wanted to make money off their pathetic site then they should receive kickbacks from the movie theater for selling their tickets NOT from the customers that use it. That’s typically how a lot of these sites work but apparently Fandango didn’t get the memo!

To all readers, please use www.moviefone.com to look up movies, showtimes and to purchase movie tickets (or go to the theater’s site directly). Unless you want to get robbed, do not use Fandango……plus, who can remember the spelling of the darn word anyways…Fadango, Fandago, etc!

Overall, my day went pretty well….the kids enjoyed the movie and most of all I enjoyed their company! We went home to the rest of the family and dad bought us all lunch from one of our favorite Thai restaurants.