Movie pricing in Singapore is very complex because:
- The operators’ pricing itself varies widely: GV, Shaw and Cathay
- It is made complicated with their peak, off-peak, before/after 4pm/6pm, public holiday, eve, first week title, sneaks…
- Tons of promotions (e.g. credit cards) throw in more ‘creative’ fine prints
My Story
I was trying to book 4 tickets for The Book Thief (regular 2D movie) for a Saturday.
Usually, I use my SAFRA card which has a pretty good promotion with GV. Turned out, the promotion ended in Sep 2013.. Now, SAFRA has a promotion with Shaw.
Shaw + SAFRA = $9
Another promotion I often used was GV’s Buy 4 for the price of 3 (using Visa). It’s a slightly better deal.
GV + Visa = $8.63
I went on to purchase, but after I entered my credit card and was on the final step of paying, it said the Visa promotion has exceeded the allocation quota for the day..
Frustrated, I looked at all the promotions that each of the 3 theatres offered, and my conclusion is:
They are all just too confusing!
Many terms and conditions. Many restrictions. Many uncertain quota they have.
And so I created a Google Spreadsheet that compared their ticket pricing.
Shaw + Safra 1 for 1 = $5.50
Wow. BUT, they don’t support online ticketing..
In the end, after being tired of reading all the fine prints, I used Shaw + SAFRA, which gives $9 per ticket.
Bonus Story
Last week, my fiancee tried to redeem her GV birthday free ticket. Guess what? There is such a thing known as No Free Passes, which means that you cannot redeem free ticket for new movies (that are screened for only 1 or 3 weeks).