Movie fan wants action against online added extras
What’s with all the cinemas asking for online booking fees?
This is preposterous for a few reasons. First, it’s telling customers that the default state of nature as a customer is for everything to be a pain. You’re charging to make something more convenient, when that convenience comes at no extra cost to you. In fact, that leads to the second thing: It almost certainly costs the cinema more to handle your ticket if you buy at the counter.
Online bookings are supposed to encourage prebooking and prepayment - they should, in fact, be discounted! The increase in bookings would more than compensate for the loss of the booking fee. Indeed, excessive surcharges on all forms of payment should be banned. The rules will allow businesses to make small charges to cover their actual costs for using a particular form of payment. I’d bet if everyone were to stop buying their tickets online and instead inundated the ticket counters it would be a net loss for the cinema.
So, incensed movie goers, let's see if my hypothesis holds true. Don’t buy your tickets online. Stand in the long queue, make sure you don’t have correct change, take forever to pick your movie and buy your ticket. Let’s bury them in chaos and see how they like that.
Movier goer,
Dubai
Comments
by Anonymou55
Monday, April 16 2012, 1:42PM
“The extra fee is them covering their costs. The will lose up to 3.5% to the Payment Processor per transaction, this is their transaction fee. This is actually a breach of contract between them, the Payment Processor and Visa + MasterCard. They hide this cost in a 'fee', which a lot of companies do. If you can prove that this is the absolute case, then you certainly do have something here.
I'll give you an example, DEWA will charge you an extra percentage if you decide to use Credit Card to make your deposit payment. They actually told me it was to cover their transaction fee. This is DEWA, a government entity.”
by Gavtek
Monday, April 16 2012, 8:54AM
“I'd be willing to pay double just to be able to book online. The queues at the ticket desks are horrendous, I seem to be the only person in the UAE who can advise the clerk which movie I want to see, which time, choose my seat and pay in less than 30 seconds.
It never fails to amaze me how many people can queue for 15 minutes then have no idea which movie they want to see and stand holding up the queue while reading the brochure and asking the clerk what the movies are about. Usually, these will be the same people who turn up 15 minutes into the movie, spend most of their time playing with their Blackberries, usually involving at least one phone call, then leaving 15 minutes before the end of the movie.
I really, really don't understand what they get out of the experience, or why they need to ruin it for everyone else.”