This summer has some major blockbusters coming out including: The Dark Knight Rises, Prometheus,The Expendables 2, The Amazing Spider-Man and Men in Black III.
Before making your picks as to what you are planning to watch, you should consider how to spend your movie budget.
In anticipation, I wanted to share 10 ways Canadians can save money at the movies:
1. Buy Cineplex Night Out Movie Package at Costco.ca
If you have a partner or girlfriend, this is a great value. The Cineplex Night Out Movie Package retails for $24.99 but includes 2 General Admissions, 1 Regular Popcorn and 2 Regular Soft Drinks.
The tickets usually go for $11.99 each so you are getting the soda and popcorn at a huge discount compared to the regular cost.
There are a number of reasons we like to purchase these packages:
- Cineplex Entertainment owns leases or has a joint-venture interest in 129 theatres with 1,342 screens located from British Columbia to Quebec. This means the tickets are easy to redeem.
- Ticket may be applied towards the purchase of admissions to IMAX®, IMAX® 3D, UltraAVX™ or RealD 3D film presentations or VIP admissions with payment of an applicable surcharge per admission.
- The redemption is really simple. An electronic voucher will be e-mailed to you normally within the hour. Please make sure that you double-check your e-mail address when you place your order. You must keep your printed voucher and your receipt as your proofs of purchase until you exchange them.
2. Look in your Entertainment book for movie coupons.
My family is a big fan of the Entertainment book. It is a must purchase every year and when we travel (Hawaii, Vancouver, Mainland United States) it saves us hundreds of dollars.
In this year’s Entertainment book, there was a coupon for $27.50 for an evening at Cineplex (includes 2 admissions, 2 regular soft drinks and a regular popcorn). They also have two coupons for 2 admissions for $16 (savings of 33% on the regular price of $23.98 for 2 people). Their is also two coupons for a child’s admission package for $11.99 (admission, drink and popcorn).
3. Use Discount Gift Cards
Have you heard of CardSwap.ca?
CardSwap offers Canadians a fast, easy and secure way to buy gift cards at discount prices.
They have Cineplex and AMC gift cards available. If you do not see any available, try looking on your local craigslist or UsedEverywhere website where often sellers sell their gift cards for up to 25% off. You can verify the gift card balance simply by calling a toll-free number on the back of the card or checking online.
4. Try an alternate theatre.
Many cities have theatres that show movies a few weeks after its release date. If you can wait to see the latest Avengers movie, you can save sometimes between $3 to $6.
In Victoria, we have a theatre called the Roxy, that charges just $4 on Tuesdays to see 2 movies. Currently, they have
21 Jump Street and American Reunion (released just last month).
5. Join a loyalty program.
One of Canada’s top loyalty programs (in terms of members) is Scene.ca.
My wife and I each own this card and it lets us watch free movies. Simply, redeem 1,000 of your SCENE points for 1 adult movie ticket.
Here is how you can earn points:
- 250 bonus points just for joining Scene.ca
- 5 bonus points for every $1 spent on DVDs, Blu-Rays and digital movie downloads at the Cineplex Store.
- 100 points when you purchase your movie ticket at Cineplex Entertainment theatres, or at cineplex.com
- 20 bonus points when you purchase tickets at cineplex.com, m.cineplex.com or in the Cineplex App
- 75 – 150 points on concession combos.
- 50 points when you purchase a child movie ticket at Cineplex Entertainment theatres.
As a bonus to being a member you always get 10% off movie snacks.
6. Attend free screenings.
Did you know that most major releases in Canada have a free screening for the media and often they have seats available for the public so the word of mouth can spread about the movie.
The cities that usually have free screenings includes: Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, or Montreal (and sometimes Halifax and Victoria).
Most city newspapers also have contests giving away two free passes to movie screenings. You can enter online, and it usually involves just giving your full name and e-mail address.
A great place to find screenings is the facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/CanadaScreenings where they share free advanced screenings in Canada from Warner, Paramount, Sony, Columbia, Universal, Fox, Disney, Miramax. We also post these in our Twitter account and our Facebook page.
7. Early bird gets the deal!
I have never watched a matinee (I love the outdoors) but some local theatres have nice specials for movie viewers during the day.
One local theatre charges $7.75 admission for regular price but for matinees they charge $4.75 (savings of 38%)!
8. Go back to school.
I am lucky to live in Victoria, BC (home to one of the top universities in Canada and one of Canada’s most literate cities) we have a theatre connected to the university. The movie theatre is ran as the non-profit University of Victoria Students’ Society, conceived as an Inexpensive alternative for students, the university community and the public at large.
The 300-seat theatre is equipped with both 35mm film and digital projection with Dolby stereo sound.
It plays more foreign movies that you won’t find at your more mainstream theatre like Children of Paradise (Les enfants du paradis). The prices for non-members is reasonable and you get the movie theatre experience at a nice savings.
9. Double-dip your movie purchases.
Many people still enjoy purchasing a movie to enjoy at home. With the recent release of the blockbuster, Avengers, we found a free offer where if you buy a Marvel movie you can enter a code to receive a free ticket.
It seems a win-win (movie and a bonus movie to watch at home).
10. Check the back of your cereal for a free movie!
General Mills had a great promotion this year giving away great free movie offers for participating Cineplex theatres.
They had numerous buy one get one free discount movie coupons inside specially marked boxes of cereals.
- February: Free General Admission or Free Child Admission
- March: Buy One Get One Free General Admission or Buy One Get One Free Child Admission
- April: Buy One Get One Free General Admission or Buy One Get One Free Child Admission
- May: Buy One Get One Free General Admission or Buy One Get One Free Child Admission
How do you save money going to the movies? Any money saving tip you have?
Author: 
21 Comments
I would love to receive movie coupons
By gosh I have an article written but not published that is almost identical to this one. What are the odds?
Yours has a few things mine doesn’t and mine has some that yours doesn’t so stay tuned :)
I would love to see some more ways to save money – let me know and I will add a link to your post at the bottom after!
Post is up if you want to link to it: how to get cheap movie tickets
Combine (or triple-dip) on offers. As a Scene member, you get an even better special price on Tuesdays ($5.99 “Scene Tuesday admission” at our local Cineplex), and then by going on line with the promo BOGO offer from the cereal box, we got 2 admissions for only $5.99!
Hayley,
This is a great deal – we will email you the coupon code we have for the Buy 1 get 1 free admission.
Enjoy!
Thanks! :)
I purchased IMAX annual passes for my entire family this year. It was $45.00 per pass and I have seen at least a dozen movies that wouold have cost me $15.00 each. I have to pay a little extra when the big holywood movies are playing but I’d rather pay the extra $4.00 and see it on a bigger screen anyways
Until May 31 2012, the online Cineplex Store has a deal where if you spend $25 or more on DVDs, Blu-Rays, or Digital downloads, they will give you a FREE movie ticket. Plus it’s free shipping!
Especially when you get typically get a free refill on a drink and a popcorn, it is best to share with the person you’re with! You save SO much money doing it that way! Not to mention, if you buy the Costco package IN the warehouse it’s only 22.99, even better than ordering online! =)
Amanda,
This is a great suggestion – we live 35 km from our Costco so we only go once a month but this is a great price!
On certain days certain theaters have deal days where you can see the movies cheaper – keep your eyes peeled
There are many company online that give away free tickets to movie premiers. I joined Alliance Film on Facebook, and have managed to grab free tickets from their Facebook posts a number of times.
Penny, this is a great tip (look directly to the film distributor).
We have gone to over 4 screenings this year already.
Often when they sell-out and their are not enough seats they will even provide free tickets for other movies.
The best way to save money on the movies is to look for deals such as gift cards and special promotions(pizza places, cereal boxes, radio/newspaper contest or websites offering half off etc). You could also ask for them for special occasions such as birthdays as well. Sites such as groupon offer great deals and I have purchased several 2 for 1 movie passes and given them as gifts. I also believe that if you truly are a movie lover asking for a gift is a great way to take advantage of the new flick you’ve been waiting to see. As mentioned above there are plenty of ways to take advantage of special deals, but they key is to be aware and jump on these opportunities because saving money is always a good thing. :) Thanks!
Heather,
I do see the occasional Groupon or daily deal. It seems Pizza Pizza in Ontario has promotions for movies also.
Unless you have an enormous appetite and need every ounce of that drink and popcorn, opt to split both in half with a friend… share the popcorn and grab an extra cup to toss half the drink in. They cost a fortune, so why not share and save? Plus, you’re not violating the theatre rules by bringing in outside food :)
Enjoy!
M.
Marnie,
This is a good idea to split a soda or popcorn (I personally don’t drink soda or eat movie popcorn).
I also don’t agree with bringing in outside food (even though it is cheaper)!
Splitting food like that can be such a money saver but most of the time people can’t be bothered to do it, including myself. It doesn’t help that my wife’s tastes differ a lot from my own so she usually isn’t a very willing partner to do a split with me.
Bring your own snacks. Be bad and sneak something in, you’ll save a lot of money at the concession this way. But if you must have that delicious movie popcorn, buy a combo. The individual items will run you a lot more then the combo will. If you’re loyalty programs discounts concession, dont forget to pull your card out at the counter because it all adds up!
Amy, I agree with your advice on the combo specials (much better deal than the individual purchases).