A complete rip-off. Avoid like the plague.
I can't argue strongly enough against these things. My son got me one for my birthday, which was sweet as heck of him - and the next chance I got, we made plans to go see a movie together. When I arrived at the theater and tried to actually *use* the card, however, I found that you can't do so - the card has to be activated somehow (yet when you go to the fandango site and try to do anything along those lines, all it does is give you a list of movies). In other words, the only way, apparently, you can actually *use* the card is to order your tickets online ahead of the showing.<br /><br />So, if you aren't positive of which movie you're going to see before you head out, you're out of luck. Given that I don't always know precisely how long it's going to take for us to get all the way across town to the theater, this is an asinine hoop to jump through. Either we can block out an extra hour to see our movie - and sit through forty five minutes of obnoxious, inescapable TV commercials that we *pay* to endure - or I can't use the heartfelt gift my kid gave me. Poor guy spent his own money because he wanted to see a movie with his dad to celebrate my birthday, and, quite frankly, I feel like he got ripped off.<br /><br />If you want to give a movie-going gift, I'd suggest pretty much anything other than this. See if the theater has gift certificates. Give a pre-paid visa card. Anything. It's absurd that a gift card - which was paid for with cash - is about as convenient to use as an expired discount coupon you cut out of the back of a cereal box.<br /><br />UPDATE: I finally used the cards by ordering some tickets online - and had to pay a CONVENIENCE FEE ON TOP OF EVERYTHING ELSE. Yes, for the non-convenience of not even being able to USE these unless I order ahead of time, four bucks of my son's cash was just sucked into the great aether. I'll never voluntarily give Fandango a dime of my money ever again. My kid is awesome. Fandango isn't.
Rating: 1 stars