Last night I decided to try to use one of my free movie codes to see what the new process is like.
I didn’t want to plan ahead or read up on what all would be involved. I simply cut out the code from one of my cereal boxes and headed out to the theatre.
Before getting to the theatre, I knew I would somehow have to redeem the code online, but that was it.
After getting there, I first tried the Cineplex Mobile app on my Android powered Sony Xperia Play. The Cineplex app already allows you to purchase tickets, so it seemed like the easiest solution.
In the app, I found the theatre and movie I wanted to watch. Entered the time and then entered the coupon code in the “promotion code” field located at the bottom of the page where you choose how many tickets you want.
Unfortunately, I received a message that although the code was valid, it had to be entered on the full non-mobile Cineplex web page. By this point, the movie had just started.
Luckily the browser on my phone is pretty good, so I figured it could handle it. I entered http://www.cineplex.com in the browser and of course my phone was redirected to the mobile web page. I hit the link at the bottom for the non-mobile page and that’s when the pain started.
See, despite my HSPDA+ cellular connection, the non-mobile webpage seemed to take a very long time to load each page.
Here was the process:
Page 1: (homepage) hit “Buy Tickets”
Page 2: under “Start with Nearby Theatres” hit “Buy Your Tickets Now!”
Page 3: entered city name, waited for list to update and selected the theatre I wanted — Actually the first time I hit “Skip the box office line!” which I thought would allow me to purchase tickets online, but instead it was an info page on the benefits of buying tickets online….. REALLY???
Page 4: scrolled down to the movie that I wanted and selected the nearest show time. Since the movie had now started, I wasn’t able to choose it anymore and had to find something else that hadn’t started yet. 🙁
Page 5: I was in a hurry and didn’t want to sign in, so I selected “Proceed with Checkout”
Page 6: Enter Scene Card information – technically I could have skipped this step, since I wasn’t going to get any points for a free movie.
Page 7: Select how many tickets you want and enter the promotional code – The first time, I chose “1 General” and then entered the code. The code comes up as it’s own ticket, so on the next page it showed that I wanted 1 General ticket for $11.99 and 1 free ticket. I tried to change the quantity but the process became corrupted and I had to go back to page 4.
Page 8: Since the ticket is free, it jumped right to the Order Confirmation page and had me enter my e-mail address.
Page 9: Purchase Confirmation. On this page I could choose to print the ticket. It basically links to the PDF, which when clicked, opened up on my phone and they were able to scan the ticket right from my screen (note: the bar code is on the second page of the PDF). I was also sent a copy of the PDF to my e-mail which was also received on my phone.
*****
Honestly, if I could have simply used the mobile app I would have been finished within the first minute or two. Instead it took an additional 10 minutes. Of course, now that I know the procedure, I could probably have it down to a few minutes, but having to load 9 full bandwidth web pages on a mobile phone is a little extreme. At least the movie was free. 😀
ComputerAbuser
