Blockbuster Movie Pass $25/month (1 Viewer)

[Patrick Sun]

Anyone heard about the Blockbuster Movie Pass program? It's $25/month, and you get to rent 2 DVDs at any time in the month, and there's no set time limit to bring them back (I wonder if there's some limit, though), and to get another 2 rentals, bring back the previous 2 rentals. There's no distinction between catalog titles and new releases either.

Don't know if this is a good alternative to Netflix, plus with gas prices as they are, I wonder how much you're really saving over the course of a month, if you, say, rented 4 titles/week. I guess it's tough to rent out 16 DVDs from Netflix with the turnaround time of the mail.

Plus, Netflix probably has a better selection, though the timing of getting the titles is a drawback, vs. the immediacy of finding a titles at a rental store.

 

[MarkDude]

Yes, they created that program with video games a couple years ago IIRC (and they still have it for $20/month -- kind of ironic that the games freedom pass is less expensive than the movies freedom pass when game rentals are about 3x more expensive than movie rentals).

You don't have any limit at all, so long as you return the movies by the end of the 30-day limit (i.e. You could just rent out two movies for 30 days). You could also rent 10 movies a day for 30 days if you wanted (of course you could only have two at a time).

You're allowed to just bring back one of your movies and get out another one (you don't have to exchange both every time you want to get a new movie).

It's kind of old news -- they introduced it back in March 2004 with their new (and completely worthless) Pay-Per-Day program. I'm not that familiar with Netflix, but if you're a movie fanatic and you have a Blockbuster close to you, I'd say the freedom pass is a good deal.

--Mark--

 

[Sanjay Joseph]

It's sounds like a great deal, but I'm getting to the point that I've seen most of the movies out. It's becoming real difficult to pick out a movie for the night.

 

[Matt Wallace]

Mark,
Don't forget, though, that the Game Freedom Pass only lets you have one game out at a time for that $20, compared to the Movie Pass at 24.99 for 2. Comparable, I think.

Matt

 

[Qui-Gon John]

Well even 2 per week, with tax on the Pass would only come to 3.31 per rental. Still cheaper than their regular price.

One thing I noticed in the details it says all movies must be returned by the end of the Pass Membership Term. No specifics on whether this lets movies roll over from one month to the next, if you keep doing the pass, or do you have to turn in any movies rented in June by the close of business on June 30th, for example.

Also, Pass is only good at one store, whichever one you buy it at.

 

[MarkDude]

Matt,

Oh really? I guess they changed it for video games then. I know when I got one (way back when they first introduced it) it was two games at a time for a month, and still only $20. I just assumed it was the same. What a rip-off!

And John, I don't think it's really possible to "renew" your pass. Sure you can just get a new one after 30 days, but I'm almost positive you'd have to return any videos you have from the pass by the time your 30 days is up since you'd have to get a new pass, even if you just want to rent out the same movie again.

--Mark--

 

[JohnRice]

The movie pass is automatically renewed unless you cancel. You can keep movie across one month to the next. You can cancel anytime and it continues until your next renewal date. You have to return all movies by the cancellation date.

They did a trial run in my area about 2 years ago. It was cheaper though, $18/month if you paid by credit card. I did it then for a few months and I'm doing it again now. It has its benefits, since there is no limit. I can't tell you how many movies I've rented throught it, but the final cost will be less than $0.50 each. Of course, now I've pretty much picked clean all their selection, so I'm going to cancel and run NetFlix and maybe NicheFlix for a while.