A view of signage at the MoviePass House Park City during Sundance 2018 on January 21, 2018 in Park City, Utah.Photo: Getty
MoviePass, makers of an increasingly complicated and likely unsustainable movie ticket subscription service, experienced a significant outage Friday that left users out in the cold (or if you were in California and trying to find a place with air conditioning, in the heat). Now, MoviePass subscribers snubbed by the technical difficulties can get a refund.
The problems started early Friday evening when reports started flooding in that MoviePass subscribers were unable to check into films that they reserved tickets for. As a result, a number of people who headed to the theater decided to pay out of pocket to get a ticket. MoviePass is offering reimbursements to affected subscribers, according to The Verge.
“Users are welcome to purchase tickets out of pocket and we will issue a refund,” MoviePass said on Twitter Friday evening. The company confirmed the program Saturday and rolled out some “important stability changes” meant to deal with the issue. It also recommended its users make sure the MoviePass app is up to date before leaving to go to the theater.
For users looking to take advantage of the reimbursement program, here’s what MoviePass will require, per the company’s Twitter account: send a message to the company through the MoviePass app and send a “full receipt” from the purchase, including the movie title, show time, and theater. MoviePass will process the information and provide a refund.
Figuring out how to actually send MoviePass a message is kind of a pain if you don’t know where to look. Open the app, go to the Account tab, scroll down to the Help header and select the Help menu. Select a category—in this case, “Check-in & Redemption Issues” is most relevant—and then select a question. (“I encountered an app error and had to purchase my ticket out of pocket. Can it be reimbursed?” should do the trick.) In the upper right, there is a button that says “Contact Us.” Tap it to open a chat.
While MoviePass seemingly has the issue under control, the outage couldn’t have come at a worse time for the company. It just rolled out its new surge pricing, which tacks on an additional fee of between $2 and $6 for popular movies and showtimes. On top of that, it was opening night for the latest Marvel flick, Ant-Man and the Wasp. MoviePass or no, the film did well, reportedly forecasted to do $82.4 million this weekend, per Deadline.
[The Verge]