Subscription services are all the rage these days, and even movie theaters are getting in on the game. Last year, AMC released A-List, their counter offer to the popular MoviePass service they so detested. With MoviePass seemingly going down in flames, Jay and I jumped ship to A-List and we’ve been pretty happy with the switch.
At $19.95 a month, which comes out to $21.25 after taxes, A-List is double the price of what we were paying previously. A-List allows you to see up to three movies per week, instead of one per day. However, you can see them in any format you want: 3D, IMAX, Fork and Screen, or even in the amazing new Dolby Cinema. Best of all, you can book your tickets as soon as they go on sale and reserve your seats well in advance. I both love and hate that AMC Disney Springs now has reserved seating. I like not having to be there super early for good seats, but at the same time, I miss the hype of the waiting in a theater full of excited people.
If you see two movies a month, or one in the Fork and Screen theaters, A-List essentially pays for itself. You also get all the perks of being an AMC Stubs Premier member, including free size upgrades on your drinks and popcorn purchases. You also rack up points on your ticket purchases, just like you would if you were paying out of pocket, earning 100 points for every dollar you spend. At 5,000 points, you can cash it out for a $5 reward. (You should get a reward about every four movie tickets, depending on time of the day and format you’re seeing it in.) A-List does exclude special tickets, like Fathom Events and premier nights that come with collectibles.
I never thought I’d put the ability to see two movies in the same day to use, but we actually did over the holidays, in order to see both Aquaman and Mary Poppins Returns on opening weekend.
I do have one major complaint about A-List that I’m desperately hoping they’ll fix. There’s no way to link two A-List accounts together, so in order to reserve seats for both of us, I have to pull up the website in two different browsers on two different accounts, to make sure I get seats that are next to each other. This normally isn’t a problem, except when a new Marvel movie has just gone on sale and I’m fighting hundreds of other people trying to get decent seats. If I could do it all at once, life would be much simpler.
The only other downside with A-List is that you can only hold three reservations at a time. That means if you have tickets to a movie that comes out next month, it’s going to eat one of your spots until the release date. You can still see three movies a week, but you would have to reserve two of them, wait to see one, and then reserve the third. I get that AMC doesn’t want people reserving multiple future showings and taking all their seats, but I feel like the reservation limit should be higher than the weekly limit.
Despite those complaints, I plan on keeping AMC A-List around for the time being. We’re guaranteed the $19.95 price for the first twelve months, so we’ll see what they raise it to after that.
