Do you have plans to see any Disney movies in the theaters this summer? I know we're super excited to see Toy Story 3 and we already got our (free!) tickets to see it on opening day! If you don't have free tickets to Toy Story, fret not, there's a promo that'll still get you some goodies.
Disney Movie Rewards has partnered up with Fandango. If you buy your Toy Story 3 tickets through Fandango, you can get up to 200 DMR points plus a Toy Story 3 digital book. Details here. After you've seen the movie, be sure to save your ticket stubs because you can submit them (electronically) to DMR and get up to another 200 points! The ticket stub rewards is good for most Disney movies including Alice in Wonderland, and Prince of Persia so if Toy Story 3 is not your style, if you see any other Disney movie this summer, save your stubs and check the DMR website to see if it qualifies for points. You can redeem DMR points for Disney merchandise. For details on ticket stub submitting/redemption, click here.
About a month ago, I read about free movie opportunities on Couponing to Disney. There are a ton of free movie promos going on this year. Not sure why, economy, maybe? But hey, I'll take it! Anyway, companies like Hershey's, and Kelloggs are running promos for free movies. The cool thing is, that these movie tickets are even good for special engagements. Some are good until 2011! Couponing to Disney has a running list of free movie promos here.
I've personally either tried or tried for a few of the promos listed on CoD's site. Some worked beautifully, some had finer details to be aware of, others I had no luck with. Here's what worked for me:
Tampax/Always - For each box of specially marked boxes of Tampax or Always you buy, you get a card with a code on it. You type the code into the website and it generates a voucher...eMovie Cash for you to print and take to a participating theater. These are the best deals out of the ones I tried for, because not only are they non perishable, but you basically get one ticket per box you buy rather than having to buy several boxes to collect enough codes to redeem for one ticket, but they're also the ones with a bit of a catch. The eMovie Cash vouchers do not last very long...just 1 month from the day you enter the code. So I'd hang on to it and wait till you're ready to see the movie before entering the code. Be advised though that the codes expire October 31, 2010 so use it before then! The math - a box of Tampax or Always with the code inside in my area is just under $7, so even if the products itself weren't being used, it's still at least a $3 savings assuming the movie ticket is $10.
Pop-Tarts -These also generate eMovie Cash, but you must buy 5 different flavors of specially marked Pop-Tarts to get enough codes to redeem for one movie ticket. (There are other things you can redeem for too.) Even if the flavor is part of the flavor card, if it's not specially marked, it won't contain the code. I learned that one the hard way. The best part of this promo is that you can enter the codes to redeem the ticket, and the ticket is good through October 31, 2011! The math - a box of Pop-Tarts at my local Walmart is about $1.70. $1.70 x 5 = $8.50. It's a small savings assuming the movie ticket is $10 but these vouchers also lasts the longest out of the ones I looked into so it's worth it, especially since you can use them for the fun movies that tends to get released around the holidays.
General Mills cereals - this is the one I had absolutely no luck with. I went to several different stores in my area and none of them had the specially marked boxes of General Mills cereals for movie ticket promos.
eMovie Cash - I've had very little trouble cashing those in. Really, it wasn't trouble at all. Most theater employees just haven't had a lot of practice ringing up the order with eMovie Cash (probably because it's new) so they just either need a manager or someone else who knows what to do to help them ring it up. I would either get your tickets in advance or plan on going to the theater a little earlier. My personal tip is, regardless of which promo you go for, contact the issuer of the ticket voucher to check for expiration. I'm not sure who Hershey's, Energizer, or other companies running similar promos are using to issue the vouchers, but with eMovie Cash, the expiration date varies depending on the company running the promo (as evident in the expiration date difference between the Tampax/Always and Pop-Tarts promos.) Email the companies involved and ask them what the fine print is such as the expiration, and use accordingly.
This really is a great way to take a family to see some of the summer blockbusters this year. Movie tickets easily costs $10 a pop...even more in some theaters, or if you want to see it in 3-D, IMAX, whatever. For a family of 4 that's a whopping $40 for about 2 hours of entertainment at least and that's not including popcorn, candies, drinks, etc. If you included that, a trip to the movies can easily cost $100! So far I've taken my family to see Shrek 4 on opening, and we've already got our advance tickets to see Toy Story 3 on opening night, this Friday, June 18. Needless to say, we're super excited! My kids have been talking non stop about the movie, and me? I'm super thrilled that we don't have to pay a penny for them to enjoy one of their favorites. :)
Now speaking of movies coming out during the holidays, have you see the trailer to Tangled? It looks pretty funny. IMDB says it's coming out November 24, 2010. I can't wait. :)
If you have a Toy Story fan in your life then this may be for you. :) On Saturday, June 12, Borders is having a special event to promote Toy Story 3. They haven't released any more info than what's in this image. Hopefully more info will come as the date nears. Click here to find a Borders location near you.
And if you haven't seen a Toy Story 3 trailer or few yet, then you need to check it out. :)
About a month ago I read about a Toy Story 3 lunch box promo from Couponing to Disney. We went out and bought tons of bread...10 loaves/packs of bread, to be exact. We love bread, don't get me wrong, but I thought it would take us forever to eat it up. We took the bread out of their packaging, stuffed them into some freezer Ziploc bags, threw them in the freezer to keep and I sent the UPCs off for two lunch boxes for my kids. Now, about a month later, the lunch boxes have finally arrived! They weren't kidding when they said 4-8 weeks for delivery. :)
So here it is. Here's the lunch boxes we received:
I'm quite impressed, actually. The lunchboxes are huge! They're big enough to fit a 32 oz Nalgene bottle with tons of room for other stuff. The funny part is, the lunchbox is supposed to light up. See that red dot over Buzz Lightyear's left side of his chest? That's a protruding button of sorts, but it's a light. All of us thought that you're supposed to press the red dot to get it to light up. There's even a little sticker that points to it (which we removed.) We pressed and pressed and pressed and couldn't get the darn thing to light up. It took a 2 yr old to press right above the red dot to get it to light up and that's how we figured it out. *sigh*
Well, at least we got our lunchboxes now. The kids love them! It was a good deal...bread for free lunchboxes and I didn't even have to pay shipping. They had tumblers and plates as part of the offer too but I wasn't interested in those. To those of you who may be concerned about the safety of the products in the promo, the lunchbox is made by a company called Zak. Here's the link to their website regarding product safety. I'm assuming that the tumblers and plates are made by them too, but since we didn't order those, I cannot say for sure.
Oh and as for the bread...all but one pack of hamburger buns are gone. Yup, we ate 9 loaves of bread in a month. Good grief!
