A lot of fundraising going on in the things I'm involved in, and a lot use the Entertainment books as a source of money.
My question is, to those who did buy them, are they worth it? (ie: are the discounts good/worth $60-70?)
Entertainment Books - worth it?
Gdsamp on 07/05/2014 - 19:55
Poll Options
- 46Yes
- 1No
- 2Don't know / Never had one
Comments
If you use it for coles/woolies vouchers then you only need to be spending $1400 per year in order to get your money back.
There are some other good deals beyond food that I use. Namely, 20% off at the Nike store is pretty good.
Is there a postage fee for the woolworths vouchers?
Good dining vouchers, 5% on Coles, wolworths. Great hotel deals.
Just letting you know that Coles aren't in the book this year…
The new digital books are great - the app allows you to redeem using your smart phone.
Oh, bought it just for Coles. Need to buy more Coles giftcards using last year book or shop more from Woolies
You have until midnight on the 1st of June to stock up!
there is whole forum thread for swapping vouchers with other people on ozbargain that also have the book.
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/forum/57922
personally I've bought the book for close to 10 years,
it is definitely worth it if you are the type to go out to dinners…
check the website and browse the book and see if there are any vouchers, coupons and discounts that you would use. a couple of uses at a fancy restaurant to celebrate a birthday or anniversary would usually be the value you paid for the book.
Even on less fancy places, eg in Sydney book this year was 3 x buy-one-get-one-free burgers at Grill'd ~$30+ savings right there. Also cafe's or casual restaurants, 25% off the total bill upto $20 or $30, eg Thai or whatever. Hello brunch!
I was considering not getting the book last year and just doing Groupon/Scoupon deals, but you never know what you'll get when with that. The book generally has similar places each year (can change a bit) but generally know what you can get, and there is a LOT of choice - you wont be using all of the deals! but if you go a few times, it add's up pretty quick to get your money back.
Apart from dining out, the book also has great offers for tourist attractions like the aquarium, puffing billy, sovereign hill Ballarat, etc… I have been buying it since 4 years now and you can always save the book's worth in the first couple of months without trying hard.
The section with tickets to concerts, movies, attractions etc. is great value - I just purchased an A reserve ticket to the Australian Chamber Orchestra for $95 and got another one free with the voucher from the Entertainment Book. I've already got my money back plus more with just one voucher!
I like to get them for travelling - you can buy up to four other books now across Australia and New Zealand. Great for the discounts and also for ideas of different places to go when you don't know a new city very well.
I was very skeptical before I got the book, even turned it down a few times when people recommended it to me. However after doing some actual research, I found that the book is of very good value, I do like to dine out with friends and family every now and then, and like many other have already said above, 2 or 3 trips to restaurants would put you ahead of the cost of book already, especially some of the fancier ones. Apart from also the attraction ticket discounts, I'd like to add that the best thing about the book is that you only present the vouchers to restaurants at time of billing, so the restaurant cannot discriminate you for using the voucher and providing sloppy service, not that all restaurants do that, but based on many horror stories told by group buy deal users, this seems like a big plus.
There's not a book for our area, but when we were going to Tas last year, I'd checked the book for there and found that what we saved on a single activity we were planning on doing anyway would pay for the book.
The book should be an easy sell for fundraising activities if you have a broad enough audience.
Ive bought the book for many years and its a no brainer - even the fast food / casual dining offers add up very quickly - and who doesn't get to Mcdonalds / Oporto / Subway within 12 months.
If you are organized, then the woolies / coles (yes not coles anymore) giftcard discounts easily cover the purchase cost - the Entertainment book team are very good getting them to you via registered post within about a week - so well worth it on the weekly shop.
Add in the additional discounts and its an attractive proposition for most people - the only ones not getting value are sticking it in the bottom draw!
Is it possible to see of the offers they have before buying the book? I'm intrigued but I'd like to see what I buy before doing so.
I make the $70 investment back after using 2 vouchers on dinners, anything extra is a bonus. Definitely worth it IMO.
I ha e got this a couple of times before I heard about ozbargain. If you use it twice to go to a fancy restaurant you have already probably come out ahead. Mind you if you are less fussy about where you are eating and willing to scour deal sites then you probably will save the 60 odd for the book, but if you like eating g out a lot say with your partner and you know the restaurants are in the book u r on a winner. As an example Cafe Sydney was in there one year, and there was a 50 buck saving in one hit