Was about to grab a membership as mine had lapsed and checked to see if the gift card promo was still going but it's expired.
Noticed they now have the Single City Membership with a free upgrade to Multi City which is normally $119.95.
With the lockdowns it might not be appealing for most people but they should hopefully ease up soon.
bought it last promo and regretted it
I'm surprised. I used it a heap last year. What I like about it is its something you can use in a lot of cases when you pay the bill at the end. I always worry about using a discount at a restaurant at the start of the meal.
I always worry about using a discount at a restaurant at the start of the meal.
Why ?
They may give you a '25% off' meal in order to redeem their costs.
@The General: I've been at places where they have said to me I need to tell them I'm using a voucher before I started the meal. Which makes me concerned. If I told you I had a voucher at the start rather than then end what difference would it have made?
You are a full paying customer up until you pay the bill. Just prefer it that way.
You are a full paying customer up until you pay the bill.
Why would it make a difference? Unless they don't want you to return…
@jv: Yeah I feel like I don't need to try an explain this one anymore.
Enjoy your boogers and cum jv ;-)
@dickiee: Please don't put all hospitality businesses in the same bag. I have worked in Hospitality for a long time and have never cheated customers.
And JV is right, the idea is to get new clients to like your venue.
So by cheating them, not only will you lose money by accepting entertainment but on top of that it serves no long term purpose as they would not return.
In saying that, it's not like it used to be and I don't see any value accepting these anymore.
@Platinumtelecom: I don't see how it's cheating them? The businesses have a choice to be in the book or not.
So if they don't accept the voucher then why bother advertising there anyway?
Yes lockdown is hurting a lot of businesses but at the same time you see 30% off delivery companies like uber eate etc.
Sometimes it has worked out cheaper to have food delivered home instead of going to the restaurant itself.
@dickiee: Sorry, your answer has nothing to do with my reply… I am confused.
All I am saying is that if a business decided to be in the book and treat voucher holders differently to regular customers by giving them less value, then it is cheating the customer.
The point of entertainment discount is to offer a discount on full priced items.
@Platinumtelecom: Yes. And as you said. Don’t put them all in one bag,
I’ve used vouchers before and have been served smaller sizes by showing thé thé ou her first.
How do I know. As I had a friend arrive later and buy the same meal and get a much bigger portion. This has happened on more than one occasion.
Thé thing I liked (noticed the past tense used here) with this entertainment guide was you were even told in the membership not to show the voucher till after the meal.
Unfortunately not all places you use it gives you the meal prior to paying your bill. So this can still occur…again. In some places not all.
The reason for the past tense used earlier is that I’m finding the quality if the app (don’t use the paperback version of the guide) is diminished. Look at the reviews to see the same.
Also.. I’ve had now five restaurants treat me less than favourable when using this guide.
I have given feedback on these each time and all I get is an apology that it happened. No compensation. Particularly when I ordered a meal once and then they told me no.. it was on special so I couldn’t use the voucher. And yes, I know that I’m not allowed to use the voucher for special, but this wasn’t a special. It was on their printed menu as a normal item. Yes the waiter rudely pointed to the a frame board telling me « see..it’s on the specials board”.. same meal.. same price.l but he told me it was a special..
So.. overall.
I love the guide as it’s donating percentage of proceeds to charity.
I love the deals in the guide. Plenty of them.
I don’t love the occasional dim witted staff member who (such as a subways one telling me that I couldn’t use any of the 4 vouchers I had in the book as their boss says they’re not part of it..WTF¿) refuse to honour the deal.
Even had a restaurant chain tell me that, only one store of the chain, they opened out of the deal.
So.. you can see that it’s a love hate relationship with this guide that I have.
On saying that.. as I’m from QLD which has a large area that I can utilise this in, and also have faith that some border restrictions will be reduced before this deal expires, I’ll more than likely take up this deal again…ONLY now that this deal is available,
I wouldn’t pay full price for them again due to my past experiences.
Rant over.
@FredAstair: This is because when the new owners took over a few years ago, they had a different vision to the original owners.
First, they actually wanted to get rid of the charity network and donation. The existing owner warn them that this was the very reason the book was successful and getting rid of it would fail.
They then cut down on account managers. We used to have reps touch base with us all the time, and now it almost completely stopped, they only touch base at renewal…. So there is no longer any feedback provided both ways.
Also as you mentioned, previously they would add the entire chain of restaurants, now they do it individually. I got caught at a chain cafe also.
I think this year they should at least extend memberships by 3 months to cover lockdowns.
@Platinumtelecom: Very interesting info.
Thank you ants that explains the issues.
I might just have to add this to my app comment.
Especially the thought of removing the charity.
What a dumb idea.
Maybe you are in Perth lol…. Most of us have been in lockdown or still in lockdown so don’t get much value out of it.
A lot of the vouchers can be used for takeaway orders too. Just check in the terms. I've saved over $1165 since I started using it 5 years ago. When I went down south to Margaret River once we saved around $300 in 5 days.
I always make sure that if it was a good experience I write a good review on google for them without mentioning the voucher.
@dickiee: Yeah but in my case (in Sydney) a lot of businesses aren’t expecting it/refusing. I used to get good value with the book been using it for over 15 years or however long they have been around but not anymore with the app (but I’m sure it’s also because we haven’t been able to go out of our 5km radius since I activated my first digital membership. But glad you have been getting good value out of it!
Agreed. The app is terrible. I activated mine just before covid hit in Sydney (crap timing), used it once. Probably won’t ever get it again. I haven’t tried but assuming a lot of business prob won’t even accept vouchers during lockdown…
I only just broke even on entertainment book so stopped using it.
There were a lot of places during covid that were refusing to take it. Happy to accept the footfall, and hadn't removed their vouchers from the digital app though.
My experience too. And even if you report the venues on the Entertainment app for not accepting the voucher, they never take any action or remove them from the app.
In my experience, Entertainment did take action if I reported a restaurant that didn’t accept their voucher. They would give me one of my previously redeemed vouchers back and that restaurant would disappear from the app. All the ALH ones disappeared late last year when I reported one.
I reckon it's coincidence - ALH are massive so they wouldn't be removed from the app (nationally?) on the report from an end user. They are too big an entertainment book customer.
but they should hopefully ease up soon.
Aren't you from Perth ?
Yeah I am. I meant for other states eg: travelling to use them in the other cities.
Oh? Like traveling to Perth?
I travel for work. Albeit a lot less since covid and I don't exactly pay for my meals when I'm working away.
But sometimes I tie in annual leave in if I have to go to Melbourne etc for work and spend another week there or bring the family over. So has been useful in the past.
I used to do the exact same thing when I was working.
multi city? but I need to get out 10km of my address first before approaching other cities…
This is one business I'm kind of surprised are still going. Did everyone else have these as a school fundraising scheme as well?
I renewed my membership last year, only managed to use the vouchers at fast food chains. Many many restaurants listed in the book were either out of business, changed names or refused to accept the vouchers, even before lockdown started.
There's no chance I would renew the membership this year or recommend anyone to buy one.
Yeah I have heaps that’s closed down now that they haven’t updated.
When I tried using the voucher, about 3 restaurants in different areas in NSW and ACT told me that they tried to get Entertainment to remove their restaurants from the app for two years without success. They were frustrated and could not get anyone from Entertainment to help.
Another reason for me to boycott Entertainment.
I had a previous multi city membership and got quite reasonable value out of it. If you dined out regularly you could do very well. As for the comment about showing it before the meal I never did, just when asking for the bill . No drama.
But when it came up for renewal there seemed to be a large drop in the number of places listed, so I didn't renew it. Maybe when we can get out, the number of businesses listed will grow, but I doubt this will be fast.
The app is tedious and very diffucult if you want to find a place outside your current location.
Best value was using this in conjunction with Amex card splits of $20 during shop small.
Keep in mind you can have a few people use same log in. I've barely used it in Melbourne thanks to lockdown but I share login with my family in Brisbane, so they've been using it.
Came super handy when we went to New Zealand in May. We used a few buy one main meal, get one free vouchers. Each dining discount was from $30-$40 :)
Used to be decent discounts from a wide variety of outlets but that was a loooooong time ago, NBG now .. 😮 .. !! A light of other years! One further point. I had one restaurant tell me that had 'special portion arrangements' for GFG customers and he didn't mean bigger or better!!
I like entertainment book but the app hasn't worked properly in months. Stay away unless you just wanna buy it for nothing. Tried everything to get it to work and supper is trash
Can anyone with an active membership tell me if there’s an Iconic voucher still?
They seemed to block EBOOk30 as it got leaked so wondered if they’ve started using a unique code for the 30% off
If you are travelling to another state (hopefully once lock down is over), it's worthwhile getting it. You can break even just by using 2-3 vouchers in the state you are visiting and the remaining vouchers are a bonus.
Exactly
One of the easier places to get gift cards.
I agree with comments above that you shouldn't have to disclose the voucher until payment afterwards.
The RACT says you have to do that for their discount deals, but that's BS. If you have to buy a service or product and tell them about the discount beforehand, they'll just price it into the quote (i.e. 10% discount = 10% higher quote). That's different to a restaurant where the prices are in B&W, but the principal is the same.
“Are you sure you want to activate now?
If you have a current Membership you can wait until it expires. You have 90 days to activate your new Membership. By activating your new Membership now, it will begin right away and run alongside your current Membership.”
peace.
No longer any free upgrade to multi-city
Don't see the point, have hardly had a chance to use it over the last 18 months.
Also their app is really crap. Barely usable.