At the end of August, Disney announced the end of Disney Movie Insiders, a rewards program that started as a way to encourage people to buy DVD’s by giving out points that could be accumulated and redeemed for more movies or other Disney merchandise. I earned most of my points by buying Disney blu-rays at Disney Movie Club (RIP), but could also get points by buying digital copies of movies and movie tickets, plus they often gave away codes for a few free points. I got a lot more movies that way so it was a nice way to make the Movie Club even a better deal and I wound up getting 42 movies from DMI including a few 4k titles. I also used DMI to get dozens of movie posters for my two backlit frames.
Other studios had similar programs. Sony Rewards had a program where you could buy 5 Sony blu-rays and get one free, but eventually they only gave digital copies of movies with a list of possible free movies that changed every quarter. They were usually horrible movies, but every now and then there might be something worth getting. That program also ended a few months ago. Another similar program was from Universal, which gave you 500 points for buying a movie (blu-ray or digital) and for 1000 points you could get a digital movie from a list that was updated every month. It was fun to see what new movies would come out at the beginning of the month, with some surprisingly good choices sometimes, though it started out kind of rough. I wound up with over 50 digital movies from them. Of course that closed a few months ago too.
I think these are all a casualty of the decline of physical media and even the decline of movie ownership as people get their movies through streaming services or maybe rent movies to watch. It makes sense. Most people won’t watch movies over and over again, so why not rent?
Also there seems to be a general decline in rewards programs. Coke had a program for a while that has gone away. Dr. Pepper has one that has really gone downhill. I got a lot of stuff from Kelloggs for a while, but that is gone too. Microsoft has a neat program that gives you points for searching on Bing and doing other activities and then you can trade in points for a Microsoft gift card that I would use, of course, to get movies. For a while I was able to get 3 movies a month, but they have throttled that program significantly. They would release a new batch of movies to shop from every Monday night, but the quality of those choices seems to have gone down some.
Looking for deals like this along with blu-rays at stores (which have also mostly gone away) occupied a lot of my time browsing the blu-ray forums, but I have an enormous backlog of movies to watch, so I need to change my focus from acquiring to actually watching and enjoying the movies I have.