It’s been well documented now that Six Flags is in financial shambles, that the chain has been delisted from the New York Stock Exchange, and that the parks are finding every way possible to grab an extra buck from guests. However Six Flags’ latest money making scheme is just incredible! When printing out a Six Flags ticket from home, a “Print n’ Go” as it’s called, you now need to pay a $5 surcharge to do so.
So…why exactly are they doing this? Like, other than the obvious “because they want to bilk you out of money, dumbass” answer. I remember stumbling across this new feature back in January or so when ordering a discounted season pass for Great Adventure; they had an option to print out a virtual ticket for $5 bucks or send the actual plastic card all ready to go via UPS for $10. I recoiled at the $5 dollars to print it out; I mean first you have to not lose the thing for four months, and then you have to wait in that cattle line to get it processed. Some pondering and a few swears later, I begrudgingly hit the “send via UPS” option while muttering something about not having a “send for 42 cents via US Postal Service” option.
Fast forward to April and they’re raking in their dirty money by doing nothing more than letting some poor park goer use up his or her ink and paper to make an e-ticket! Are they doing it as collateral for making their web servers work an extra fraction of a second to make up a unique e-ticket? Are they doing it because they want to make some money back from the discounted e-ticket (in the article it says that a ticket purchased at the gate at SF Magic Mountain is $59.99 while an e-ticket is $39.99.) Or maybe it’s because…well, “because they want to bilk you out of money, dumbass!”
So what’s your take on this? Don’t mind the charge too much or are you planning to bill Six Flags when buying a new ink cartridge?
2 Comments
There’s a special online discount for a Six Flags park that we’re planning on going to. It’s $31 bucks for each adult ticket (compared to $50 at the door) but when i was about ready to purchase them, i saw the Print ‘n Go option for $5.
Really? $5 for me to print them from my own house?
$36 is still better than $50 at the park but it’s still completely idiotic making me pay to print using my printer, my ink, my paper.
You know I was actually tipped off by some people over at another coaster site that a lot of parks have a similar charge for their print tickets; however SF is charging the most. I guess the parks treat it as a convenience fee of sorts, I mean I can’t really see any other reason for the surcharge.