Entertainment books

[mrxow]

There is a link on this site for Entertainment Book, but I just wanted to point out some things that people who haven't used them might not know:

The prices drop as the year progresses. The start date is around the first of November. If you buy one then, you pay full price, but if you wait a little the price drops. Some start at $40 or so, but right now, all the ones they still have in stock are $9.99 plus 5 bucks shipping. And if you get one through this site's link, you can contrubute a few bucks to the site.

I don't know how to put the link in my post, but maybe somebody else will. It can be accessed through the Travel links at the top right of this page.

One thing we use every year is the HOTWIRE coupon. There are usually a few, but we generally need a room somewhere that Hotwire can provide. The coupon has been for a $10 rebate on a hotel room. If you use hotwire now and then, this can almost pay for the book by itself. Considering the number of people who use HOTWIRE here, getting a book when they are 15 bucks seems to me a no brainer.

There are also a lot of attraction discounts if you go to a tourist location. For instance, there is an attraction near Ft. Lauderdale called Butterfly World that is very popular. The coupons I have seen around are for 2 or 3 bucks, but there is a buy one get one free coupon in the Ft. Lauderdale book. It costs 20 bucks to get in there, so if you use it, that pays for the book and everything else is money in your pocket.

You can go on the Entertainment Book site and see what discounts are available from the book in the area you are visiting.

Another good coupon I know of is for a buy one get one at the Winchester Mystery house in San Jose.

I think we got a buy one get one submarine ride in Honolulu. That was a while ago, so not sure if that is still available, but that seemed to be a much better discount than we could find elsewhere at the time.

For the past few years, at least, the cards in all the books have been the same. So if you buy a book somewhere you will only be for a week, you can use the card when you get home for local restaurants. If you end up with several cards from places you go, you can usually go to restaurants you like in your area several times per year. You have to be a little careful about which numbers have been punched on each card, but usually there aren't too many conflicts.

Also, you can register a card from any book online for any zone. There are a lot of coupons also available online or only available online. If you have a card that hasn't been registered, you can get these printable discounts for zones that you haven't even bought a book for.

Many of the coupons in the books are for national chains, too, so the book you buy for somewhere you are going to be in for only a week will likely have things in it you can use at home. One coupon we pull out of most of our books is the hot Dog on a Stick/Muscle Beach Lemonade buy one get one. If you ever go to TGIF, you can save 5 bucks when you go most of the time.

There are probably a lot of other offers that are worth pursuing that I am not thinking of. I think there is an American Airlines coupon that seems like it could be useful.

There are movie coupons that would save many people the cost of the book many times over. It think you can get a ticket for $6.00 and for a little more you can go to any movie, even on opening night. It used to be that you had to mail in to get these tickets, but now at many theaters you can just take the coupon to the box office.

Of course, there are always the restaurants. Some are really good and some are just OK, but when as you figure this out, having a card or a few cards can really start paying off.

If you decide to try one, make sure to use the Entertainment Book link!