Orange Wednesdays is a scheme that’s been set up by the mobile phone company Orange to benefit their customers. In order to take part you need to be the owner of a phone with an Orange sim card in it. It doesn’t matter if it’s a contract you’re on, or a pay as you go sim card as long as it’s Orange and you’ve got a bit of credit on it (at least 35p). The scheme has been going since 2003.
The way the scheme works is that Orange have arranged with a large number of cinema’s around the country so that on Wednesdays, anyone who has an orange phone can get two tickets to see a film for the price of one, plus the cost of a text.
Orange want more people to use their mobile phone sims, so they often give them away for free online making this an even easier way to save money. If you can’t get a free sim however, you can buy one for £1 from their online store. These sims come with £1 free credit on them, so even if you have to pay £1 for the sim card, you’re not actually losing anything.
Once you have your orange sim in your phone, you text Film to 241 and they will send you a reply text message which you then show at the box office of a participating cinema when you’re buying your tickets, and this way you’ll get your deal of two for the price of one. The text costs 35p, so is much cheaper than the cost of the second ticket that you’d otherwise be paying for.
If you go with a free or £1 sim card, and are only going to be using it to make use of this deal rather than for regular calling, one thing you must remember to do is to make a call from that sim card at least once every six months to keep the card activated. Fortunately a free call to check your balance (dial 453) counts as a call, so you don’t need to spend any of your precious credit to keep the sim activated.
The Orange Wednesday scheme is great for all involved in it. Orange get more people to use their mobile phone network, the cinemas get more people going to the cinema on what would otherwise be one of their quietest days, and the customers get two tickets for the price of one.
