All new DVD rental deals will be included in the weekly email
Is online rental suitable for me?
The most important thing to remember is online DVD rental generally involves signing up to a monthly direct debit, so the money drips from your account, whether you watch or not. Thus, if you’re a regular DVD watcher, online DVD rental is likely to be MoneySaving. Yet if you simply grab a DVD on impulse from a rental shop a few times a year, don’t bother.Here’s a few more rental tips
- Online rental’s a boon for those with small children
For families, it’s worth considering that wee ones often like watching films looped again and again and again for weeks. As online rental DVDs can be held for much longer, it saves you buying a film they'll quickly outgrow and never watch again.
- Why renting beats buying
Buy a new release DVD and it will easily set you back £10 - £20. This isn’t cheap, especially if you only watch it once. Suppose you want “Pirates of the Caribbean 3”; while this would cost £2-ish to rent, the cheapest price to buy is £15. So you’d have to watch it 7.5 times before it’d be worth buying.
Now think how many films in your collection you’ve only watched once or twice. Would rental have been cheaper? Unless the cost of buying the DVD is very cheap, the best strategy is rent the film, then decide whether you’ll watch it again, if you will and it’ll be a constant rewatch; go out and buy it. Otherwise just rent it out again the next time you want to watch it.
- Checkout your local library first
Before forking out for online rental, have a gander at your local library’s DVD selection. Libraries typically charge just £3 a week for new DVDs or £1 a week for older ones – still a darn sight cheaper than video shops.
There are two package types; with both you can keep films as long as you like, without late fees.
- Unlimited. Here, you watch as many DVDs as you want but you can only hold a certain number at a time e.g. Unlimited 2 means once you have two discs, one must be returned before getting another.
- Limited. You're only allowed to be sent a certain number of films per month eg Limited 3 means a maximum of three DVDs sent per calendar month. Usually you can only hold one DVD at a time.
When picking your rental list, bear in mind that big new releases get oversubscribed, so DVD companies will send out lower priority films first. Don’t fill your rental queue with hundreds of films you don’t want to watch.
Are you a DVD Tart or do you want the Good Life?
There are two strategies for online DVD rental, which to pick depends on your answer to the following question…- Do you simply want an easy life and a cheap deal? If so go to Best Buy DVD rental providers.
- …or are you a hardcore MoneySaver who’s super-organised and willing to put some serious work in to play the system? If so then you can sign up to free trials, cancel and then start again as a DVD Tart.
And the Oscar for cheapest DVD provider goes to…. Amazon* for its across-the-board cheapest prices and glowing feedback from MoneySavers. It left the other nominees, Tesco* and Cinema Paradiso*, quaking in its wake.
The cheapest DVD providers |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Package | Amazon | Tesco | Cinema Paradiso | Blockbuster |
| Limited 2 (*) | £3.99 |
£4.47 |
4.89 |
- |
| Limited 3 (*) | £5.49 |
£5.97 |
£5.99 |
- |
| Limited 4 (*) | £6.99 |
£7.47 |
£7.99 |
- |
| Unlimited 1 | £8.49 |
£8.97 |
£9.49 |
£9.99 |
| Unlimited 2 | £11.49 |
£11.97 |
£12.49 |
£12.99 |
| Unlimited 3 | £14.49 |
£14.97 |
£14.99 |
£14.99 |
| (*) Even though ‘limited' sounds restrictive, for most people it’s cheaper and should easily suffice. | ||||
All new top DVD deals go in the free weekly MoneySaving E-mail
Please rate your online DVD provider
The cheapest DVD provider isn’t the best value if it takes an age for films to arrive. Once you’ve started the rental, please feedback on the different providers, and how prompt the service is. Just cast your vote in the releveant poll below to have your say.
Feedback on your provider: 1DVD.co.uk, Amazon, Cinema Paradiso, Five Movie Club, Lovefilm (includes CD-WOW!, Mymoviestream, Odeon Direct, Sofa Cinema, WHSmith Movies Direct, Tesco DVD Rental), PostaDVD. How to tart and get it for freeSo desperate are DVD firms to snag your custom that nearly all offer free trials, adding up to a possible four months of free movies. So, in time-honoured MoneySaving tradition, sign up grab the free trial, use it, then cancel and move to the next.
How to be a smart tartTarting isn’t for the forgetful, undisciplined or inattentive. If that’s you, just go for one of the cheapest providers. Bad tarts could end up with multiple direct debits dripping out for unused rental or, more likely, start using a service which isn’t best for them.
When tarting, always read terms and conditions carefully, as they can be harder to fathom than the Matrix sequels' plotline.
- Step 1. Sign up for a trial.
- Step 2. Diarise when you need to cancel to ensure you’re not billed.
- Step 3. Cancel a few days before the end date.
- Step 4. Return all the DVDs before cancellation unless stated. This is important, as many firms say DVDs must be returned before cancellation is confirmed. However, return them too soon and they may just send you more, keeping your membership active.
- Step 5. Remember, it’s usually one trial per household.
The following table lists companies that currently have a trial period.
|
Tarting trial offers |
|||
Trial Length |
Service Level |
How to cancel |
|
14 days |
Any plan |
Online form and 15 days to return DVDs |
|
14 days |
4 free DVDs/ unlimited 2 or 3 |
Online form and 7 days to return DVDs |
|
14 days |
Unlimited 2 or 3 |
Online form and return DVDs before end of free trial |
|
14 days |
Any plan |
Online form and return DVDs before end of free trial |
|
14 days |
Any plan |
Online form and 7 days to return DVD’s |
|
CD wow (1) |
30 days |
Unlimited 1, 2 or 3 |
Online form and return DVDs before end of free trial |
14 days |
Any plan |
Email and return DVDs before end of free trial |
|
(1) You can only take one trial with the Lovefilm group, which owns CD-WOW!, Sofa Cinema, WHSmith Movies Direct, Tesco DVD Rental, Five Movie Club and Odeon Direct. The CD Wow trial is the longest trial the group offers. |
|||
The number of DVD trials you can take is limited, because most of the rental providers are owned by one big company, Lovefilm. Lovefilm will only let you trial one of its seven brands: Lovefilm, CD-WOW!, Sofa Cinema, WHSmith Movies Direct, Tesco DVD Rental, Five Movie Club and Odeon Direct.
Earn £50 from free trials
It’s even possible to make cash from watching free movies. Cashback websites such as Quidco or Topcashback* pay up to £18 per free DVD trial that you sign up to; apply to all the free trials on offer and you’d trouser £50 profit. Read the Top Cashback Websites article for a full how to, and try out the Cashback-Sites Maximiser to see how much you could make.Alternatively, many companies offer free stuff for signing up. Common freebies include £15 off at Amazon and 1000 Tesco Clubcard points (worth £40 in deals from the deals brochure). These offers change frequently, to make sure you don't miss out sign up to the weekly Money Tips e-mail.
Alternatives to online rental Instead of renting online, there are a few other strategies…
- Snap ‘em up in store
Many big retailers such as Virgin, HMV and the big supermarkets have major films on offer at £2 or £3 these days, so if you spot your favourites and classics, it can be the best value way of picking up a movie. You may even be able to flog them on eBay them once you’re done, offsetting your costs.
- Sign up for a digital TV movie channel
Both Sky TV and Virgin offer a number of movie channels, including Pay-per-view movies which are often the same as the new DVD rental releases. These typically cost around £3 - 4 to do; yet offer the convenience of being able to pick your film then and there.
However while the price of the film maybe able to compete, you’ll need the whole TV package which involves a monthly fee and the range is much smaller. However if you already have one of these systems and only watch big new releases it can be cost effective; plus you can always record the film onto your set-top box’s hard drive. See Digital TV Cost Cutting for more info.
Online rentals can save you bags of money over the local video shop. Someone who rented four DVDs a month from Blockbuster would pay £3.95 a film, costing a massive £240 a year –
not including any late fees. Yet sign up to Amazon's four DVDs a month package and it’d cost just £84.
| DVD rental – how much you can save on renting 4 DVDs regularly | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost per month | Cost per year | Total saving | |
Local Blockbuster |
£17 |
£205 |
|
Amazon |
£7 |
£84 |
£121 |
4 mths tarting/8 mths Amazon |
£4 |
£56 |
£149 |
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