Unlike its third-party competitors, AMC Stubs A-List’s attachment to the chain of movie theatres has kept it profitable. As Yahoo Finance notes, third-party companies like MoviePass and Sinemia pay the theatres it partners with full retail price for movie tickets. In the case of AMC, they can eat the cost of tickets in exchange for higher sales at its concessions stands.

Still, the glory days of A-List may soon be coming to a close. Bloomberg reports that new member sign-ups have declined to an average of 1,200 per day, compared to the 5,000 daily signups the platform received in its early days. But with summer blockbuster season coming up, the fate of A-List may take a turn for the better.

Dear Customer,

Today, with a heavy heart, we’re announcing that Sinemia is closing its doors and ending operations in the US effective immediately.

As Sinemia, we set out our journey with the vision to help as many moviegoers as possible to enjoy an affordable and better experience at the movies by a creating a movie ticket subscription service that adds value for both the moviegoers and the movie industry. Since 2014, we’ve been fine-tuning our model and serving movie-goers with a slate of affordable and flexible subscription plans.

We are all witnessing that the future of moviegoing is evolving through movie ticket subscriptions. However, we didn’t see a path to sustainability as an independent movie ticket subscription service in the face of competition from movie theaters as they build their own subscriptions. Thanks to the cost advantage and cross-sell opportunities, movie theaters will be prominent in the movie ticket subscription economy.

While we are proud to have created a best in market service, our efforts to cover the cost of unexpected legal proceedings and raise the funds required to continue operations have not been sufficient. The competition in the US market and the core economics of what it costs to deliver Sinemia’s end-to-end experience ultimately lead us to the decision of discontinuing our US operations.

Despite the best efforts of our team, it has been difficult for us as a start-up to continue providing our services to the moviegoers in the US without resources and enough capital to meet increased operations and legal costs.

We want to sincerely thank our customers that believed in us and helped us along the way for their love and support.

We are so grateful to have had the opportunity to share our dream with you.

Sinemia Inc.

Sinemia says this is part of its stance against fraud. “This kind of vigilance helps us combat misuse, ensuring all our customers continue to enjoy movies at affordable and sustainable prices,” the company said in a press release. Supposedly, the company only terminated “a small number” of accounts, about three percent. The explanation probably won’t make customers who have been cut off feel any better, and this month’s debacle only reminded us of issues the company has run into in the past.

Along with this update, Sinemia launched another new ticket plan. For $14.99 per month, this “Always Unlimited” plan will let subscribers see one 2D movie per day, with no restrictions on showtimes. It offers a “level of flexibility competitors can’t match” a company spokesperson said. We’ll see if Sinemia’s approach — which seems to be a never-ending stream of new ticket plans — will be enough to win back customer trust.

The list of actions that can get you booted from Sinemia are below:

• Unauthorized use of the Sinemia card/cardless outside of its intended purposes, resulting in fraudulent financial activity. For example, this could be purchasing concessions at the theater instead of a movie ticket.
• Using multiple Sinemia accounts on the same device.
• Not checking in at the theater before or after your movie.
• Seeing the same movie more than three times.
• Creating multiple Sinemia accounts for the same person.
• Sharing one’s Sinemia membership to buy tickets for other people. This includes not only people buying tickets and selling to others but also people sharing their own tickets with friends and family members.
• Manipulation of location data resulting in deceptive ticket purchases. For example, faking GPS data on a phone.
• Reasonable suspicion of fraud and/or abuse.

If Infinity’s premise sounds as formulaic as a summer blockbuster, that’s because it is. Paying a monthly fee for an unlimited or capped number of movie tickets isn’t exactly a novel concept in 2019. Frequent moviegoers can choose between MoviePass, Sinemia, AMC Stubs A-List and Cinemark Movie Club. But business isn’t exactly booming among Infinity’s competitors, and it’s unclear how the new service plans to define itself.

MoviePass encountered numerous bumps on the road after launching its too-good-to-be-true $10 per month deal in 2017. Showtimes were quickly scooped up, and customers complained about not having access to popular movies at all. Following several changes to their price model that didn’t work, MoviePass reverted to its $9.95 a month plan earlier this month. Sinemia was down for three days this past week, shutting its members out of Us and Captain Marvel. Last year Sinemia faced a lawsuit over processing fees that forced the service to switch to a physical membership card.

Infinity hasn’t yet announced which partner movie theatres have signed up for the service. The service is expected to be formally revealed at CinemaCon in April. But the official launch isn’t for another several months; Infinity anticipates rolling out to U.S. moviegoers on Labor Day. Given how volatile the theatre subscription market is, it’s entirely possible that Infinity will run into problems of its own either prior to or after its release.

Some customers received emails saying their accounts were terminated “by the system automatically” and that no other details could be provided, reports Business Insider. Sinemia told Business Insider that users were kicked out for “fraudulent activity,” but the customers claim that’s untrue and unfair. Some were apparently asked to tip the company (a feature Sinemia was reportedly testing) before being cut off.

In response to a request for comment Sinemia said that it “has uncovered more than a thousand variations of fraud and has improved its fraud detection systems accordingly” and that it “detected fraudulent activities by a number of users whose memberships have been subsequently terminated due to violation of the Terms of Service.” That said, it’s unclear why a number of seemingly well-behaved members are being subjected to these terminations.

This isn’t the first time Sinemia users have run into problems using the service. In the past, accounts have been closed over “misuse fees,” and users have been asked to provide two forms of ID to unlock accounts. Sinemia has even faced a class-action lawsuit. Just yesterday, Sinemia offered a new ticket discount that doesn’t require a monthly subscription, but this might make people think twice before signing up.