With the summer holidays upon us, you may be thinking about what to do with the kids, and a day out to a theme park or attraction may be on your ideas list.
Therefore you may have noticed the free adult tickets type offers that you can often see on packs of cereal, some cereal bars, selected Cadbury's chocolate bars and in the newspapers at this time of year, enticing you to save money by collecting the vouchers. With finances being what they are at present, everyone's looking to save as much as possible!
But are these deals actually as good as they seem?
My son had an inset day recently, so my partner decided to take him to Legoland, as it's pretty close to where we live, and had noticed the vouchers from cereal boxes offer to save a few pounds, and so decided to give it a whirl. Having bought the cereal with the offer printed on the box, she decided to book the tickets, so imagine her surprise when the tickets booked via the special offer deal were only £2 cheaper than buying directly from the Legoland website!
It seems, with the Legoland cereal packet deal, you can only book your tickets on the same day as you are going to visit the attraction. When booking for the same day via the normal Legoland website, the ticket prices are double the normal cost, some £62 each for a kids ticket and an adults ticket, making the normal price £124 for an adult and a child ticket (under 16 for a child), but when you booked via the cereal offer the cost lowered to £62, so a £2 saving off the regular price of booking in advance, but £62 cheaper than buying on the day direct from Legoland.
So the deal looks excellent when comparing the prices for the same-day entry prices, but actually, that's an artificially inflated price in comparison with booking for a different day, as it's been doubled, so you think you are saving £60+, but the reality is that it's just a £2 saving!
So if you need to go on the same day, the cereal deal is best (due to Legoland doubling the price for same-day visiting, which seems a bit excessive, but I guess that's a nice little money maker for them, not so great for the last-minute visitor though), however as the cereal deal can only be used for same-day tickets, it's probably worth just booking via the Legoland site, if you don't already have a cereal box with the code, as buying a cereal box for the promo code, is likely to work out more expensive!
It just shows that actually, you really have to check offers thoroughly and shop about to see what sort of deals are being offered elsewhere. Just because the offer is being advertised on a big brand product that you may trust and be a loyal customer of, it doesn't necessarily mean it's actually the best deal for you!
Legoland was getting a 3.3% cash-back rate from TopCashback, so using that, you would be saving money, and VIP Rewards were offering up to 58% off Legoland tickets via its site There is a £3.99 monthly charge for using VIP Rewards, but the financial rewards quickly pay for themselves, but you can grab a free months trial of VIP Rewards using promo code: LOVESAVING1
The cereal packet voucher deals do cover other attractions as well, and it's worth noting that in many cases, the vouchers made the ticket price cheaper than buying direct, so I have to be fair and mention this; however, in my personal experience, the savings, if fact no existent savings after buying the cereal, weren't worth the hassle, and several social media posts I've seen recently seem to reflect the same for Legoland, as well as Alton Towers, but with discounts at The Sea Life Centre, working out to be much cheaper, so still worth considering!