When your kid or some neighbor kid tries to sell you a Passbook, you might want to buy one!
 

My kids' schools have sold Passbooks for years...I've never purchased one, because it's a pain to find a coupon before going to a restaurant and besides, what if we want a burger and the coupon is for a chili dog? ANYWAY, this year my son was selling them for choir and I noticed an American Airlines 5% off up to 6 tickets coupon. 5% isn't much but we are a family of 5.

I used the coupon today and saved about $160, which, of course, pays for the Passbook a few times over.

So, before you blow off the school fundraiser, check to see if it has an American Airlines coupon that you can use!

Welcome to the 1% of people who saved money buying these passbooks!

I hear ya! In past years, I'd find out what the school's profit per book was, and just make a donation in that amount instead of buying the book. But when I saw the AA coupon, I thought it might just be worthwhile - we live near an AA hub.

Ours has half priced movie tickets, up to 6 per coupon and there are dozens of coupons. If you have a teen this will pay for itself.

I guess the real news to me was that the coupon actually worked for a discounted fare. I was afraid that I'd get to the site and it would tell me that it was only good for full fare tickets or something.

missypie, yes that is what I would have expected also, that you had to pay full price to get the discount. I think since they are only giving you 5%, that's why they so generously extended it to all flights. Glad it worked out for you. I know with the Entertainment coupons that give 25% off cruises and flights, you always have to pay full-fare, and how often do you do that?

Might be a stupid question...but what is a Passbook? I assummed you were talking about an Entertainment Book until the last post.

It is an Entertainment book; they always call it a "Passbook" when they try to get our kids to sell them. Maybe a "Passbook" is a diferent brand of the same thing...who knows? But this is the one thru entertainment.com .

Me too. I thought it was the Entertainment Book.

Ok, now I am even more confused, lol! Our DS sold the Entertainment Book for a football fundraiser. It doesn't say Passbook anywhere. It does have the AA 5% discount...so assume it might be the same?

Hi mms,

check out the front cover. Mine (Austin) reads "entertainment 07 passbook"

Nope, doesn't say Passbook anywhere on it. Wonder if it is a regional thing?

They call these books something different depending upon the geographical or retail areas involved.
They are called Entertainment- Southwest (part of Chicagoland is highlighted in the title)period in my neck of the woods. So you could also buy North, or West etc.

I buy them from two sources, and although I have used them in the past, and in one case for Museums they were excellent for entrance fees, I buy them to help the school but seldom actually use them anymore.

Because, I have found overall that the coupon will not always work and that the full service or full fare is NOT the one you would pay without the coupon for many of the related venues, either. The buy one get one for food is fine, but you may also have it refused because of new owners. I have and thus got out of the habit of using the great majority. I do keep it in the car.

Not to say that it isn't worth it to buy them for the good of the organization or for the many that might apply directly to your area or venues you would use anyway; just don't always assume that the coupon WILL work.

The last ones I had the only ones I ended up using were for a car wash and a some dry cleaning % off. The bigger ones for entrance or sports events always ended up being not applicable because of some disclaimer.

You were lucky with the AA. Most of those percentage purchases have a top end usage. Good for you.

We have been buying these books for a few years, and have saved quite a bit with them. Granted, we have teens, so that helps. But we do not go to fast food places, so I give those coupons to friends. We have used the sporting event coupons here quite a bit, and I give the Safeway coupons to the home ec teacher.

Between the food, dry cleaning, car wash coupons our book paid for itself the first week.

In my area they are called discount books. When I first read the post subject I thought someone was asking about an old fasioned passbook you had to bring to the bank before computers.

I buy an Entertainment Book from our school every year. We always save MUCH more than we paid for the book. We go out to eat often and use the dining offers. We have actually discovered several great new restaurants by using the book.

I've always called them passbooks too. I think it's a Texas name. My book says "Dallas Passbook Edition" on the front cover.

I've been buying these books and using them and saving money with them for years. However, I haven't used the airline coupons--have found I can do better with orbitz or such, but I really like the books. I even got one for our upcoming trip to S.F. (as I did last trip) and was happy I did.

Here they're called "Entertainment Book", and I know those are available for all parts of the country.

We get one every year for Christmas from our daughter, bless her heart. However, if you check the web site you can often buy one for HALF PRICE half way through the year! In fact, we used ours enough to buy a SECOND one that way in May for $12.99 (plus $5.00 shipping).

We eat out some, too, and find we only need to use it TWICE just for that to more than offset the full price.

This spring, we took a trip out west and, by shopping with that book, we saved $200 apiece on the air fare (United) and another $75 on the car (Enterprise) rental out there!

ALL coupons can be a big help. My wife uses them, by the way, to save a good 35-40% every week on our groceries. As she says, "It takes me maybe 3/4 hour a week to select the ones that do the best, and that's worth the money!" (Especially when you can double or even triple some of them here when combined with store coupons. We sometimes get things like brand name ice cream for FREE that way!)

Good luck -- and enjoy!

Vemronter