City Card Manchester- Top end discount card

pault76

Here is my hot tip for anybody living in the manchester area, get a city card! I bought mine about a month ago from https://www.citycardmanchester.co.uk for £38.50 for the year, and it has saved me double that back in one month.:A


Here is my story about how I came about City Card

I live in the now cosmpolitan and vibrant city of Manchester. With many fancy new restaurants, cafe bars and city centre living apartments comes one small, well actually quite large problem, Rip off prices!

Now when I moved from the 'burbs to the centre, here are some of the price hikes I noticed other than my rent and council tax.

Haircut- local barbers £5, City Centre salon £24.00:mad:
Pint- Local pub £1.95, City Centre bars £2.50-£4.00
Food- Top local restaurant bill for two £30, City Centre £60 :mad:
Gym- Local healthclub £30 per month, City Centre £49.00 pm

It seems that you need to be earning £2000+ net per month to live a 'normal' city centre lifestyle. Then I got a leaflet in my letter box about the 'City Card' which I thought seemed well worth a pop at £38 for the year. It claimed to give you ' upto 50% off at the city's best restaurants, bars, healthclubs, alons, spas, stores and more'. Sounded a bit too good to be true, and to be honest, there were only a few 50% savings, but there were lots of great city centre restaurants with 25% (50% in some) off the total bill or just food bill only. The whole thing is done with real style, so you don't feel tight fisted using it, infact it looks quite prestigous and business like.

I used to have a similar one just for dining before I moved to Manchester centre, but really didn't like it as it seemed quite cheap and was difficult to use.

There are some really great restaurants on the scheme, which with the discount are probably cheaper than out of town restuarants. I now pay a much more reasonable £15.00 for my haircut at a fantastic male grooming place. My Gym membership is actually £1.00 less per month than I used to pay at home thanks to moving to Fitness First where I pay £29.00 as a City Card member instead of the normal £38.00. I regualrly meet friends for drinks :beer: at the slug and lettuce where I get 25% off all drinks or food, and in all have worked out that it has saved me around £80 in the last month- so it's almost like getting free council tax!

Before you next eat out in Manchester, I recommend you get one!

hells_2

Sounds like the High Life card that used to be knocking about.
But as long as you make a return on the membership fee then I suppose it's worth it!

pault76

Yeah I did used to have one of the high life cards a while back but I just found it really frustrating to use. The thing I like about this one is that it seems easier to use, and there's no limit on how often you can use it. There's not the problem with 'premium' or 'platinum' members only offers.

The offers don't seem quite as much discount as High Life though, but I have used it more already than I ever used my high life card in a year.

A friend of mine got a citycard through his work since I did, and got his a bit cheaper. Apparently if you type in the word barclays06 in the referal box when you are joining you get it for £35.00- even better!

maniac886

I really like the look of this. I am particularly interested in the 25% off Terence Paul Hairdressing offer with the City Card. I was wondering if I could use my Terence Paul 10% off loyalty card as well? Has anyone else tried this?

pault76

Not sure, i don't think it does allow you as these things are generally 'not in conjunction with any other offer' to protect the companies from having to give it away.

I use the offer at the gentry, 30% off and theyt spend a good hour cutting your hair and do a great job too. Works out about £15 intead of £22, which is excellent value considering the level of service.

Either way though, 25% is better than 10% hey!

Was thinking of treating the missus to her hair at Nick Clarke, altough think with 10% off + a wella treatment (whatever that is), I'll still be counting the cost for years to come!:eek:

PT

pault76

pault76 wrote:

Not sure, i don't think it does allow you as these things are generally 'not in conjunction with any other offer' to protect the companies from having to give it away.

I use the offer at the gentry, 30% off and theyt spend a good hour cutting your hair and do a great job too. Works out about £15 intead of £22, which is excellent value considering the level of service.

Either way though, 25% is better than 10% hey!

Was thinking of treating the missus to her hair at Nick Clarke, altough think with 10% off + a wella treatment (whatever that is), I'll still be counting the cost for years to come!:eek:

PT

Just looked in the booklet and its not valid in conjunction with any toher offer, fair enough hey!

maniac886

Cheers, still 25% is better than 10% and since i go there pretty often its a fairly good saving!

thriftymanc

In Manchester you can also get two local discount cards for free.

You can get a Piccadilly Card from https://www.piccadillymanchester.com - they have various fixed discounts at places like Rice and Costa, and offers that change from time to time at places like the hotel restaurants around Piccadilly Gardens area.

You can get a Spinningfields Card from https://www.spinningfieldsonline.com which does various offers at the restaurants and businesses in Spinningfields and also gets you student price tickets at the AMC cinema (so £4.50 to see a film instead of £7+ at the Odeon).



I know that first post was from 2006, but those figures make me laugh. Need to earn £2k+ per month to live in the city centre?! What rot! My partner and I managed just fine on around £1k for the both of us for quite a while and we didn't live that frugally. Just because it's the city centre doesn't mean you HAVE to go to the most expensive places available. £49 for a gym membership for a month? There's at least three gyms you can go to for £15 a month or less. Etc etc etc...

Makeandsave

thriftymanc wrote: »

In Manchester you can also get two local discount cards for free.

You can get a Piccadilly Card from www.piccadillymanchester.com - they have various fixed discounts at places like Rice and Costa, and offers that change from time to time at places like the hotel restaurants around Piccadilly Gardens area.

You can get a Spinningfields Card from www.spinningfieldsonline.com which does various offers at the restaurants and businesses in Spinningfields and also gets you student price tickets at the AMC cinema (so £4.50 to see a film instead of £7+ at the Odeon).



I know that first post was from 2006, but those figures make me laugh. Need to earn £2k+ per month to live in the city centre?! What rot! My partner and I managed just fine on around £1k for the both of us for quite a while and we didn't live that frugally. Just because it's the city centre doesn't mean you HAVE to go to the most expensive places available. £49 for a gym membership for a month? There's at least three gyms you can go to for £15 a month or less. Etc etc etc...

Thank you for this i have the Spinningfields Card and this has saved me loads of money just joined the Piccadilly Card got to print email out and pick card up