“Can I buy a ticket now and come whenever?” Tourists ask it, corporate buyers handing out passes to staff ask it, and parents planning around the weather ask it. An open-dated ticket sounds simple. In Altru it takes a little planning, because admission is built around programs and dates, and the right setup depends on what you mean by “flexible.”
First, decide which kind of flexible you mean
People use “flexible ticket” for at least three different things, and each one points to a different Altru approach:
- Good any day, one visit. The buyer pays now and picks the day later, or never picks at all and just shows up.
- Dated, but changeable. The buyer chooses a date, and you promise an easy swap if plans change.
- Several visits over a period. A five-visit punch card, a summer pass, a week-long tourist pass.
Pin this down before touching configuration. A lot of teams build the hardest version when the second option would have covered most guests.
How Altru thinks about admission
Altru sells admission through programs. A scheduled program has events with specific dates and times and capacity. A daily admission program isn’t tied to a time slot, which makes it the natural starting point for anything flexible. At the desk, daily sales of a daily admission program are about as open as admission gets: the guest buys and walks in.
The question is what happens when that ticket is sold ahead of time, especially online. Depending on how your advance sales and web forms are set up, the buyer may still be asked for a visit date. Whether your version and configuration can sell a daily admission ticket online with no date attached, and how that ticket then behaves at redemption, is something to confirm rather than assume. Test it in your sandbox or training database, and ask Blackbaud support directly if the behavior isn’t clear.
Option 1: Dated tickets with a generous change policy
This is the lowest-effort route and fits most “what if it rains?” buyers. Sell a regular dated ticket, then publish a plain policy: the ticket can be moved to another date, by phone or at the desk, within a set window.
What makes it work:
- A short written procedure for staff on how to change the date on an existing order, including whether the price difference is collected or waived.
- Clear wording on the confirmation email and website so guests know they can call.
- A rule for no-shows: does an unused dated ticket expire, or can it still be honored later?
The upside is that attendance and capacity reporting stay accurate, because every ticket still has a date. The downside is staff time, since each change is a manual step.
Option 2: An undated admission item
When buyers truly won’t commit to a date, such as tour operators, hotel concierge desks, or employers buying passes in bulk, some organizations sell admission as an undated item instead of a ticket. That might be a voucher set up as a merchandise or fee-style item, or a discount/voucher code that’s later applied to a real admission sale at the desk.
Before you go this way, think through the tradeoffs:
- Revenue timing. The money is recorded when the voucher is sold, not when the visit happens. Talk to your finance team about whether that needs a deferred revenue treatment.
- Redemption tracking. Altru won’t automatically know a voucher was used. You need a process for marking it redeemed, typically by ringing up a zero-dollar admission against it at the desk, so the visit shows up in attendance.
- Expiration. Decide whether vouchers expire and check your state’s rules on prepaid admission and gift-like products before printing “valid for one year.”
- Fraud and reuse. A printed voucher with no unique identifier can be photocopied. Unique codes, or a log of issued numbers, closes that gap.
Option 3: A short-term pass for multiple visits
For “unlimited visits this summer” or “five visits,” some teams create a separate membership program with a short term, such as a season pass. Membership already handles a start date, an expiration, and repeat entry, so it can model a pass without new tools.
The catch is reporting. Pass holders will appear in membership counts, renewal queries, and possibly your mailing lists for members. Keep the pass in its own program, exclude it from member counts and renewal mailings in your queries and smart fields, and make sure benefits like guest passes or store discounts don’t apply unless you mean them to. True visit-count limits (a punch card) are harder; confirm whether your setup can enforce them or plan to track them manually.
Things to settle before launch
- Capacity. Open-dated tickets don’t reserve space. If you run timed entry or hit capacity on holidays, state whether flexible tickets are guaranteed entry or subject to availability.
- Pricing. If you use dynamic or seasonal pricing, decide which price an undated ticket honors.
- Front desk training. Staff need one clear answer for “I bought a flexible ticket.” Put the redemption steps on a card at each register.
- Reporting. Build a query of open or unredeemed flexible tickets and vouchers so you can see your outstanding liability and spot old ones that may never be used.
- A pilot. Run it with one sales channel, such as group sales or a single partner hotel, for a month before putting it on the public site.
Quick answers
Is there a single “open date” checkbox in Altru?
Don’t count on one. Flexibility usually comes from choosing the right program type and sales process. Check your own configuration in a sandbox before promising buyers anything.
Which option do most organizations start with?
Dated tickets with an easy exchange policy. It keeps reporting clean, and you can add undated vouchers later for the specific channels that need them.
