The member discount works perfectly at the front desk. A cashier looks up the household, sees an active membership, and the ticket price drops. Then a member buys online, pays full price, and emails to ask why. The discount is set up. The member is current. So what’s different about the web?
The short version: at the desk, a person confirms who the buyer is. Online, Altru has to figure that out on its own, and several separate settings all have to line up before it can. When any one of them is off, the sale quietly goes through at the regular rate.
The core problem: an online buyer is anonymous until proven otherwise
A member discount depends on Altru knowing the buyer is a member. In daily sales, staff attach the sale to a constituent record, so the membership is right there. On a web form, the buyer is just a name and an email address until something ties them to a constituent with an active membership.
That leaves three common ways organizations handle it:
- Require members to sign in before they see member pricing. This is the most reliable, because the discount is tied to a verified record. The cost is friction: members forget passwords, use a different email than the one on file, or give up and buy at full price.
- Use a member code (a promo-style discount code shared in member communications). Easy for buyers, but codes get passed around, and there’s no check that the person using it is actually a member.
- Honor system: offer member pricing to anyone who says they’re a member, then check cards at the door. Fast online, but it moves the verification burden to admissions staff, and you need a clear policy for what happens when someone can’t show a membership.
Which one you choose is a policy decision as much as a technical one. Decide it first, because it determines which settings you need to troubleshoot.
Things to check when the discount isn’t applying
1. Is the discount actually available for online sales?
A discount can be configured and working for daily sales while not being tied to your web ticketing form or the online sales channel. Review the discount’s setup and the web form’s settings side by side. If you aren’t sure whether a given discount type can be applied automatically on the web in your version of Altru, test it in a sandbox or ask Blackbaud support before changing production settings.
2. Does the discount cover the right price types and programs?
Member discounts are usually limited to certain programs, events, or price types. If you added a new timed-entry program or a new price type for the season, the discount may not include it yet. This is the most common cause when the discount “used to work.”
3. Does the membership qualify?
Check which membership programs and levels the discount is restricted to. Then look at the specific member who complained:
- Is the membership active on the date of the sale, or did it lapse last week?
- Is the buyer the primary member, or a household member or add-on cardholder? Depending on your setup, the discount may only recognize certain members on the membership.
- Was the membership just purchased or renewed? A brand-new membership needs to be fully processed before it can qualify anything else.
4. Is the buyer matched to the right constituent?
This is where a lot of online failures hide. If the member signs in, or the web form tries to match them by email, and their email on file is old or attached to a duplicate record, the sale may land on a record with no membership. Search for the buyer’s name and email in Altru. Two records for the same person is a strong sign you’ve found the problem, and merging them (carefully) usually fixes future purchases.
5. Is the code being entered correctly?
If you use a member code, confirm it hasn’t expired, hit a usage limit, or been restricted to dates that don’t include the visit. Also check how the code is presented in your emails. A code that wraps across lines or looks like it includes a trailing period will get mistyped.
Fixing a sale that already went through at full price
For a one-off, refund the difference rather than voiding and rebooking, so the member keeps their reserved time. Note the reason on the constituent record. If several members report the same thing in one week, stop handling it case by case: find the root cause above, fix it, then run a query on recent online ticket orders by constituents with active memberships to see who else paid full price.
Make the rule visible to members
Whatever approach you pick, say it plainly where members will see it: on the ticketing page, in member welcome emails, and in renewal messages. “Sign in with the email on your membership to see member pricing” or “Use code MEMBER at checkout and bring your card” prevents most of the support email before it’s written. If you use the honor system, tell admissions staff exactly what to do when someone can’t show proof.
Where Social Good fits
Most of the fixes above are Altru configuration and data cleanup, and they don’t require anything extra. If the bigger issue is that your web ticketing form is clunky for members on their phones, Social Good Checkouts replaces Altru web forms with a branded, mobile-friendly checkout for tickets, memberships, and donations, with the data written back to Altru.
Quick answers
Why does the discount work for staff but not online?
Staff attach the sale to a known member record. Online, the buyer has to be matched to that record first, and the discount has to be enabled for the web form and the price types being sold.
Should we require login or use the honor system?
Login is more accurate but adds friction. The honor system is faster but shifts checking to the door. Many organizations start with a member code plus card checks at entry, then tighten it if abuse becomes a real problem.
