Your Family level includes two free guest passes a year. Your Patron level includes unlimited guests on every visit. Your Individual level includes none. On paper this is simple. In practice, the cashier has to know which member is in front of them, which level they hold, how many guest tickets they’ve already used, and how to ring a $0 ticket so it still shows up in attendance. When any of that lives only in someone’s head, guest benefits get given away too freely or refused to people who earned them.
Connecting guest tickets to membership type in Altru is really two separate jobs: defining the entitlement so it’s attached to the right levels, and redeeming it so the ticket is issued correctly and counted. Altru handles parts of both. Where it stops, a clear process fills the gap.
Step one: decide what the benefit actually is
Before you touch configuration, write each level’s guest benefit as a rule a new hire could follow. The details change how you build it:
- Per visit or per term? “Bring one guest every time” is very different from “four guest passes per membership year.” Per-visit benefits are easy to apply at the register. Per-term benefits need a running count somewhere.
- Which tickets? General admission only, or also timed exhibits and special events?
- Does the member have to be present? If guests can come alone with a pass, you need a way to identify that pass.
- Does it reset at renewal? And what happens to unused passes when someone upgrades mid-term?
Getting agreement on these answers from membership, admissions, and finance saves a lot of rework. Many “Altru can’t do this” problems turn out to be “we never agreed what this is.”
Step two: attach the benefit to the membership levels
Altru lets you record benefits on membership levels within a membership program, so a member’s record reflects what their level includes. Set up a guest benefit (or one per variation, such as “1 guest per visit” and “4 guest passes per year”) and attach it to each level that should carry it. That way, when staff look up a member at the desk, the entitlement is visible rather than remembered.
Recording a benefit and enforcing it are not the same thing, though. A benefit on the level tells staff what the member is entitled to. Whether Altru will automatically apply a free guest ticket or count down a per-term allotment at the point of sale depends on your version and setup, and I would not assume it does. Test it in a sandbox or ask Blackbaud support before you promise members anything that relies on automatic enforcement.
Step three: make the guest ticket ringable
Staff need a clean way to issue the guest’s ticket so it counts as attendance without being recorded as a full-price sale. The two common approaches:
A dedicated member-guest price type
Create a price type such as “Member Guest” at $0 (or at whatever reduced price your policy sets) on the programs where guests are allowed. Staff add it to the order alongside the member’s admission. It’s easy to train, it shows up clearly in daily sales and attendance reporting, and you can query on it later.
A discount restricted to members
Alternatively, set up a discount that applies to guest admissions and limit its use to members or specific levels, if your discount configuration supports that restriction. This keeps the regular price on the ticket and records the benefit as a discount, which some finance teams prefer. Confirm in a sandbox how the restriction behaves before rolling it out, especially for per-level limits.
Whichever you choose, use it for nothing else. A “Member Guest” price type that also gets used for comps, staff friends, and VIPs makes your reporting useless.
Step four: track usage for per-term allotments
Per-visit benefits mostly take care of themselves once the price type exists. Per-term allotments (“four passes a year”) need counting. A practical setup:
- Make sure every guest ticket sale is attached to the member’s constituent record, not sold anonymously. Train staff to look the member up first, every time.
- Build a query of guest-price-type (or guest-discount) sales tied to members, filtered to each member’s current membership term.
- Consider a smart field that counts guest tickets used in the current term, so the number appears where staff can see it when they open the record.
- Review the query monthly. Members with unusually high counts are either your most enthusiastic advocates or a training problem at the desk.
This is not as tidy as an automatic countdown, but it is honest, auditable, and works with standard Altru tools.
Step five: handle guests who arrive without the member
If your policy allows passes to be used without the member present, you need something the guest can hand over. Options include printed vouchers with a code, a note on the membership card, or a list of named guests kept on the household. Pick one, connect it to the member’s record when the pass is redeemed, and make sure the same price type or discount is used so the count stays accurate.
Common snags
- Upgrades mid-term. Decide whether the new level’s guest benefit starts fresh or carries forward any count already used, and write it down.
- Online sales. Guest benefits are usually easiest to honor in person. If members can claim guest tickets online, test carefully how your web forms recognize the member and their level before advertising it.
- Households. If two adults share one membership, clarify whether the guest allotment belongs to the membership or to each person.
Quick answers
Will Altru automatically give a member’s guest a free ticket?
Don’t count on it without testing. Benefits on membership levels make the entitlement visible, but automatic application at the register depends on your configuration. Verify in a sandbox or with Blackbaud support.
Should guest tickets be $0 or discounted?
Either works. A $0 member-guest price type is simpler for staff; a member-only discount keeps full price visible for revenue reporting. Pick based on how your finance team wants to see it.
