A family bought four tickets for Saturday with a 20% promo code from a school newsletter. Saturday gets rained out, they call to move to next Sunday, and suddenly the new order shows full price. Now someone at the desk has to explain a price difference the guest never agreed to, or quietly fix it by refunding the whole order and reselling it with the code attached.
That refund-and-resell routine works, but it’s slow, it muddies your revenue reporting, and it depends on whoever is working that day knowing the workaround. Below is why discounts tend to fall off during a reschedule, how to confirm what your Altru setup actually does, and a few ways to keep the guest’s original price intact without improvising every time.
Why the discount disappears
A reschedule is rarely a simple date edit. In most ticketing systems, Altru included, moving tickets to a different event or time means the original items come off the order and new items go on. When the new items are priced, the system looks at the current price for that event and whatever discounts are valid right now for that sale. It doesn’t necessarily remember why the guest paid less the first time.
A few common reasons the original discount won’t reattach:
- The promo code had a date range. If the code was only valid for visits or sales through a certain date, the new date may fall outside it.
- The discount was tied to a sales channel. A code set up for online sales may not be available when staff process the change at the desk or by phone.
- Eligibility is re-checked. Discounts that depend on membership status, quantity, or specific price types can fail if anything changed between the original purchase and the reschedule.
- The new event uses different price types. If the discount was configured for certain price types or programs, a different event may not qualify.
Whether Altru’s exchange process carries a discount forward on its own can depend on how your discounts are configured, and behavior can vary between updates. Don’t take anyone’s word for it, including ours. Test it.
Test it before you write a policy
In a sandbox or test environment, or with a staff test order you’ll void afterward, run through a few scenarios:
- Sell tickets with a promo code, then reschedule them to another time on the same day.
- Do the same, but move them to a different date, ideally one outside the code’s original valid range.
- Try an automatic discount (for example, a member or group discount) instead of a code.
- Repeat at least one of these from the channel your staff actually use for changes.
Write down what happens to the price in each case. If the results surprise you, open a case with Blackbaud support and describe the exact steps. That tells you whether you’re dealing with a configuration issue you can fix or a limitation you need to work around.
Ways to keep the original price
Set up discounts with reschedules in mind
Many reschedule problems start when the discount is created. When you build a promo code, give it a valid range that extends past the last date a guest might reasonably move to, or separate the “sold by” date from the “visit by” date if your setup allows it. Make sure the code is available in the channels staff use to process changes, not just online.
Create a staff-only reschedule discount
Some organizations keep an internal discount that’s only available to staff and used only for exchanges. When a guest’s original discount won’t reattach, staff apply the reschedule discount to match the original price. This keeps the guest whole without a full refund. The tradeoff is reporting: your promo code reports will show the reschedule discount rather than the original code, so add a note on the order naming the original code if campaign tracking matters to you.
Let staff reapply the original code manually
If the code is still valid for the new date and channel, the simplest fix is for staff to enter it again during the exchange. This only works if they know which code was used, so make sure the original order details are easy to pull up and that the code appears on the order or receipt.
Keep refund-and-resell as the last resort
Sometimes a full refund and new sale is the only clean option, for example when the original discount was a one-time code that’s already been used. If you do it, note why on both orders. Otherwise you’ll see the same guest refunded and repurchased in your reports with no explanation, and depending on your payment setup you may pay processing fees on both the refund and the new charge.
Put the decision in writing
Guests remember the price they were quoted. Decide ahead of time:
- Do you always honor the original price on a reschedule, or only for weather closures and your own cancellations?
- What happens when the new date is priced higher, such as a weekday ticket moved to a weekend? Do you charge the difference before or after the discount?
- Which method do staff use first: re-enter the code, apply the reschedule discount, or escalate to a supervisor?
A one-page reference at the desk and in your phone script prevents most of the inconsistency. It also gives you a defensible answer when a guest compares notes with a friend who was handled differently.
Check that it’s holding
Once a month, run a query on orders that were exchanged or rescheduled and compare the discount totals against the original orders. You’re looking for two things: rescheduled orders that lost a discount without a note, and refund-and-resell pairs that should have been simple exchanges. Both point to a gap in training or a discount that needs a wider valid range.
Quick answers
Will an expired promo code still apply if the guest bought before it expired?
Not reliably. Test it in your setup. If it doesn’t, either widen the code’s valid range for future campaigns or use a staff-only discount to honor the original price.
Is refund-and-resell bad practice?
No, but it should be the exception. It adds steps, can add processing fees, and makes revenue and discount reports harder to read unless both orders are clearly noted.
