When a member had a plastic card, the guest pass was easy to picture: a paper voucher in the welcome packet, or a line printed on the card saying “+2 guests.” Once memberships are sold online and delivered by email, that piece of paper goes away. The benefit still exists in your membership brochure, but nothing physical is left to carry it. The member arrives with a friend, and the desk has no way to tell whether they’re entitled to a free guest or have already used it.
This article covers how to deliver and track guest passes for e-memberships in Altru: what to decide before you configure anything, the setup patterns organizations actually use, and where Altru’s native tools stop.
Start with the rule, not the software
“Guest pass” means different things at different organizations, and the right setup depends on which one you sell. Before touching Altru, write down answers to these:
- Per visit or per term? “Bring two guests every time you visit” is a level benefit. “Four guest passes per year” is a countable allowance that has to be drawn down.
- Does the member have to be present? If guests can use a pass without the member, it behaves like a gift ticket and needs its own control.
- Are guests free or discounted? A free guest and a “member guest price” are set up differently in Altru.
- Do unused passes expire with the membership? Almost always yes. Say so in writing.
A “per visit, member present” rule is easy to run with e-memberships. A “fixed number per year, transferable” rule is where most of the work is.
Three setup patterns that work
1. Guests as a membership level benefit, checked at the desk
The simplest option is to make guest admission part of the membership level and let staff apply it at daily sales. The cashier looks up the member, sees the level, and adds the guest admission at a member guest price type (free or discounted). This works well for “+1 or +2 per visit” benefits and needs no pass to be delivered at all.
The cost is that nothing counts usage. If your benefit is unlimited per visit, that’s fine. If it’s capped per year, you’ll need one of the next two patterns.
2. Countable passes tracked against the member
Altru lets you attach benefits to membership levels, and many organizations use that to record that a member received a set number of guest passes. Whether Altru will decrement that count automatically when a guest is admitted at the desk is something you should test in your own environment before promising it to staff. Configurations vary, and it’s easy to assume the count is tracked when really it’s only listed.
If it isn’t decremented for you, a workable fallback is to sell guest admissions under a dedicated price type (for example, “Member Guest Pass”) and attach the sale to the member’s constituent record. A query that counts those transactions per member per membership term then tells you how many each member has used. Add the count to the constituent record as a smart field so desk staff see it when they look the member up.
3. Guest passes delivered as codes or tickets
For transferable passes, the member needs something to hand to a friend. Common approaches:
- A unique discount or promotion code included in the membership confirmation email, redeemable once for a free guest ticket online or at the desk. Check how your Altru setup handles single-use codes and limits before relying on this; if codes can only be shared, not limited per member, assume they will get passed around.
- Pre-issued complimentary tickets added to the membership order and emailed with the member’s confirmation. These scan like any other ticket, so usage is tracked by the ticket itself. The trade-off is that they need a valid date or program, which can be awkward for open-dated passes.
Whichever you pick, make the confirmation email say plainly how many passes the member has, how to use them, and when they expire.
Train the desk on one script
Most guest pass problems are inconsistency, not configuration. Give staff one short procedure:
- Look up the member by name, email, or membership number.
- Confirm the membership is active and check the level or guest count shown.
- Ring the guest under the guest price type and attach it to the member’s record. Don’t use a generic comp, because that loses the link to the member.
- If the member has used their allowance, offer the regular admission price, or a membership upgrade if a higher level includes more guests.
Step 3 matters most. Guest admissions rung up as anonymous comps can’t be counted later, and then you can’t answer questions like “how many guest passes did we give away last year?”
Reporting on guest pass use
Once guest admissions run through a consistent price type tied to the member, a query will tell you what you need to know: passes used by membership level, members who never use theirs, and how many guests went on to buy a membership. That last number is the best argument for keeping the benefit. If you can’t get it, look at whether guests’ names and emails are being captured anywhere at all.
Quick answers
Can Altru email a guest pass automatically when someone buys an e-membership?
Membership confirmations can include written instructions and codes. Whether you can attach a separate scannable guest ticket automatically depends on how your web forms and order setup are built. Test the full purchase in a sandbox or ask Blackbaud support before you advertise it.
Should e-members and card members get the same guest benefit?
Usually, yes. Varying the benefit by delivery method confuses members and staff. Keep the benefit tied to the level and change only how it’s delivered.
