FAQ Q244: How to use coupons / gift certificates with Planyo?

Coupons and gift certificates are implemented in planyo using the coupons feature (site settings / coupons). This feature makes it possible for your customers to purchase multiple entry passes, passes valid for X months, rentals/services paid upfront for X hours (e.g. 10 hours of tennis court access), buy gift certificates to be used for your services, or have an account (personal or company account) with you so they don't need to make a payment each time they make a reservation. All these uses are possible with the coupons feature.

In order to offer coupons to your customers, you'll first need to set up your coupon types in site settings / coupons. There are 4 types of coupons to choose from:
Coupons also have additional features:


Once the coupon types are defined, the end customers can buy their coupons on a special page (go to Integrate with my website / widgets / buy coupon in order to get the html code for a simple A HREF link to the coupon purchase page). Another possibility is to use the tag $(buy_coupon_url) (see Q206 for the details) in any of the email notifications or templates. This tag will be replaced with the URL of the page where the coupons can be purchased. Please note that the new mode to purchase coupons by end customers works only with planyo modules/plugins version 2.1 or higher. You might need to upgrade your planyo module/plugin first (or you can of course have your customers purchase the coupons on planyo.com).

Once a coupon is purchased, you'll see it listed on the view coupons page. Here you can also administer the coupons or insert new coupons in the name of your customers if they pay offline or for your tests.

Coupons which are used-up (with no credits left) can be refilled by customers by making an additional purchase. If for example a customer purchased an amount-based coupon and has $5 left on it while the reservation costs $10, they'll need to refill their coupon in order to make a reservation. If they refill by purchasing a coupon worth $50, their balance will be $55 so the $5 from the previous balance will not be lost.

If a reservation which used a coupon was cancelled, then based on your setting "Credit back coupons on cancellations" found in Site settings / Active features, the coupon may be credited back with the amount used by the reservation.
 
Email notifications
On the Notifications page you can set up messages sent when a coupon is purchased (the Online payment for coupon received event). You can choose to send the message to the client as well as to the site owner, a resource administrator or the main moderator. In case of the client, the message is sent to the email address of the coupon holder (the Email address of coupon holder field on the coupon purchase page).
 
When a coupon is purchased as a gift card, you can additionally send the Gift card buyer message. By default, for gift certificate purchases the Online payment for coupon received message mentioned above is not sent to the client (gift card recipient). This is done with the $(if)$(is_gift_certificate)$(then).... conditional statement at the top of the default message body.
 
In this case, the Gift card buyer message allows you to send the buyer additional information about the coupon and how it should be delivered to the recipient. Additionally, you can also send a PDF attachment in the message. This way you can create e.g. a gift card file that the buyer can send to the coupon recipient.
The Gift card buyer message is sent to the email address of the coupon buyer (the Buyer email address field on the coupon purchase page). When this message is set up in your account, this email field becomes obligatory when the coupon is purchased as a gift card.
 
Back to Frequently Asked Questions