Hi!I have been using  your plugin for a year now and I am mostly happy with it. 

Few days ago I have noticed something that need to be fixed: when you set a package to be consumed over a period of time, if the customer later make changes on the bookings they can move the class to any moment, without restrictions of time. I have found out that there are customers buying the monthly packages (that are the cheapest as they have to be used within the 30 days after the purchase) and then changing their bookings so they can use those sessions in two months or when they want. 

Can it be solved?

Thank you!!

Hi Milo, thank you for your reply.

I understand and already knew all you have explained. But I think you are not understanding what I say. 

The point is: it does not make sense to have packages to be used in a limited time, if then the customer can rearrange the bookings included in that package whenever they want. 

What I am saying: a customer buys a package of 5 appointments to be used in a month and he makes the 5 appointments at the moment of the purchase. If later he wants to change the date of one of those appointments, ha can change it whenever they want, without the month limit. That is what should be fixed. I know it has always been that way, but that doesn't mean it's ok. Again, the time limit looses a bit of sense if this can be done. 

And obviously, changing the period available for booking in advance is not a solution.

I think this should be a priority, as it can cause us to loose money (actually I have already lost money).

Thank you.

María

Hello Aleksandar,

Thanks for the detailed explanation.
We are also looking forward to this option in the future. Being able to force those bookable appointments dates within that package validity period.

In most use cases packages are expected to work as María described. Even our customers noted, that they would expect that they wouldn't be able to book appointments on dates that are out of the validity period. Which makes sense, I totally agree with María.

I do like the option though how it currently behaves. But it would really make sense to allow us, to opt for the default behaviour that most people are used to when it comes to packege expiration dates.

We hope that this will be addressed in the future at some point.

Kind Regards

Sandor

Thanks Miloš, glad to hear.

Kind Regards

Sandor

Hello Milos,

Hope you are well! I thought I would look at this ticket again and see where it was going.

Reading back what Maria says absolutely makes sense I think. She has a good point.

There are customers that keep coming back and figured out that if they prebook all their appointments while the package duration period still hasn't expired, they can basically trick the system and use their appointments without any limit. Only a handful of people actually take advantage of this. So not a big issue at the moment. But Amelia being one of the best booking plugin for Wordpress, this feature could be definitely added later.

Which you already said it is planned, so it is good to know this potentially will be sorted maybe with an extra option in Amelia.

Anyway, just thought I would share my thoughts on this again..

Kind Regards

Sandor

Hello Miloš,

Thank you, no problem at all, we appreciate that it will take time to imlement this in the future.

Its good knowing that you are planning to make improvements on this.

Kind Regards

Sandor

Hello Miloš,

Just checking in, do you know if there has been some improvements in this topic? Do you know when this implementation will be rolled out in the future?

Thanks!

Sandor

Hello Amelia team!

Can you please give a status update on this issue? Has there been any improvment with this?

Please read back the thread if it is not clear what our problem is with the current package duration / validity period behavior.

We think with a new button in the packages setting panel (please see image below), we could add this functionality the right way. This would make so much sense.


Adding this function would be the final piece of the puzzle for our project, allowing us to use the package duration to limit the user appointments. Meaning, if this option is ON, then Amelia wont allow users to book appointments that are dated after the experation date.

For example, if the calculated experation date for the package is 28.01.2024, then the user won't be able to book appointments in the calender starting from 29.01.2024. Those appointments should be grayed out for the users if they selected a package with this option turned on.

We think with this option, the backward compatiblity would be aslo solved. This option would be turned off by default.

We hope this further clearifies what our problem is and helps for developers what we think would be a viable option.

Thanks

Kind Regards

Sandor

Hello Uroš,

Many thanks, please let me know if there is going to be any feedback on this later.

Kind Regards

Sandor

Hi everybody,

I just came over this ticket - only after I opened one with the same issue. Sorry for crossposting.

I also would like to point out, that this option is actually crucial for my purpuse. I sell trainings starting from 10 appointments onwards. Customers plan a training for a specific time duration, mostly calculated in months. So they might buy 30, 40 or more trainings for the next six or twelve months. Within these 6/12 months they need to be flexible concerning the appointment bookings, especially in B2B. But they should not be able to book appointments for a later time. I would get into real planning and financial trouble if someone with a 6-months-package would only after 5 1/2 months start to book 30/40/50 sessions.

So I, too, would appreciate a higher ranking on your devs' prio list.

Best

Franziska

Hello Franziska,

Thanks for pointing this out. We are also looking forward to this implementation a lot actually. As I pointed out, it would be crucial for us as well. And we think that a feature like this for packages is a very basic one. In practice, most businesses who sell services in packages don't allow the customers to come back and use the services anymore once the duration of the package expires.

As I pointed out earlier in this ticket, with an option in the package setting panel like in the picture below, the backward compatibility would be also solved.

We should add a toggle button 'Limit appointments based on duration' to the package setting panel, that if was turned on, would add another layer of limitation on the bookable appointments in the future based on the package duration, on top of the service level 'Period available for booking in advance' limitation.

We hope it will be noticed soon, that for packages this is a really important feature. Thanks Franziska for posting it also here, hopefully it will help to push this topic forward.

Kind Regards

Sandor

Hello Uroš,

Sounds awesome, thank you for this.

Regards

Sandor

Hi,

Doyou have some news for this update ? I have the same problem than everybody in this discussion.

Thanks.

Hanna

Hi again,

I have an other question :

When you take a package, is it possible to start the package at the first class booking or for the customer to choose when the package starts ?
At the moment, when you take a package, it starts on the date you book the package.

Let's imagine a 5-class membership valid for 1 month: I buy the membership on June 1 and the next bookable class is on June 7: I lose 7 days of membership.

Asking customers to book on the same day so that their subscription starts on the day of the first lesson booked is a bit confusing and not very professional.

Thanks a lot, hope to be clear

Hanna