Guests can pay for any of your activities with a gift card from your business. They type the code when they book on your booking page, or your team takes the card on a new booking or with Take a payment. The card pays as much of the booking as it can. What is left stays on the card for next time.

The gift card code

  • Each card has a code of 16 letters and digits in four groups, like GMVN-LU6R-WCSZ-MY3D. Codes have no 0, 1, I or O, so nothing gets mixed up.
  • The code works in capitals or small letters, with or without dashes and spaces.
  • Guests find it on their gift card's page and in the gift card email, with a QR code your team can scan.
  • A card works only at the business that sold it, for any of its activities, until its last day or until nothing is left.

How guests pay with a gift card online

  1. On your booking page, guests choose an activity, a time and their tickets as usual.
  2. On Your details, they select Have a gift card?, type the code in Gift card code and select Apply.
  3. They see what is left on the card. Their summary shows a "Gift card ending" line, with the last four characters of the code and the amount the card pays.
  4. They pay the rest as usual: online, or on the day when the activity allows it.

When the card pays for all of it, guests see "Your gift card pays for all of it." The booking is confirmed at once, with no payment page.

  • When you pass TicketPa's fee on to guests, the booking fee is only on the part paid online, never on the card's part. See Online payment fees explained.
  • The card's part is taken off the card when the places are held. If the guest doesn't finish paying in time, it goes back on the card.
  • Remove takes the card off the booking before the guest confirms.

Steps to take a gift card on a new booking

  1. Select New booking and fill in the booking as usual. See Add a booking for a guest.
  2. Under Gift card, type the code in Gift card code and select Check. It shows what is left on the card.
  3. Select Add booking.

The card pays as much of the booking as it can, and the rest is paid on arrival. The Gift card section shows while your business has a gift card that can pay.

Steps to take a gift card as payment

The Owner, Managers and Hosts can take a gift card on a booking, or at check-in from the guest list or after scanning a ticket.

  1. Select Take a payment on the booking, Take payment next to the guest on the guest list, or Take and the amount after scanning their ticket.
  2. Under How the guest paid, choose Gift card.
  3. Type the code in Gift card code and select Check. Or select Scan the gift card and hold the card's QR code up to the camera.
  4. Checking the card fills in the Amount with what it can pay. Enter less to take only part of it.
  5. Select Record payment.

See Take a payment in person.

When a gift card can't pay

TicketPa says why when a card can't pay. That happens when the card:

  • is past its last day,
  • was ended by your team,
  • has nothing left on it,
  • belongs to another business,
  • is still waiting for its payment.

Where a gift card payment shows

  • On the guest's ticket and in their ticket email, as "Paid with gift card".
  • In your team's email about a new booking, as "Paid with gift card".
  • On the booking, under Tickets and payment, as "Gift card ending 2WRD", with the last four characters of the code.
  • On Bookings, where you choose Paid with gift card in the Any payment filter to see the bookings a gift card helped pay for. See Find bookings.
  • In the bookings CSV, in the Paid with gift card column after Paid.
  • In Reports, which say how much of Collected was paid with gift cards. See Read your reports.
  • On the card's own page in Gift cards, under History.

Cancellations and refunds

When money goes back on a booking that a gift card helped pay for, the card gets its share back at once, in proportion and rounded down. For example, if a card paid 60 of a 100 booking and you refund half, 30 goes back on the card. The rest goes back the usual way: to the guest's online payment, or you give it back in person.

It works the same way when:

  • your team cancels the booking,
  • the guest cancels under the activity's cancellation policy,
  • you cancel the time slot,
  • you give money back with Refund on the booking,
  • the booking moves to a cheaper time.

The guest's cancellation email says how much went back on their gift card. A refund that only goes back on the card sends the guest a short email that says so. See Cancel a booking and Refund a booking.

A card that ended or is past its last day

  • A card your team ended takes nothing back. Its share is yours to give back to the guest another way. The cancel and refund windows say so, and so does the guest's email.
  • A card past its last day that gets money back works for 30 more days from then, so the guest can still use it.

Good to know

  • What a booking doesn't use stays on the card, for the guest's next booking.
  • TicketPa takes no fee when a gift card pays for a booking. Its fee was taken when the card sold.
  • Hosts don't see Gift cards in the sidebar, but they can take a gift card with Take payment at check-in.