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Time DateSystem Updates
Update 1314
7 October 2025

Refunding Vouchers and Gift Cards

Hello

The tools for refunding Gift Cards and Vouchers have been improved.

First, some definitions:

- The refund process has always been made of two parts: 1. Adjust the order (or create a new negative one) and 2. refund the difference. Eg if a person has ordered 2 of an item, and now won't be having those items or has brought them back, the quantity can be reduced to 1 or 0, the order will then show as over-paid, and the difference can be refunded.

(Note for full clarity, reducing the quantity to zero should only be used if the service/product hasn't been supplied. If it has been supplied but you have decided to give a refund anyway, eg due to a bad experience, instead of reducing the quantity to zero the price should be reduced to zero (or whatever amount you decide). This ensures that the sales records still show that the item was sold, and just that zero pounds was taken for it in the end, rather than that the item wasn't sold at all.)


- A GIFT CARD is an order for an EVENT, without selecting a SESSION, eg a Sunday Lunch Gift Card, without selecting a date. The recipient of the gift uses the code on the Gift Card to select a session and obtain tickets, without paying. The sale is made at the point the Gift Card is purchased.


- A VOUCHER is a means by which a customer can pay an amount of money, and then they or someone else can use that voucher as a method of payment towards a future order. The sale is made at the point the Voucher is used in payment. A voucher can be part-used, or used in part-payment.


NEW:

Up to now, reducing the quantity of a Gift Card or Voucher to zero was blocked because the system had no way to ensure the voucher or gift card hadn't been used and wouldn't subsequently be used. We have now provided a 'Revoke' option to achieve this, and the rest has fallen in to place. If you browse to the customer's original order you'll see the '[Revoke]' link. Select which Gift Cards or Vouchers you wish to revoke (as there may have been more than one). This will ensure that the item hasn't been used before revoking, and that it can't subsequently be used. The order will show over-paid as normal and then the refund can be achieved as normal.

If a customer wants a SWAP (eg to swap a Sunday Lunch Gift Card for a Murder Mystery Gift Card, as the customer doesn't want a refund in cash, I recommend refunding to Voucher and then using the voucher to purchase the correct item. I hope that in the future we will be able to provide a more succinct way to swap products, but as you can see from the above it is always considerably more complicated than it might seem, especially when the risk for us is that if we make a mistake then the railway might suddenly lose several hundred pounds (eg if a gift card could be both used and refunded).

If anyone requires any more detail please let us know.

Thank you