Contents
Coupons - Plugixa Car Rental
A coupon is a code a customer types when booking to get money off. It takes off either a percentage of the price or a fixed amount, and can be limited to a period, a number of uses and a shortest rental length.
Open Plugixa Car Rental, then Coupons in the Bookings group of the app’s sidebar.
Coupons is an app. It is on by default and can be switched off in the App manager. While it is off, neither the booking form nor the desk booking form asks for a code, and no code is applied.
The list
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Code | The code as you wrote it. |
| Discount | A percentage such as 10%, or an amount such as €30,00. |
| Valid | The dates it can be used, or “Always” when none are set. |
| Used | How many confirmed bookings have used it, as “3 / 100” when there is a usage limit. |
| Description | Your own note. |
| Status | On is Published, off is Unpublished. |
The search box is labelled “Search coupons…”.
Adding a coupon
Click Create.
| Field | Default | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Code | Required. “Customers can type it in any case.” Letters, digits, dashes and underscores only, up to 50 characters. Anything else is removed when you save. | |
| Discount | Percentage off | Percentage off or Amount off. |
| Amount | Required, more than zero. A percentage is at most 100: “A percentage discount is at most 100.” | |
| Usable from | A date. Empty to start at once. | |
| Usable until | A date. Empty to never end. It must be on or after Usable from: “The last day must be on or after the first.” | |
| Usage limit | 0 | “0 for no limit”. How many bookings may use the code in all. |
| Shortest rental (days) | 1 | The code only works for rentals of at least this many billable days. |
| Description | “For your own reference, e.g. “Summer newsletter”.” Customers do not see it. | |
| Status | Published | An Unpublished coupon is refused as if it did not exist. |
Codes are not case sensitive. WELCOME10, welcome10 and Welcome10 are the same code, so two coupons cannot be told apart by case alone: “Another coupon already uses this code.”
The dates are booking dates, not rental dates. Usable from and Usable until say on which days the code can be applied, on the site’s calendar. Both days are included. They do not look at when the rental itself takes place.
How the discount is calculated
| Discount | Amount taken off |
|---|---|
| Percentage off | Subtotal x percentage / 100, rounded to the currency’s decimals. |
| Amount off | The amount, but never more than the subtotal. |
The subtotal is every charge before the discount: the rental, any after-hours fee, extras, and with Pro any pricing rule PRO, young or senior driver surcharge PRO and delivery fee PRO. Tax PRO is worked out afterwards, on the discounted amount. The security deposit is not part of the price and is never discounted.
The discount is one line on the booking, labelled “Coupon” and the code, for example “Coupon WELCOME10”. A booking takes one coupon.
Example with WELCOME10 on a 4-day Peugeot 308 SW at 51 a day with a child seat:
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| Peugeot 308 SW, 4 days | 204.00 |
| Child seat | 32.00 |
| Subtotal | 236.00 |
| Coupon WELCOME10 | -23.60 |
| Total | 212.40 |
What the customer sees
The coupon field is on the Details step of the booking form, after the car is held. The customer clicks Have a coupon code?, types the code and presses Apply (or Enter). The booking is priced again on the server and the summary shows the discount line at once, with “Coupon WELCOME10 applied.” and a Remove link.
A code that does not apply is refused with a message under the field. The booking keeps its price without a discount.
| Reason | Message |
|---|---|
| No coupon has that code, or it is Unpublished or in the trash | “That coupon code is not valid.” |
| Usable from is still to come | “That coupon cannot be used yet.” |
| Usable until has passed | “That coupon has expired.” |
| The rental is shorter than Shortest rental (days) | “That coupon is for rentals of 7 days or more.” |
| The Usage limit has been reached | “That coupon has been fully used.” |
An unpublished coupon gets the same answer as an unknown one, so a visitor cannot find out that it exists.
Applying a code is limited to 20 requests an hour from one visitor, so nobody can sit and guess codes.
On a desk booking
The New booking form in the admin has a Coupon code field: “A code that does not apply is ignored; check the charges after saving.” The booking is saved at the full price when the code does not apply, so look at the charges on the booking afterwards. See Bookings.
How a code is checked
A code is checked each time the booking is priced, in this order. The first check that fails refuses the code.
| Order | Check |
|---|---|
| 1 | A coupon with that code exists, is not in the trash and is Published |
| 2 | Today is on or after Usable from |
| 3 | Today is on or before Usable until |
| 4 | The rental’s billable days are at least Shortest rental (days) |
| 5 | The coupon has been used fewer times than its Usage limit |
“Today” is the date on the site’s clock, in the WordPress timezone.
How usage is counted
A use is counted when a booking that carries the coupon is confirmed: by an offline payment choice such as Pay at pickup, by an online payment PRO, or by staff confirming it. A pending booking does not count yet.
When a confirmed booking is cancelled, its use is given back, so the code can be used once more. A booking that ends as a no-show keeps its use.
The Used column and the Usage limit both count these confirmed uses.
The limit is checked again at confirmation
Because a use counts only at confirmation, several customers can apply the last use of a code while their bookings are still pending. So the Usage limit is checked twice: when the code is applied, and again when the booking is confirmed. If the code was used up in between, the confirmation is refused with “That coupon has been fully used since it was applied. Remove it to book at the full price.” On the booking form the message shows under the coupon box. The customer removes the code and books at the full price. The same refusal stops staff confirming such a booking.
A booking that has already been paid is the exception. When an online payment PRO (or money you recorded at the desk) arrives for a booking whose code ran out meanwhile, the booking is confirmed at the price that was paid: the customer keeps the discount, and the code ends up used once more than its limit.
Only the usage limit is checked again. A code whose Usable until date passed while the customer was typing their name still gives its discount: the customer was quoted that price.
Two bookings confirmed in the very same second can both take the last use, so a code can go one use over its limit. This is on purpose: a coupon is a promotion, and a lock on every checkout would cost more than one extra use.
Status, trash and restore
Set a coupon to Unpublished to stop it at once without losing its count. Deleting a coupon moves it to the trash, which also stops it.
A trashed coupon does not hold on to its code: you can create a new coupon with the same code. The trashed one can then not be restored: “Another coupon now uses this code.”
Bookings that already have a coupon keep their discount whatever happens to the coupon afterwards, with one exception: a pending booking cannot be confirmed once the code’s Usage limit is used up. See The limit is checked again at confirmation.