Promotions allow you to manage rules and validity periods for your deals giving you increased control over how you apply discounts. Promotions can be applied online via our E-commerce platform for selling reservations, retail, admission or events, or applied to reservations in the Booking screen or at Point of sale. Only one promotion can be applied per transaction.


TABLE OF CONTENTS


Prerequisite for using promotions

Promotions can be used in conjunction with your reservation and retail products. To apply promotions, you must have the default promotion price option and/or discount set up in your system as follows:


To set up promotions for reservation products:

  1. Open the Price option screen.
  2. Add a new discount option type called "Promotion" with the option code set to Promotion and the list order set to 2000 (or higher).
  3. Save your changes and close the screen. You do not need to set up any pricing for this option in the Seasonal pricing screen.


To set up promotions for retail:

  1. Open the Discounts screen under the Point of sale menu.
  2. Add a new discount item called "Promotion".
  3. Leave the discount type as Sale, and behaviour as Fixed.
  4. Save your changes and close the screen.


Set up a promotion

The following instructions explain how to configure promotions for reservations.


Please Note: If you want to change a promotion after it has been used, set up a new one instead. This will avoid any issues with the current promotion and ensure all reporting shows the correct details. 

  1. Open the Promotions screen, then click Add.
  2. Fill out the required details, then click Save: 
    • Promo name (max 50 characters) - the name of the promotion. This shows on the Booking screen and on the E-Commerce site.
    • Promo code (max 20 characters) - unique code users can enter into a promo code field to apply the discount.  IMPORTANT: ensure code has not been used for a previous promotion which is now inactive.
    • Promo type - choose from the list available:

      TypeDescriptionApplies to
      PercentageApplies a % discount at the value specified in the Rate field. For retail, this must be used in conjunction with the PLU code range field.All item types
      Per personApplies a $ discount per person at the value specified in the Rate field.Reservations only
      Per bookingApplies a $ discount per booking at the value specified in the Rate field.Reservations only
      Per item 

      Applies a $ or % discount per item at the value specified per price option in the valid item field (note the Rate field must be set to 0 in this case). When used, a single discount line will be added to the booking to bring the price to the correct value. E.g.

      • ADULT=10 The price will be set to $10

      • ADULT-10 The price will be discounted by $10 (note the - symbol is used)

      • ADULT=0 The price will be $0 for this option.

      • Multiple options can also be set up, e.g. ADULT=10, CHILD=5.

      • Adult=30%, in this case, the percentage amount is removed from the value of the item. E.g if the value of the item is $195, and the promotion is 30% then the discount is $58.50

      		Reservations

      Per itemApplies a $ discount per item at the value specified in the Rate field for gift vouchers and/or retail items specified in the PLU code range field.Retail, Events


    • Rate - the value of the promotion. Defaults to % or $ based on the promotion type selected.
    • Promo description - explains the rules around the discount to the user. This must be configured if you are using your promotions on your E-Commerce website as these will display to your customers.
    • Auto apply - see the relevant section.

  3. After the promotion is added, you can add additional restrictions and features as follows:

    • Reporting group - Group your discounts for ease of reporting.
    • Active - enabled by default, un-tick to disable the promotion.


Constraints

  • Valid Products  - add a comma-separated list of product codes eligible for the promotion. If none are entered, the promo is valid for all products.
  • Valid Items  - add a comma-separated list of price option codes eligible for the promotion. If none are entered, the promo is valid for all price options.

    Example:
  • PLU code range - a list of PLU codes that can be discounted. Required for all admission, retail or gift voucher items sold via the E-Commerce platform.

    Example:

    To save time setting up constraints, use the fill down feature on the grid to copy and paste constraints across other similar promotions.


Valid dates and times

  • Sale start date - the sale validity period start date for this promotion (e.g. purchase by the end of May to get a discount on travel in June).
  • Sale end date - sale period end date
  • Product start date - the travel validity period (e.g. this promotion only applies when the booking travel date is within this date range)
  • Product end date - the travel validity period end date
  • Time of day range - a list of time ranges that the promotion is valid for
  • Days of week - a list of weekdays that the promotion is valid for
  • Forward booking days -the number of days before travel a customer must book to receive a discount.


Min/max and usage restrictions 

  • Max discount - the maximum value the discount can be for the entire booking (e.g. Receive up to $50 off your booking). Do not use this to cap a promotion per person! 
  • Min places - the minimum number of pax required to allow this discount (e.g. book 10 people to receive a group discount). Only works with per-person or percentage promotion types. 
  • Maximum places - the maximum number of pax within a booking to receive a discount (e.g. 1 person is discounted and subsequent people are charged at full value). Only works with per-person or percentage promotion types.
  • Valid use count - the maximum number of times a discount can be applied (e.g. the first 5 bookings will receive this discount).
  • Requires voucher- this promotion can only be applied if used with a series promotion voucher at Point of sale.


Auto-apply promotions for reservations

If you do not want your customers to have the hassle of entering a promotion code on your E-Commerce website to get the best available deal, you can configure your system to Auto-apply the best promotion available. 


If the System setting to show Dynamic promotions on your E-Commerce website is also enabled, this will automatically apply the promotion in the cart so customers do not have to enter a promo code. 


Note: If you use Agent Portal and you add 'auto-apply' to a promotion, these will also be seen by agents using Agent Portal.  


Auto apply promotions will not work for hire, appointment, retail, events or transport products at this time.




Apply or unapply a promotion for reservation products on the Booking screen

Promotions can be used in conjunction with your reservation products and applied in the IBIS Booking screen for your reservation products.

  1. Create and save your booking in IBIS as normal.
  2. Click the Functions button in the bottom left of the Booking screen, then select Apply promotion
  3. The Promotions screen will open displaying all eligible deals for the product (to view all promos the product is eligible for but not currently meeting the criteria, tick show zero value promotions).
  4. Click the discount value (blue link) to apply the promotion to the booking.

    Apply a promotion from the booking screen

  5. The promotion will show as a new option line within the booking.



  6. If you wish to remove or change the promotion after it is applied, re-open the Promotions screen and click Remove promotion.


Apply promotions for retail, admission, and event items

Promotions can be used in conjunction with any POS items (including admissions, events, retail, and non-stock items). To apply a promotion to your POS item, you must have the default promotion discount set up in your system.


  1. To apply a promotion in Point of sale, add the item to your POS transaction as usual.
  2. Click the Apply promotion button (you may need to add this function to your POS button menu if it is not there).
  3. Enter or scan the promo code and click OK.



    If you are scanning a series promotion voucher, you can enable the "requires voucher" setting in the Promotions screen so that promos can only be utilised if a voucher is presented.

  4. You can now see the discount applied.



  5. To remove a promotion, use the Clear discount button in the right-hand POS menu.

    If you apply another promotion that applies to the same item, the promotion will replace the first promotion applied. 


Series promotions and promo vouchers

A series promotion enables you to generate a set of single-use vouchers/codes that are linked to a promotion. This allows you to have a more secure method of handing out promos to customers and tracking their usage.


If desired, you can create a printable voucher template for the series voucher codes up to A4 size, or more commonly, you can import the codes to Mail Chimp to deliver in a campaign. When you generate a series of promo vouchers, it's possible to associate them with an account and you can report on redeemed vouchers to track usage.

Redeeming series promotions
Series promotions can be scanned/redeemed for retail at POS OR redeemed online through E-Commerce against activity products or retail.


To set up series promotions follow these steps: 

  1. Ensure the promotion you would like to generate a series for is set up in the Promotions screen. Your promotion must have the setting 'use voucher' enabled. 
  2. Next, open the Promotion Series screen and click Add, filling out the details as follows: 
    1. Select the Account you want to associate with the promotion (optional)
    2. Choose your promotion from the droplist
    3. Enter a voucher caption (this is only necessary if you will print a voucher template)
    4. Specify the validity days (e.g. 180) for the voucher.


  3. Once the series promotion is set up, select Make series. 
  4. Enter the number of vouchers to generate, then click the Make series button.


  5. Once the series is generated, you will see a link appear underneath the series promo item. Click this to Print the voucher series. It will open as a printable PDF file.


Report on series promotions usage

To export a list of series promotion codes, open the Redeemed promotions report under the POS sales reports menu.  Add the voucher code field to the report, then export it to your desired format. Unredeemed promotions codes will display a 0 in the redeemed column. Not sure how to add fields to your reports? Learn how to use IBIS reports here.


Are looking for a way to import promo codes into MailChimp? You can do this for one-off campaigns by generating a series of promotion codes!


You can embed a promotion into a link in order for the promotion to be applied automatically to the cart. This only works for reservations. Append /Reservation/?promotion=promo10 to your link, where "promo10" is the promotion code. E.g. https://demo.ibisnz.com/Reservation?promotion=promo10. To add more parameters such as linking to a specific product or date, please see the article on Book Now Links.


Report on promotions for POS items

To produce a promotions report use the Point of sale discounts report found under the POS menu. You'll want to add a couple of filters to create the report you need. The Discount name is always "Promotion" and you'll find the actual promotion name in the Discount note, so ensure this is visible in your report view.


 See the example below:

FAQ's

What if a promotion should only be applied to some people in a booking? 

Promotions are calculated across all units within a booking at the time the promotion is applied (assuming there are no restrictions on places for this promotion already). If you only want to give a promotion to some members in a group booking, we recommend you split the booking so you can apply the promotion to a new booking with the correct number of pax. Alternatively, you can save your booking with only the pax you want to apply a promotion to first, then apply the promotion, and edit the booking again to add the additional pax. The promotion will not recalculate on the additional pax unless you remove and reapply the promotion.


I want to discount multiple items at different rates, e.g. a School group gets 20% off Adult and Child rates but only 10% off add-ons such as photo and video. How can I manage this?

You cannot apply more than one promotion at a time to a booking, however, you can configure a standard discount price option to achieve the result you are after. We recommend your price options are grouped into separate components (i.e. a multi-component product) to ensure that you do not discount items unintentionally using the price option discount type since it will just take the % off all items in the component that are discountable.

I'm trying to apply a promotion but I keep getting an error message that says 'A server-side error has occurred - Could not find 'Promotion' in PriceOption table. Occurred in function First'. 

Either the price option Promotion has not been set up or it has been set up incorrectly. Check the setup and spelling of the promotion price option.


I've just created a new promotion but it's not working when I try it. 

Check the results when you Show zero value/invalid promotions to see why a promotion is not valid. If it's valid, but not working on the E-Commerce site, ensure you are typing the promo code correctly.