Pay for an order with house credit
Settle a checkout from your balance instead of a card, and see which pot it comes from.
Owned by Member · 8 steps · about 12 minutes
Why this exists
House credit is a real liability of the venue to you, held on a double-entry ledger, not a loyalty-points balance. That is why paying with it looks nothing like a discount code: it posts a balanced transaction that moves the amount out of the venue's obligation to you and into revenue and tax liability, in one step, with no card involved.
Your purchasing power is deliberately three separate pots spent in a fixed order: prepaid credit you paid in, then earned credit from resale, then — for VIPs only — headroom on the tab, which is money you have not paid at all. The order is not configurable. It exists so the tab is always the last resort and never quietly used while you have real money sitting there.
The rule that catches everyone is that there is no partial settlement. If the total is one cent more than everything you can bring, the payment is refused outright rather than half-paying and asking for a card for the rest. A half-paid order is a support ticket forever; a refused one is a top-up and a retry.
One consequence worth knowing before you buy: refunding an order that was paid with credit returns the money to credit. For a credit-paid order, "refund to the original method" IS house credit — there is no path back to a card that never got charged.
Before you start
- A member session with some house credit (top it up first if you have none).
- An unpaid order sitting on its hold.
Practise with
| Persona | Password | Note | |
|---|---|---|---|
| member | alice.credit@demo.club | alice-pass-123 | seeded with $150 of prepaid credit and nothing else — the cleanest demo |
| vip_member | vip@club.test | vip123 | $250 tab limit with $80 already used, so the tab path is visible |
| admin | admin@club.test | admin123 | reads the resulting ledger transaction |
Steps 1–4 — Member
their manual →-
1Check what you can actually spend before you start.Expected result Prepaid, earned and (if you are VIP) the tab, plus a single purchasing-power figure.Watch out for Purchasing power is not money you have. For a VIP it includes tab headroom, which is money you will owe.
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2On the payment page, choose the House credit option instead of Card.Expected result The card fields disappear and the available balance is shown next to the option.Watch out for House credit needs no card token. If the form still asks you for one, you have not actually changed the selected method.
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3Pay. Send the method as house credit and no token.Expected result One balanced ledger transaction, the hold committed into sold inventory, and your tickets issued.Watch out for A 402 insufficient credit means nothing was posted and nothing was spent — the order is untouched and still on its hold, so top up quickly and retry before the timer runs out.
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4Read the movement on your statement and identify which pot it came out of.Expected result A debit against promo first if you hold any, then prepaid; earned only once both have run out.Watch out for You cannot choose the pot, and the order is promo → prepaid → earned → tab. If you were saving earned credit for a cash-out, spending it here is exactly what the platform will do once promo and prepaid are empty.
Steps 5–6 — VIP Member
their manual →The only persona whose tab headroom can absorb what prepaid and earned cannot.
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5As a VIP, read the balance payload and find the tab block: limit, used, headroom and status.Expected result Three pots plus the tab, and a purchasing power that includes the headroom.Watch out for A frozen tab contributes zero headroom no matter what the limit says. Freezing is a credit decision — the balance you already owe does not go away.
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6Pay an order bigger than your prepaid and earned balances combined.Expected result Prepaid is consumed, then earned, and only the remainder lands on the tab.Watch out for This is a VIP-only path. A plain member with no tab simply gets the 402 at the point prepaid and earned run out — there is no borrowing without a tab, and VIP status alone does not create one. An admin has to set the limit.
Steps 7–8 — Admin
their manual →Confirms the posting balances and can see the member's balances from the staff side.
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7As an admin, open that member's credit page and read the same balances from the staff side.Expected result Their pots, their tab and an adjustment composer.Watch out for This page is admin-only. A venue manager gets a 403 on every ledger surface, deliberately — running the calendar and moving money are different jobs.
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8Find the transaction the payment posted and check the two sides.Expected result Debits equal credits, with the member's house-credit liability on one side and revenue plus tax on the other.Watch out for Try to edit it. The database refuses — the append-only triggers fire even from the admin data suite. Corrections are new balanced entries, never edits.