Session cards

Sell prepaid packages of play, from ten-session punch cards and twenty-hour bundles to free trial weeks and unlimited seasonal cards, with fine-grained usage rules.

A session card is a prepaid package that a customer buys once and draws down over time. It is the digital equivalent of a punch card or a bundle of hours, and it is one of the most flexible products in Thril. The same underlying tool produces a classic ten-session card, a twenty-hour coaching package, a free trial week, a weekday-mornings-only card, and an unlimited summer pass. The difference between all of these is configuration, not different products.

This page focuses on the kinds of cards you can build and the rules that shape them.

A session card is not spent automatically. When a customer books an activity the card covers, such as a court reservation or an event, they choose to pay with the card at checkout, and only then is the matching amount deducted from the balance.

How usage is measured: count or time

The quota type decides how a card's balance is counted, and it is the first thing to choose.

Count. The card holds a number of sessions, and each use spends one. This is the classic "ten times" card. A 10-session card lets the customer make ten covered bookings, after which it is empty.
Time (duration-based). The card holds a total amount of time, and each use spends the length of that booking. A 20-hour card covers bookings until twenty hours have been used up, whether that is twenty one-hour sessions or ten two-hour sessions. Time-based cards accept fractional hours.

Count cards can be applied to reservations, events, and service bookings. Time-based cards cannot be applied to events, because events have a fixed length that does not fit duration accounting.

How much the card holds: capped or unlimited

Set a maximum (sessions for count cards, hours for time cards) to cap the balance. Alternatively, tick No usage limit to remove the cap entirely, so the card can be used any number of times while it is valid. An unlimited card is how you create something like an all-you-can-play summer pass.

Unlimited cards are recommended only for short validity periods. Pair No usage limit with Restrict benefits to validity period so the open-ended usage cannot outlive the window you intended.

How long the card lasts

Validity is what separates a true prepaid package from an open tab, and it comes down to three settings that work together.

Validity in days. How long the card stays usable. For example, 365 means the card expires a year after it becomes valid. Leave it empty for a card that never expires.
Validity starts from first use. By default the countdown starts at purchase. Enable this and the countdown instead starts when the customer first uses the card. This is ideal for advance sales and gifts, where you do not want the clock running before the customer actually starts playing.
Restrict benefits to validity period. When enabled, any reservation or event paid with the card must start within the validity window. When disabled, the card only needs to be valid at the moment it is used, so a customer could book a session far in the future as long as the card is currently active.

Where the card can be used

A card can apply to any combination of reservations, events, and service bookings. For reservations, the card becomes available to the customer wherever it fits your restrictions, and they pick it as their payment method when they book. For events, a card is offered only if that event explicitly lists it, so marking a card as applicable to events makes it selectable on events rather than offered everywhere.

You then narrow where a card may be spent with restrictions. Leave them empty to allow everything. The available dimensions are:

Sports (for example padel or badminton only)
Specific resources or courts
Days of the week (for example weekdays only)
Time slots (for example mornings only, and you can add several ranges)
Reservation durations (for example only 60-minute bookings)
Date range (a fixed window during which the card is usable)

Restrictions are what let one card target a specific behaviour: a morning card to fill quiet hours, a single-sport card to promote a new activity, or a weekday card that keeps weekends open for walk-ins.

Limiting purchases for promotions

Enable Allow only one purchase per customer and a customer can buy the card just once. This applies to customer purchases in the shop; staff actions in the portal are not restricted, and customers who already own the card will not see it for sale again.

This single setting turns a session card into a promotion. A one-session card valid for seven days, limited to one per customer, is a free or low-cost trial week. An introductory bundle limited to one per customer stops bargain hunters from stocking up at the promotional price.

Example session card configurations

Ten-session padel card

Quota: count, maximum 10
Validity: 365 days
Restrictions: sport limited to padel
Good for: regular padel players who want a better per-game price

Twenty-hour coaching package

Quota: time, maximum 20 hours
Validity: 180 days, validity starts from first use
Good for: customers buying a block of court or coaching time to use at their own pace

Free trial week

Quota: count, maximum 1 (or unlimited for a true all-week trial)
Validity: 7 days, validity starts from first use, restrict benefits to validity period
Allow only one purchase per customer: on
Good for: converting newcomers with a low-risk first visit

Weekday morning card

Quota: count, maximum 10
Restrictions: days limited to Monday to Friday, time slot limited to mornings
Good for: filling off-peak hours at an attractive price

Unlimited summer card

Quota: no usage limit
Validity: short fixed window (for example 1 June to 31 August), restrict benefits to validity period
Good for: a seasonal all-you-can-play pass with a hard end date

Pricing, availability, and reach

Set the card's price (including VAT) and its tax percentage. Just make sure the tax rate matches the things the card pays for, such as reservations or events, so your bookkeeping stays tidy. You can also attach applicable discounts from discount groups, memberships, external memberships, or promo codes so that, for example, members buy the card at a reduced price.

Only active cards appear for sale. A card can also be made company-global so it is available across every venue in your company rather than a single venue. Already-purchased cards remain usable by their owners even if you later deactivate or delete the card.

Tracking and correcting usage

Each card's Purchases tab lists who bought it, how much they have used (for example "3 / 10 used"), and when they bought it. From a customer's profile you can open the card's individual usages to see every entry: what it was applied to, how much quota it consumed, when it was recorded, and whether it was automatic or added manually.

If a booking is cancelled, the related usage can be voided so the quota returns to the customer for reuse. If a usage was voided but should still count, reactivate it to deduct the session from the balance again. This gives you a clean way to handle cancellations and corrections without deleting the card or its history.

On this page