User Upgraded Himself (Again?)

[Divinum Fiat]

I have several paid and unpaid levels of memberships. One member was already upgraded (as a gift) and he just upgraded himself to a "lower level" and made a monthly payment. In other words, I gave him level 4 access free of charge and he decided to upgrade himself to level 3 by making a monthly payment. How does this happen in the system?

Second question, if let's say level 2 is now $5 a month and I decide to increase the cost to $7 per month, how will this affect the current members in that level, i.e. how will it affect their monthly fee? I want them to be "grandfathered" into the original fee, not the new fee.

 

[Jake Bunce]

I have several paid and unpaid levels of memberships. One member was already upgraded (as a gift) and he just upgraded himself to a "lower level" and made a monthly payment. In other words, I gave him level 4 access free of charge and he decided to upgrade himself to level 3 by making a monthly payment. How does this happen in the system?

Need more information.

Is it a problem that he upgraded himself? Do you have tiers of upgrades setup where lower tiers should become disabled? When manually upgrading a user be sure to do it through the upgrade system (as opposed to manually editing their profile).

Admin CP -> Users -> List User Upgrades -> Controls: Manually Upgrade User

Second question, if let's say level 2 is now $5 a month and I decide to increase the cost to $7 per month, how will this affect the current members in that level, i.e. how will it affect their monthly fee? I want them to be "grandfathered" into the original fee, not the new fee.

I looked at the code. Existing recurring payments at the old price should still work. The code uses the payment amount from the existing upgrade record in verifying recurring payments.

 

[Divinum Fiat]

Good to know about the payments. As far as manually upgrading their profile, yes, that is what I have done right from within their profile. I simply clicked the drop down menu, assigned their new tier and then checked the levels below to which they have access to. But I have noticed that when I want to send an email to just some of these tiers and I try to find out how many are in these tiers, the system doesn't give me the right number or it tells me that it could not find any records. So now to fix that, do I just go into the Controls: Manually Upgrade User and change their tiers there? If so, do I manually revert back to their original tiers?

 

[Jake Bunce]

So now to fix that, do I just go into the Controls: Manually Upgrade User and change their tiers there?

Yes. Though it might be necessary to first remove the user from that group (which you manually added by editing their profile) before processing them through the upgrade system. That might affect whether or not the group is removed upon expiration. You should test it.

 

[Divinum Fiat]

Jake, I just want to verify this. You state: "Existing recurring payments at the old price should still work. The code uses the payment amount from the existing upgrade record in verifying recurring payments." What does "existing record" mean? That particular level will no longer exist, i.e., the price will have changed. Won't that change the record and therefore the amount?

 

[Jake Bunce]

Jake, I just want to verify this. You state: "Existing recurring payments at the old price should still work. The code uses the payment amount from the existing upgrade record in verifying recurring payments." What does "existing record" mean? That particular level will no longer exist, i.e., the price will have changed. Won't that change the record and therefore the amount?

There is a separate record in the db that is created when a user buys an upgrade. It contains the price that the user paid.

 

[Divinum Fiat]

Jake, I'm having some trouble here. When I go to Controls: Manually Upgrade User I failed to remove the expiration date as I want to make it permanent. How does the membership level renew after the expiration date? Some of these members are permanently upgraded free of charge. Now I'm trying to amend the record and it won't let me. The only option it gives me is to downgrade the member, which I don't want to do.

 

[Divinum Fiat]

Okay, I figured out that I first need to downgrade them and then re-upgrade them and remove the end date. However, when I then go into "view upgrade users" there is an end date again, which is 30 days out. This level is set to renew every month. Since they have been gifted this level and no payment is coming in from these particular members, what will happen at the end of February when the membership runs out?