Guide
Ticket transfers and face-value resale, built in
By David Neal ·
Most of what you get asked after tickets go on sale is the same handful of questions. Can I give this to someone else? Can I come on Saturday instead? I can’t come any more — can I get my money back? It’s sold out — is there any chance of a return? On frequentix each of those is a button on the buyer’s own order page, bounded by rules you set — and every one a buyer answers for themselves is a support message you never receive. This guide is what each button does, and what stays in your hands.
Pass it on to a named person
The commonest ask first: a buyer wants to hand a ticket to a friend. Switch transfers on for the event — with a cutoff you choose — and they do it from their order page: they name the recipient, who accepts from a link we email, with 48 hours to claim it by default. Until the recipient accepts, nothing has moved, and the ticket goes on admitting its current holder.
When they do accept, ownership genuinely changes hands. The recipient ends up with their own order — nothing to pay — the ticket reissued in their name, with their own wallet passes. The old QR code stops working everywhere, offline scanners included, so a kept screenshot admits nobody. You see every offer on the event’s Exchange page and can withdraw a pending one on the holder’s behalf.
Transfers are on Starter and above.
Moved to another night, by the buyer
On a run — a week of performances, a term of classes — the commonest change of plan isn’t “I can’t come” but “can I come Saturday instead?” Switch date swaps on for the event and the buyer answers it themselves: from their order page they pick the night they’d rather have, and as long as it has a place left, the move is done on the spot. Same ticket type, same order, nothing to pay. The old ticket is retired and a fresh one issued for the new night with a new QR code — wallet passes update by themselves — the place they gave up is offered to that night’s waitlist, and they get an email saying so. On a seated house they choose their seat on the new night as part of the move.
Your numbers follow the ticket: each night’s report shows it, and its takings, where it now is, and the order total never changes. The Exchange cutoff bounds it, measured against the night the ticket is leaving — with one exception. If you’ve had to cancel a night, holders can move off it however late it is, and you can move any holder’s ticket yourself from the order page. That is the missing half of cancelling a date: not a refund, a different night.
Date swaps are on Starter and above.
Sold back at exactly what they paid
When the event is sold out, the buyer who can’t come has a better option than a quiet deal on social media: they list the ticket for resale. There is no price field. A listing is fixed at exactly what the seller paid — after any discount, tax included — and it is offered to your waitlist in order, never posted to an open market. A tout has nothing to mark up and no audience to mark it up to — and it keeps you on the right side of where UK resale legislation is heading.
The person at the front of the queue pays that face value plus your usual booking fee, exactly as if they’d caught the on-sale. Once the sale settles, the seller is refunded the face value to their original card, and the QR rotates on the way through, so the ticket in the new buyer’s hand is theirs alone. Seller changed their mind? Taking a listing down costs nothing, any time before it sells.
Face-value resale is on Pro and above.
The waitlist buys the freed place
Resale works because the queue is already standing. When a ticket type sells out, buyers join a waitlist instead of hitting a dead end — and a freed place, however it frees (a lapsed checkout, a refund, a buyer’s own cancellation, a ticket listed for resale, a cap you raise), is offered to the next person in line, held just for them with a time-limited claim link. Waitlists come with Starter: there you release freed places when you choose, and on Pro the offers go out automatically, so a Saturday-night return finds its buyer while you’re running the show.
On a multi-date run, each night queues on its own — a place freed on Friday is offered to the people who wanted Friday.
Buyers cancel themselves, to your rules
Most refund email is somebody telling you they can no longer come. Turn on cancellations for the event and they help themselves instead — under terms that are yours three ways:
- When it closes. Cancelling shuts a set time before each date starts — or stays open right up to the doors, if that’s your policy.
- A cool-off, if you want one. Allow cancelling only within so many hours of buying. The two windows are independent, and both have to be open.
- A fee you keep. A percentage of the ticket value, a fixed amount, or both — and the fixed part is charged once per cancellation, not per ticket, so a family of four isn’t penalised four times for one change of plan.
Buyers pick the individual tickets or extras they’re returning and see exactly what will come back — including anything you keep — before they confirm. They get the ticket price back, never the booking fee. The place returns to stock, your waitlist is offered it, and a settled cancellation raises a credit note like any other refund. Turning it off stops new cancellations at once — and issuing refunds yourself works as it always has, on every plan.
Buyer cancellation is on Starter and above.
The invoice is already there
The third question — where’s my invoice — answers itself before it’s asked. Every confirmed order carries a numbered document: a full VAT invoice where you’re VAT-registered, a plain receipt where you’re not. It lives at the same private link as the tickets, and “find my order” re-sends that link to anyone who lost the email. Nothing is ever edited after issue — a correction cancels the document and issues a fresh one, and a refund or cancellation raises a credit note that matches the original exactly. Your accountant gets numbering without gaps; your buyer gets an invoice a screen reader can actually read.
Receipts are on every plan; VAT invoices on Starter and above.
Every movement, on the record
None of this happens behind your back. Transfers and resale are switches on the event’s Exchange page, off until you say otherwise, each behind the cutoff you set. The same page logs every transfer offer and every listing — who sent it, who’s receiving, where it stands — and you can cancel any of them. The edge cases are checked for you, too: a ticket that needs your approval to buy, one already scanned in, a cash sale listed for resale — buyers are only ever shown the actions that would succeed.
And a transfer or resale never touches your numbers. The sold seat changes hands without going back on sale, so revenue and ticket counts stay put, and the second-hand activity is reported in its own section. When your accountant wants the lot, the ledger of invoices, receipts and credit notes filters and exports to CSV.
One payment, one place it can go back
One rule keeps the money story simple, and it’s worth knowing before a buyer asks: a ticket received through Exchange — accepted as a transfer, or bought from another buyer — can’t be refunded or cancelled afterwards, because the money that paid for it is somebody else’s.
The same one-way door covers a ticket that’s already been scanned in, or is mid-transfer or currently listed: while a ticket is in motion, it can’t also be cancelled.
The honest half
Two edges, plainly. A date swap is a move, not an upgrade: the buyer keeps the same ticket type, because a move between price bands would mean money changing hands, and it doesn’t. If someone holding Stalls wants Dress Circle on Saturday, cancelling and rebooking is still the route.
Resale is built for sold-out events. A listing is offered to your waitlist, so if nobody is queueing, there’s nobody to offer it to — while tickets are still on open sale, transfers and cancellation are the tools, and nobody needs to buy second-hand what your event page still sells first-hand.
And the plan boundaries in one line: transfers, date swaps, buyer cancellation and VAT invoices come with Starter; face-value resale comes with Pro; receipts are on every plan.
Where to start
Everything above lives on the event’s Exchange tab: three switches, a cutoff, and your cancellation terms. Switch transfers on for your next event and the first “can I give this to someone else?” answers itself; switch date swaps on for a run and so does “can I come Saturday instead?”; add resale when a show sells out, and the waitlist starts doing the reselling for you. frequentix Exchange is the short version to send a colleague; the after-the-sale tour shows each flow from the buyer’s side, and the help centre’s orders, tickets and refunds article walks your team through the console side.
Try frequentix free — publish your first event today, and let the after-sale answer itself.