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Refunds (for organizers) ​

When you refund an order, bagevent updates the order and its attendees, releases the right inventory, and sends the money back through Stripe to the attendee's original payment method. This page walks through how to do it and what happens behind the scenes.

Refunds go back through Stripe

bagevent doesn't hold your ticket money — your connected Stripe account does. A refund is submitted to Stripe, which returns it to the card the attendee paid with (bagevent tells you it can take 5–10 days to arrive). Stripe's refund fee policy and timing apply; check your Stripe dashboard for specifics. See Connecting Stripe.

Your refund policy ​

bagevent doesn't impose a refund window or fee — you decide your own policy (fully refundable, non-refundable, cutoff dates, restocking rules) and enforce it when you choose to issue a refund. Communicate your policy on your event page and in your confirmation emails so attendees know what to expect. Attendees can ask for a refund, but only you issue one — see Refund requests from attendees. (Attendees can read the general refund overview at Refunds for attendees.)

To show your policy during registration, open Tickets, scroll to Advanced ticketing settings and fill in Refund policy. You can also tick Require attendees to accept this policy when they register.

Refund requests from attendees ​

Refund requests are on by default. On a paid order, each ticket in the attendee's personal center has a Request refund button: the buyer can ask for any ticket on their order, an attendee for their own. A request moves no money — you decide.

  1. When a request arrives, everyone who manages orders and attendees for the event gets an email, and the attendee appears under Attendees → Refund requests.
  2. Open the attendee. Pending refund request shows their reason, if they gave one.
  3. Decide. When there is money to return, the request says how much approving gives back and the button reads Approve and refund followed by that amount. Untick Refund the money and it becomes Approve without refund. Reject refund turns the request down; you can add a note for the attendee.
  • Approve and refund — the ticket is cancelled and its seat released, and the amount shown goes back to the original payment method (through Stripe, for a card payment). If the order was paid offline, no money moves through bagevent: the refund is recorded and you pay the buyer back yourself. The attendee is emailed.
  • Approve without refund — the ticket is cancelled and its seat released, and nothing is paid back. The requester is told so by email. This is also the only choice when there is no payment to return for the ticket.
  • Reject refund — the ticket stays valid, and whoever asked is emailed your decision, with your note.

To turn requests off for an event, open Tickets → Advanced ticketing settings and switch Allow ticket refunds to Off. You can still issue refunds yourself.

What you can refund ​

  • Only paid or confirmed orders can be refunded. Unpaid or already-cancelled orders can't (you'll see ORDER_NOT_PAID).
  • You can refund the full remaining balance or a partial amount.
  • You can never refund more than the remaining refundable balance (original total minus what's already been refunded). Over-refunding is blocked (REFUND_AMOUNT_EXCEEDS_BALANCE), and repeated partial refunds accumulate against that balance.

Issuing a refund ​

  1. Go to Orders and open the order you want to refund.
  2. Choose Refund. (The action shows only for paid orders with something left to refund.)
  3. In Refund order, optionally enter a Reason — this is recorded in the order's activity log.
  4. Leave Amount (optional) blank for a full refund, or enter a value for a partial refund (see below). The dialog shows how much is still refundable.
  5. Choose Confirm refund.

bagevent then submits the refund to Stripe and updates the order. If Stripe declines the refund, the whole operation is rolled back and you'll see PAYMENT_REFUND_FAILED — nothing is left half-done.

Full refund ​

A full refund (no amount specified, no specific attendees selected) cancels every attendee on the order, releases all of their ticket inventory, releases any add-on stock, gives back any discount-code use, marks the order Cancelled / Refunded, and returns the full remaining balance through Stripe.

Partial refunds ​

There are two kinds of partial refund:

  • Money-only adjustment — on the order, enter an amount smaller than what is still refundable. This refunds that amount (a goodwill gesture or price correction) without cancelling anyone. The tickets remain valid. An amount that refunds everything that was left completes the refund, and that cancels the order's tickets just as a blank amount does — the dialog tells you which of the two you are about to do.
  • Per-attendee refund — open the attendee under Attendees and choose Refund. That attendee's ticket is cancelled and the seat released; the refund defaults to that person's own share — their ticket after any discount, plus their add-ons, less anything already refunded — and the dialog shows the figure. You can enter a different amount, or cancel the ticket without returning any money.

Rules that apply to both:

  • The amount can't be negative (REFUND_AMOUNT_INVALID).
  • The amount can't exceed the remaining refundable balance (REFUND_AMOUNT_EXCEEDS_BALANCE).
  • There must be something to do — a zero amount with no attendees cancelled is rejected (REFUND_NOTHING_TO_DO).
  • Partial refunds add up. There is no separate "partially refunded" status: the order stays Paid, and its detail shows the amount returned so far under Refunded. Once the whole balance has been refunded, the order becomes Refunded and its tickets are cancelled.

Full vs. partial at a glance

Blank amount on the order = full refund (cancels the whole registration). A smaller amount on the order = money back, tickets kept — until the refunds add up to the whole balance, which cancels the tickets too. Refunding from an attendee = that person cancelled, seat freed.

Inventory after a refund ​

Cancelling attendees returns their capacity so it can be sold again:

  • Each cancelled attendee's ticket seat is released back to available inventory.
  • When the whole order ends up cancelled, add-on stock and the discount-code use are released too, and the order transitions to Cancelled.
  • A money-only partial refund that doesn't cancel anyone leaves inventory untouched — those attendees keep valid tickets.

Cancelled means the ticket is void

When an attendee is cancelled by a refund, their registration is no longer valid for entry. Only cancel attendees you actually intend to remove; use a money-only adjustment when you just want to return part of the payment while keeping people registered.

Invoices after a refund ​

If the event issues invoices, a refund leaves the invoice as it was issued: it isn't voided and no credit note is created. To match your records, open Invoices and use Void or Credit on that invoice. See Invoices & tax settings.

Offline and non-gateway payments ​

If an order was marked as paid offline or has no successful Stripe payment on record, there's nothing for Stripe to reverse. bagevent still updates the order and releases inventory, but the actual money movement is your responsibility — refund the attendee through your bank or by hand. The order log notes that it was a local-only refund.