How to skip a week of a class subscription when a session is cancelled

The short answer

When you cancel one session of a class people pay for by subscription, the fairest fix is to skip the payment for that week, so nobody pays for the week that didn’t run. Tell them before it happens, say why, and say which payment won’t be taken.

On One Ticket that’s Skip a week, on the Subscriptions tab of Orders: tick who it’s for, pick the week, and they aren’t charged for it. Nobody is charged during the skipped week, and a payment that moves always lands after it. On a weekly plan, that week’s payment isn’t taken, and the one after it comes as usual. On a longer plan (fortnightly, every 4 weeks or monthly), a payment due in the seven days up to the session moves a week later; if there isn’t one, their next payment after the week does. Each person gets an email to say so.

Why it matters

A subscription is a promise: pay on a cycle, get every session. When a session is cancelled, regulars notice. Most won’t ask for anything back, but the ones who do are usually your most committed people, and a quiet “you won’t be charged for that week” keeps their goodwill far better than an awkward refund conversation later.

It also saves you work. Without a skip, the choices are a partial refund for each subscriber, a credit you have to remember, or a make-up session you have to find a room for.

Your options when a session is off

Whatever you use to take payments, you have roughly four choices:

• Skip that week’s payment. Simple, automatic once it’s done, and the subscriber pays exactly for the sessions they get. Best for a one-off cancellation.
• Refund that week. Clear, but it means one refund per subscriber, each with its own fee questions.
• Run a make-up session. Good when the week matters, such as a course building towards something, but only if people can actually come.
• Do nothing, by design. Some monthly plans are priced on “around four sessions a month”, so a month with five sessions balances one with three. That’s fine if you said so up front.

Whichever you pick, write it in your subscription details before anyone signs up: “If we cancel a session, you won’t be charged for that week.” Then it’s never a negotiation.

A pause isn’t a skip

A pause is the subscriber’s choice: they’re away for a month, so billing stops until they come back. A skip is yours: the session didn’t run, so nobody pays for it. Subscribers can pause from their own manage link. Skipping a week for a cancelled session is something you do for them.

How to skip a week on One Ticket

1. Cancel the session itself as usual, so anyone with a single ticket is told and refunded.
2. Go to Orders, then the Subscriptions tab.
3. Open the ⋯ menu at the top right and choose Skip a week. Everyone it can skip starts ticked. To pick people first, choose Select subscribers, tick them, then Skip a week in the bar.
4. Choose the Series and the Week to skip. Each week says what runs that week, and one you’ve already skipped is marked “(skipped)”.
5. Check the ticks under Subscribers. Each shows what happens to their payment, on their own billing day. On a weekly plan, it reads “Not charged Tue 29 Dec · next payment Tue 5 Jan”. On a longer plan, it shows the payment that moves and where to: “Payment Tue 29 Dec → Tue 5 Jan” for one due in the seven days up to the session, or “Payment Fri 15 Jan → Fri 22 Jan” for a monthly plan that paid on 15 December, so its next payment after the week moves instead. Either way it lands after the skipped week.
6. Add a Reason (optional), such as “The hall is booked that night, so the session is cancelled.” It goes in their email.
7. Choose Skip a week for however many people you ticked.
8. For a cancelled session, leave Also skip it for new subscribers on, so anyone who subscribes before the session isn’t charged for that week either. It works even if you skip nobody on the list.

Only one payment is skipped or moved (on a longer plan, the ones after it follow), so you can skip a week months ahead. Every payment before it is taken as usual, and that one isn’t (on a longer plan, it moves a week): until then, the list says “Skips” with the date and their next payment beside their name, or “Moves” and both dates. Each person is emailed as you skip, headed “No payment for the week of” the date, with your reason. Tickets for the sessions after the skipped week arrive as usual.

Some subscribers can’t be skipped, and the dialog says why: their plan is paused, a payment has failed and is being retried, it’s ending, it’s free, it has ended, it has no billing date yet, or a payment of theirs was already taken that week. If someone’s renewal is being paid at that moment, it says to try again in an hour. Skipping the same week twice for someone changes nothing, so it’s safe to run again, and two cancelled days in one week (Monday to Sunday) are one week skipped.

The full steps are in the Subscribers guide.

What to tell subscribers

The email does most of the work, but a line from you in your usual channel helps, especially for a group that chats between sessions. Keep it short and specific:

• What’s off and why: “No class next Tuesday: the hall is booked.”
• What happens to their money: “You won’t be charged for that week: there’s no payment on the 29th, and the next one is on 5 January.” On a longer plan: “You won’t be charged for that week: your payment due 15 January moves a week, to 22 January.”
• What happens next: “See you the Tuesday after, same time.”

Say it once, early. People mind a cancelled session far less when they hear about it a week ahead than when they find a locked door.

Plan for the year’s gaps

Look at the year ahead when you set up the series. Public holidays, school holidays and venue closures are easier to handle before people book: remove or move those dates, and you won’t need a skip at all. How to set up a recurring event covers patterns, end dates and booking windows, and Edit all sessions changes the time, place or price of many sessions at once.

Subscriptions cost you nothing extra on One Ticket: the subscriber pays a small booking fee on each payment, as on a ticket, and you receive your full price. Skip a week is there on every plan. See pricing and the Subscriptions page.

For the bigger picture, see the complete guide to selling tickets for recurring events and how recurring ticket sales work. If a payment fails rather than being skipped, what happens when a subscriber’s payment fails explains the unpaid weeks you’ll see.