Paying for Premium Days

Premium days are bonus days such as holidays where the subscriber receives the paper on a day that is not normally a delivery day, or receives a special edition of the paper (see Premium Day). Premium days have special charges special charges associated with them, which are deducted from a premium day wallet rather than the subscriber’s balance.

When entering a payment for a subscriber, any premium day amounts included in a term will be part of the term amount purchased. The premium amount, however, is placed in the subscriber’s wallet rather than being used to buy days. For example, say a 4-week term is $20 and contains a $1 premium day, while a 13-week term is $50 and contains two $1 premium days. A $21 payment would be required for the 4-week term, with $1 being placed in the wallet. A $52 payment would be required to purchase a 13-week term, with $2 being placed in the wallet.

Note: For combo subscriptions, a separate wallet amount is tracked for each component publication with premium days.

Once the bonus day is published and delivered, the premium amount is deducted by the subscriber’s wallet by running Bonus Day Adjustment (see Running the Bonus Day Adjustment Utility) and importing the bonus day adjustment file in Lockbox Processing.

If no payment is made by the subscriber, premium day costs will still be subtracted from the wallet, and the wallet balance will be included in grace owed and grace paid amounts. A typical subscriber going into grace will have a zero wallet balance, and any premium days delivered while they were in grace will therefore create a negative wallet balance.

Adjusting the Wallet

A subscriber’s premium day wallet cannot be adjusted manually by entering payment adjustments—it can only be adjusted by the bonus day adjustments, which use a payment adjustment code that has Update Wallet set to “y”, and certain subscriber transactions.

If a subscriber who paid for a premium day temp stops and does not receive the premium day paper, the money for the premium day will be removed from the wallet and be used to extend the expire date when the subscriber restarts. Likewise premium days missed between a move out and move in transaction will be deducted from the wallet and used to buy days. In the case where the restart or move in extends the new expire date out past another premium day, the wallet will be updated. Likewise when transactions such as delivery schedule changes, billing changes, transfers and complaints extend the expire date to cover a premium date, the premium amount will be included in the expire change. Wallet amounts can also be included in transfer out transactions.

About Uncommitted Wallet Amounts

In some cases a subscriber does not receive a purchased bonus day paper for reasons other than the transactions described above. For example, a bonus day could be defined and purchased, and then removed (or the premium amount could be changed after the payment is made). In this case the wallet amount not used for the premium day is considered an uncommitted amount. Uncommitted amounts from the subscriber’s wallet are added to payment amounts when the subscriber makes a payment, just as unallocated amounts in the subscriber’s balance are added.

To calculate the uncommitted wallet amount, Circulation:

• Finds the subscriber’s current wallet total.

• Calculates the number of premium days still scheduled before the subscription expire date.

• Subtracts the scheduled premium days from the wallet total to determine the uncommitted amount.

For example, say a subscriber pays $1 for a premium day, and the premium day amount is changed later to .75 in Bonus Day Setup. When the bonus day occurs, .75 will be deducted from the wallet, leaving .25 uncommitted. That uncommitted amount will be added to the payment amount when buying the next subscription period.

Note:

Uncommitted wallet amounts will not be included in the payment amount when Auto Payments generates auto renew payments.