Cancellation
Cancellation policy.
How to cancel a class or a membership, what happens to your credit, and how the waitlist works.
This policy is not finished. The structure and the underlying rules are in place, but the wording is still being written and has not been legally reviewed.
Cancelling a class — the 12-hour rule
State the rule plainly: cancel 12 hours or more before the class starts and the credit returns to that month's balance; cancel later and it counts as used. Say how to cancel (from the member's bookings page) and that a booking can be cancelled at any time — the 12-hour test only decides whether the credit comes back.
What the system actually does
- The window is measured from the moment of cancellation to the class start time, and the comparison is inclusive — exactly 12 hours ahead still counts as in time.
- There is no cut-off on cancelling itself: a booking can be cancelled right up to the class start, and the place is freed either way.
- Cancelling is only possible while the booking is CONFIRMED; an already-cancelled booking cannot be cancelled again.
What happens to your credit
Explain what a member gets back in each case — credit booking, unlimited membership, and a class paid for at £8 or £10. Be careful to promise only what actually happens; see the two flagged gaps below.
What the system actually does
- In time, credit booking: a +1 REFUND row is written to the credit ledger and the balance goes back up.
- In time, unlimited membership: nothing to return, and the cancellation is treated as refunded.
- Late, any booking type: no credit is returned and no payment is changed — the class counts as used.
- GAP — the refunded credit is stamped with the month the cancellation happens, not the month the credit was spent. Cancel in early February a class booked in January and the credit lands in February's balance, not January's. Since credits do not carry over, this quietly hands the member an extra credit in the new month.
- GAP — for a £8 or £10 class cancelled in time, the payment row is marked REFUNDED in the database but no refund is issued through Stripe. There is no refund call anywhere in the codebase. Unless someone refunds it by hand in the Stripe dashboard, the member's money is not returned even though the system and the confirmation email say it was.
Waitlists
Explain how the waitlist works: joining a full class, being promoted automatically when a place opens, and what a promoted member owes if they are out of credits or not a member. Be explicit that promotion is automatic and books them in — they are not asked first — so members know what they are agreeing to when they join a waitlist.
What the system actually does
- A member can only join the waitlist when the class is genuinely full, and cannot be both booked in and waiting.
- Promotion is first in, first out by the time the waitlist entry was created.
- When a place opens, the first person waiting is booked in automatically inside the same transaction as the cancellation. They are not asked to confirm and have no opt-in window.
- A promoted member on an unlimited tier pays nothing; one with credits available spends a credit.
- A promoted member with no credits left, or someone with no active membership, has a PENDING payment recorded against the booking — £8 and £10 respectively — and is emailed to say there is an amount to pay. Their place is held; the money is collected afterwards, not at the point of promotion.
- Promotion runs on every cancellation, including late ones — a member who cancels inside 12 hours still frees their place for the next person.
- Re-joining a waitlist after leaving it resets the member's position to the back of the queue.
Cancelling or pausing a membership
Set out how to cancel a membership, how much notice is needed, when access ends, and whether a part-month is refunded. The notice period is a business decision that has to be made before this can be written — the system does not currently impose one.
What the system actually does
- There is no notice period, no pause feature and no self-service membership cancellation in the code; a subscription is simply marked CANCELLED with a date.
- Credits already granted for the current month stay in that month's balance — there is no clawback.
- Until this is built, cancellations have to be actioned by hand in Stripe and the admin dashboard.
Refunds
Say when money is returned rather than credit, how long it takes, and how to ask. Do not promise automatic card refunds until the Stripe refund gap above is closed — either build it, or write the policy to say refunds are processed manually within a stated number of working days.
What the system actually does
- No refund is ever issued to a card automatically. The only refund action in the code marks the payment row REFUNDED in the database.
- The cancellation email tells the member their credit has been returned, which is accurate for credit bookings and misleading for paid ones.
Questions about a cancellation or refund? Email us at info@novacorewellness.co.uk.
Last updated: 13 August 2026