Must know
- One charge for what is still owed. Tuition at the family’s price (only the remaining sessions on per-session priced programs) plus any required membership the athlete does not hold.
- Join-time payments are not charged twice. If your club collects the program fee or the membership when families join, promotion bills only the rest, possibly nothing.
- The dialog amount is an estimate. The Promote from waitlist? dialog is not the exact charge.
- A free program can still charge. If it requires a paid membership the athlete lacks, the membership is billed and the dialog shows.
The required membership. If the program requires a membership the athlete does not hold, it is billed on the same charge as its own invoice line, taxed at its own rate, and named in the dialog: “plus the required [membership] at [price]”. Uplifter bills the current purchasable cycle of an accepted membership (the cheapest if several are accepted) and grants it when the payment goes through. An athlete who already holds it is never billed again, even on a retry. This applies to one-time and recurring programs alike.
Tax and fees. The charge adds tax when your club has families pay it (a program or membership marked Tax Exempt is not taxed) and your club’s card service fee, if you charge one. Surcharges are not added. The invoice line reads “Waitlist promotion - [program name]” and the invoice gets a normal invoice number.
Which card. The family’s default saved payment method (a card, or a bank account if they saved one as default). With none usable, the charge fails and the spot is held for 24 hours. You see “Athlete promoted, but their saved card could not be charged. They have 24 hours to resolve payment.” See What happens when a promoted athlete’s payment fails?.
The offer is frozen. Once a spot is offered, the tuition owed is fixed. A retry within the 24 hours bills that figure even if you change the program price. The membership is checked again each time, so it is not billed twice.
Refunding it. Cancelling doesn’t refund the charge by itself: see Are waitlist promotion charges refunded if I cancel?.
What the dialog shows. Promote from waitlist? says the saved card will be charged the program price (or the first month or year) plus any required membership, followed by “(plus any applicable tax and fees)”. It uses the listed price, so it ignores tier prices, remaining-session pricing and what the family paid at join. Rows that paid at join show “Paid X at join" under **Joined** (needs **View Financials**). Confirm with **Charge & promote** and you see "Athlete promoted from waitlist". If the estimate is 0, the athlete is promoted with no dialog.
When the membership cannot be bought. If a required membership is admin-grant only, outside its sale window or full, automatic promotion does not run: no one is promoted and the athlete stays at the front of the line. A manual promote warns “This program requires a membership that cannot be purchased right now”, and the button reads Promote without membership. That enrolls the athlete without the membership.
Other ways in. Promoting needs Edit Athletes. On the athlete profile, Set Active offers Promote and bill (the same charge) or Activate without billing (no charge). Promoting from a session waitlist is free. Promote appears only on numbered rows, not “Spot offered” or “By session” rows. Rate-card programs and programs that no longer sell whole-program enrollment cannot be promoted.
Related: How do I choose when families pay for a waitlist? · How do I manually promote an athlete off the waitlist? · What happens when I set a waitlisted athlete active from their profile? · What happens when a promoted athlete’s payment fails?