Pending Orders — No Charge If Payment Was Not Finalised

When a customer starts checkout but does not complete payment, the order remains in pending status. No money is charged.

How to Identify an Incomplete Order

• Order status: pending
• Total: null (no amount captured)
• Payment option: null (no payment method finalised)
• Attendee status: pending

Common Customer Concerns

• "Was I charged? I didn't get a confirmation email"
• "I tried to book but the payment didn't go through — am I still charged?"
• "I have a pending order, will I be charged later?"

Key Points

• Pending orders with no total mean no payment was captured. The customer was not charged.
• PayPal authorisations on incomplete orders expire automatically — no manual action needed.
• Credit card holds (if any) are released automatically by the customer's bank.
• Pending orders do not automatically get cleaned up — they remain in the system but have no financial impact.
• Abandoned cart emails are only sent if the customer entered their email during checkout and an abandon_order record was created. If they didn't get that far, no emails are sent.