Donate for Resale function

Hi all, 

Another fact finding mission for us from the MAC

When you use the Donate for Resale function in a ticket order it returns the seat to inventory without generating a credit for the returned seat (i.e. the money from the original sale stays put) by changing the seat to a special seat status, Donated for Resale. Seats in that status are treated differently than seats in the regular Available status:

• They are displayed in a different color on the seat map (rather than just as white, available seats).
• By default the Donated for Resale status display takes precedence over the Held status, so that if you apply a hold code to a seat in the Donated for Resale status it will not appear held when viewing the seat map.
• By default, the best seat function will not reserve seats in the Donated for Resale status, meaning they must be manually selected from the seat map if you want to reserve them.  A setting in the T_DEFAULTS table allows you to change this behavior so that the best seat function will reserve seats in the Donated for Resale status.
• Seats in the Donated for Resale status are not included in availability totals in ticket orders (including what's displayed on QuickSale buttons).

Our questions are:

1. Do you use the Donate for Resale function? If the answer is "No, we never use that function" then you can skip the rest of the questions (but we'd still like to know that you don't use this function!)
2. Did you know that by default the best seat function does not reserve seats in the Donated for Resale status?
3. If the answer is No, now that you do know, do you like this behavior or do you want Donated for Resale seats to be reserved by the Best Seat function? If the answer is Yes, have you changed the default behavior so that Donated for Resale seats are reserved by the Best Seat function? (We are trying to distinguish between people who leave this default behavior alone because they know about it and like it from those who didn't even know it was happening and they have an option to change it)
4. For anyone that does not want Donated for Resale seats to be reserved by the best seat function (i.e. likes the default behavior), what is the business reason behind that?
5. Do you want seats in the Donated for Resale status to be distinguished on the seat map? If Yes, what is the business reason behind that?
6. If we were to change the way we calculate availability totals to include donated seats, would this help, harm, or have no effect on your business practices. If harm, in what way?

As usual would be great if you could email me your responses -  stevenp@australianballet.com.au

Thanks all 

SP