Pricing Rules BOGO inconsistent firing on SLI and Comp Reason Question

We just did our first BOGO Pricing Rules for a special event this past Friday, and while all our testing proved successful in getting the BOGO rule to fire, we came across some hiccups that we still can't figure out why they happened. In my two hour search through the TN on line database I can't find any answers.

Our BOGO offer was simple and straightforward:

• Buy one ticket at full price, get the second ticket comped for the run of a production. (Up to four tickets, so if it were four tickets at full price, then two would be full price and two would be comped).
• This offer was good only in person on one special day.
• Box Office Staff was instructed to use the correct Source Number, Mode of Sale, and price types as set up in our Pricing Rule.
• Hierarchy of the Pricing Rules Sets was simple.  We only had this one Pricing Rule in the Box Office Pricing Rule set, yet multiple Messages (for parking, traffic, and special event notifications).
• If this makes a difference, we had six Box Office windows pinging the pricing rule all day, and our web site and phone room were having an additional "On Sale Day" for five other productions.

BOGO Set Up looked as so:

• Type: Buy One Get One
• Category: Ticket Discount
• Appeals: (Correct appeal was selected)
• Sources: (Correct source was selected)
• Start Date/Time: 10/05/2016 12:36 PM
• End Date/Time: 11/18/2016 11:59 PM (This was indeed correct as was the start time - for our testing period)
• Maximum Seats: 4
• Exclude General Public: null
• Apply Rule Once Per Order Only: null
• ACTION: Mode: Price Type Change
• New Price Type: Comp
• CRITERIA: For each of these: 44 Performances (these were correct and was in all zones)
• for every: 2 Seats
• at these price types: Regular Price Type
• APPLY THE RULE TO: 1 of those seats
• To a Maximum of: 2 seats

The issues we started coming across during the day were (and again, we tested this with three key staffers, and all seemed fine during testing period):

• Pricing Rule wasn't always firing. The Box office would put all the required information into the order screen to trigger the pricing rule, then select the performance, then seating locations. While it worked MOST of the time, we had many instances where it happened inconsistently whether the patron needed 2 tickets or 4 tickets.
• IF the pricing rule didn't trigger, then our staff would manually change the intended SLI to the COMP Price Type. Sometimes, after manually applying the first SLI with COMP, the rule would then trigger in front of their (and my) eyes. Other times it wouldn't do that, and they'd complete the manual edit.
• When the Pricing Rule DID work, we noticed that a comp reason of "GENERAL" was applied to the SLI in question. We don't have a GENERAL comp reason... at least, not that I can find in our set ups for Price Type Reason. is there a way to default comp reason to what we want it to be at any given time? I've asked our DBA to see about retroactively changing the Price Type reason  for these orders on that day in the Box Office to the one we want and she's looking into it.

So, I need insight on all these issues so that I can remedy them for the future.  I've lost sleep over this, losing weight from stressing about it, and I now have this weird eye twitch going on in my left eye as I fester over these pricing rule anomalies (just kidding, but I have been thinking about it all weekend).

- Skypp Cabanas
Ticket Operations Manager
Center Theatre Group