Auto-Renewal of Orders

What is Auto-Renewal

BlueHost China's Auto-Renewal feature allows Customers / Sub-Resellers to let the system automatically Renew an Order prior to Expiry.

Note

Automatic Renewal of Digital Certificates is not possible since a Certificate Signature Request (CSR) is required to completed the renewal process.

How Auto-Renewal Works(Anchor: process)

For those Orders that have the Auto-Renew setting enabled, Auto-Renewal will be attempted:

  • 7 days in advance, for Orders which have a tenure less than 3 months

  • 30 days in advance, for Orders which have a tenure greater than 3 months

The system will use the Customer's Available Balance to complete the Renewal process. Should the balance fall short at the time of attempting Auto-Renewal, the Customer's credit card will be charged to complete the process. Should the cards not work, the Customer must manually renew the Orders to avoid losing them.

Note

The Customer's credit card will be automatically captured at the time of purchase and stored securely in our PCI compliant infrastructure; Customers cannot manually add / edit credit card details in the system. The cards will then be used to Auto-Renew Orders nearing expiry (if the available balance is insufficient in the Customer's Account).

Credit cards thus captured can be managed from the Manage Credit Cards view within the Customer Control Panel. This view can be reached by pointing to My Billing in the Menu and then clicking Manage Credit Card(s).

Note

An Order will be Auto-Renewed for a duration equivalent to the tenure for which the Order was purchased or last renewed.

Renewing an Order Manually 

Enabling / Disabling Auto-Renewal(Anchor: manage)

The Auto-Renewal setting can be managed for each Order from within the Customer / Reseller Control Panel.

By default, all Orders will be set to Auto-Renew on purchase or transfer-in.

Note

  • Hosting Orders which are migrated into the system will need to be explicitly set to Auto-Renew.

  • For Resellers: Orders added to the system after Pay.pw Payment Gateway integration will be set to Auto-Renew by default. However, Auto-Renew will need to be explicitly turned ON for Orders existing prior to the integration of Pay.pw.

Auto-Renewal setting can be turned ON / OFF for a particular Order from the Order Information view, using the ON / OFF toggle.

Additional Information

Locating the Order Information view:

For Resellers: See details

For Customers: See details

A Customer / Sub-Reseller can also turn Auto-Renewal ON for a particular Order while manually renewing it. If the Customer/Reseller turns Auto-Renewal ON, then the system will attempt to Auto-Renew that Order next renewal cycle onwards. Hence, the Customer/Reseller must complete the current process of manual renewal.

While manually renewing Orders individually or in bulk, Auto-Renewal will, by default, be enabled for all those Orders that were not previously set to Auto-Renew.

 

Email Notifications(Anchor: email)

Email notifications regarding Auto-Renewal are sent as below:

  • To Customers:

    • Advance notice about attempting Auto-Renewal for Orders that are about to expire (sent 3 days in advance of attempting Auto-Renewal)

    • Confirmation email when Customer's Advance Account or credit card has been successfully charged to renew the Order(s),

      OR

    • Failure notice, if Account Balance was found to be insufficient or Credit Card(s) were invalid

    • Action completion email once the Renewal process completes

       

  • To Resellers:

    • Failure notice, when Auto-Renewal could not be completed for Customers' Orders

Note

If Auto-Renewal fails, the system will include the Orders in the Renewal Reminder emails for manual renewal.

Why Auto-Renewal Could Fail(Anchor: failure)

Auto-Renewal may fail due to any of the following reasons:

  • Customer's Advance Account does not have sufficient balance to cover the total Renewal cost.

    Note

    While attempting Auto-Renewal for a set of Orders, if funds fall short, the system will NOT use the existing funds to renew only a few Orders . Hence, Auto-Renewal will fail for an entire set of Orders if the balance in the Account is insufficient.

    Example 

    A Customer has 10 Single Domain Hosting Orders, of USD 10 each, expiring in the next 30 days.

    Total Cost of Renewal = USD 100.00

    Available Balance in Customer's Account = USD 50.00

    In this instance, Auto-Renewal for all 10 Orders will fail, as the Account does not have sufficient funds to cover the total cost of USD 100. The system will NOT use the available balance of USD 50.00 to renew 5 of the 10 hosting Orders.

    The Credit Card on file will then be charged the entire USD 100.00 to complete the renewal process.

  • No valid Credit Card(s) was/were found in the Customer's Account.

  • The Order is Suspended.

  • The Order is Locked by BlueHost China.

  • Auto-Renewal is not supported for a specific Product category.

  • The Order has a pending action associated with it, waiting to be processed.

Note

Auto-Renewal is supported only using Paypal Express Checkout and Pay.pw payment gateway.