Test period no-show policy

News - 17 June 2021 - Communication

As of the new academic year, X will work with a no-show policy at all ticket hours and in the fitness. This means that if you are not able to come to the reservation you made, you have to cancel it at least 30 minutes before it starts. This will provide sufficient opportunity for another motivated participant to take your place, which is a sign of solidarity, right? If you do not cancel in time, this will no longer be without consequences and we will count this as a no-show. Over the summer, we will carry out a soft launch, during which we will test the IT system and the process. As an X subscription holder, you will not notice anything of the soft launch.

Test period
In June and July, we will be testing parts of the no-show policy in several phases. We will do this with different test groups, in which also several students are represented. Hopefully, the test period will provide valuable input we can use to further optimise the system and the process. At the start of the new academic year, the actual implementation of the policy will take place.

Content no-show policy
What exactly does the no-show policy entail? In brief:

  1. As a participant, you can register online as usual. For each reservation you will receive an email confirmation.
  2. If you are unable to attend, you must cancel your reservation no later than half an hour (30 minutes) before the start of the reservation. This will provide sufficient opportunity for another motivated participant to take your place.
  3. If you do attend the reservation, we ask you to be on time. For a ticket hour, 'on time' means the moment the door closes and the teacher checks off the participant list. At the Fitness, 'on time' means that you have to scan your X subscription at the entrance gates until 30 minutes after the start of the reserved time slot.
  4. We count a no-show if you did not cancel your reservation on time (point 2) and/or did not show up on time (point 3). A no-show tick will automatically appear in your web account and you will receive an email notification.
  5. For the first no-show, a warning will be given. For a second no-show your X subscription will be blocked for 7 days. During this period you will not be able to make new reservations for ticket hours, the Fitness and other forms of reservations within your X subscription. You can still register for activities that are not part of the X subscription, such as courses and events.
  6. If you don’t agree with the no-show registration and can provide a valid reason, the hosts may manually remove the no-show tick from the system.
  7. After 7 days the X subscription will automatically be unblocked.
  8. However, you will have a cool-off period for 60 days, which means that after every subsequent no-show, the subscription will immediately be blocked again for 7 days. Once the 60 days have passed without any further no-show, the counter will go back to '0' and a next no-show will result in a warning again.

Background information
Why is this policy so important? At X, we want as many students as possible to make use of our offer. We constantly respond to this by using our facilities in a multifunctional way, offering popular ticket hours more often, optimising the daily schedule and adding new offerings. We are also aware that some time slots still fill up quickly. Especially now that there are fewer possibilities due to the Covid-19 crisis. As a result, we have to disappoint students more often. In addition, we regularly notice that students who have reserved a spot in the end don’t show up. This is of course very unfortunate: we prefer to give these 'empty spots' to other motivated students. With the introduction of the no-show policy, we hope to appeal to everyone's solidarity and significantly reduce the number of no-shows.

You can read about the earlier announcement of the no-show policy in this news item:
https://www.tudelft.nl/en/2020/x/reducing-no-shows-at-ticket-hours-and-the-fitness