Tutorial/1.5/general/Payment System

From AirlineSimPedia

Since Version 1.3 AirlineSim has been a pay-to-play game. This article provides a quick rundown of the costs, conditions and technical issues to consider with regards to payment procedures.

Contents 1 Credits 1.1 Credit Consumption 2 Pricing System 3 Technical Details 4 Featured Closed to Trial Accounts

Credits

Each player has a credit account, which starts off loaded with 60 free credits on account creation. This is enough for a two-week trial period, assuming you only run one Holding. If you want to continue playing after your trial is up, or make use of game features which are only open to paid accounts, you'll have to purchase further credits. The credit system is completely flexible; buying credits does not contitute a repeating subscription, you can buy credits whenever you like, and if you ever decide to stop playing the game all you have to do is let your credits run out. Credits can't be refunded, though.

Credit Consumption

Credits are deducted from your account for every day of playtime. The first holding controlled by your account will cost you 4 credits per day; each additional holding will add 2 credits to this daily bill. An account with 3 holdings, then, would use 8 credits (4+2+2) per day. If you run out of credits, your account's holdings and companies will be locked until you add more. Credits will still be deducted daily at the normal rate during this period, though - the intention here is to prevent companies gaining an unfair advantage by abandoning accounts and returning to them, several weeks later, having avoided paying for their growth. As an example, an account with one holding which runs out of credits will, after 5 days, have a balance of -20 credits; these must be paid before the access to the holding and companies is restored. If no credits have been added to an account which has gone into a negative balance after 2 weeks, the account and any holdings it contains will be deleted, in order to avoid penalizing active players. The Account itself will remain in our central account tool "Aquila".

Empty accounts - which is to say, those without holdings - are free, initially; however, to prevent the game database from being clogged up with dead accounts, a daily charge of 2 credits will be applied to these after two weeks.

Pricing System

AirlineSim operates on a scaled pricing system; flexibility is always implied through the use of the credit system, but discounts on bulk credit purchases are available. You can, if you like, choose to order credits in batches of at least 50, at a cost of 0.30€ per 10 credits:

Quick calculation: 30 days (one month) * 4 credits per day (for a simple account) = 120 credits; 12 * 0.30 = 3.60€ per month.

Alternatively, you can choose to take advantage of one of the larger bulk purchase packages:

• 250 credits for 7.20€ (rather than 7.50 bought individually)
• 500 credits for 13.80€ (rather than 15.00 bought individually)
• 1000 credits for 26.40€ (rather than 30.00 bought individually)
• 2000 credits for 52.00€ (rather than 60.00 bought individually)

Technical Details

AirlineSim uses the centralized payment system of simulogics. The following payment methods are available right now:

• Credit Card (Visa and MasterCard)
• PayPal
• Online Transfer (not available in all countries)
• Prepayment (only available in countries supporting SWIFT transfers)
• paysafecard (prepaid card)
• Ukash (prepaid card)
• Telephone payment (only available in selected countries)
• Mobile/cell phone payment (only available in selected countries)

Please note: Which payment methods are actually available depends on both the country you are paying from and the selected package size. If you are missing a certain payment method, try different package sizes. This is especially the case for phone payments which only allow for certain price points.

In order to buy credits for AirlineSim, select the number or package of credits you want in the account managment application, and your order will be passed on automatically. Once your payment has been processed, the credits will be credited to your account. The whole procedure does not usually take longer than one minute.

Featured Closed to Trial Accounts

The following features are not available during the trial period and are only unlocked if you buy credits:

• Multiple Holdings
• Multiple Airlines in one Holding
• Offering Contracts (for the sale or leasing out of aircraft, or Interlining)
• Player-Owned Buildings
• Personnell Dismissal
• Stock Exchange funtions (IPOs and share trading)
• Use of the Online Reservation System
• Integrated flight operations control