J-BusinessDirectory - Special premium package for members of an non-pofit association

Hello everyone, I am looking for a workaround or solution for a complex problem. I hope you have better ideas than me 

I am supporting a client who wants to operate the JBusiness Directory. However, the client is a non-profit association in Germany and wants to offer its institutional members benefits in the directory through a premium package. This premium package should not be purchasable but exclusively available to institutional members (for free). All other users (non-members) should still be able to use a standard entry for free.

Unfortunately, I can't find a good configuration to implement this properly. If I specify that both packages (Standard / Premium) are free, anyone can independently upgrade a standard entry to a premium entry at any time, even if they are no institutional members. This is not desired. Premium entries should alsways be manually reviewed and approved by us.

Then I thought: OK, I'll set a price and offer members the option to receive a 100% coupon. However, if I define a price for the premium package, everybody wether they are a member or not, can register for the premium package, is asked for a payment and an invoice will be generated. This is also not desired because:

1. We only want to offer the premium package to members. It must not be purchasable by non-members, and
2. Users are either already institutional members and therefore do not need to make any additional payments, or they apply for institutional membership – but this application/payment does not take place through the directory. Conclusion: Setting a price does not work either.

Setting up the premium package that it is only visible to admins partially solves the problem; however, no one can apply for a premium package since it is no longer visible in the frontend. My current idea of a workaround would be to only offer the standard package to all and to set up an extra form with which institutional members can apply for a premium upgrade (which we would manually check and approve). But this solution would be not very comfortable...

Another option would be to configure that every item has to be reviewed. However, we would then have to regularly check everything, which we also don't want. The solution using a threshold unfortunately doesn't help either because once the threshold is reached, it would again be possible for someone to independently switch to the premium package.

Does anyone have an idea for a better solution/workaround?

You can also use the user groups to filter the packages that are being displayed. You can create a package that is available only for institutional users.
Would this be an option for you?

Hi, thanks for your reply. Unfortunately this doesn't work either. The client does not manage their members / institutional members as users in their joomla website / jdirectory. So therefore there is no data set of already existing institutional members we could just assign to an institutional member group. Our institutional members will have to registrer for an account as every other user too.

How can you tell if a member is institutional or not?

For the standard packages, you can exclude offers and events. In this way, the regular users cannot create offers and events.
The only manual check that has to be done is the validation for the premium package.

Why not create a premium package for those members. Set a price but provide them privately with a discount code that takes the price to zero? And don't add a payment method so no one else can ever use it to actually pay for the upgrade package.

Or just get them to take the standard package and then message you so you can manually upgrade them to the (hidden) premium package.

Unfortunately, this is also not possible.

If I assign a price to a package, while no payment can be made in the end and the price only serves to prevent easy registration of the premium package, several problems arise:

Offering a service for a price that intentionally cannot be ordered not only looks unprofessional but would likely also be considered legally misleading. Consumers might get the impression that they can purchase the package or conclude an institutional membership at the end of the registration by entering business listing details and payment for the stated price. However, this must be applied for separately with the association. This involves a completely different process that cannot be merged with the business directory here.

Such a practice would almost certainly violate German laws against unfair competition and German consumer protection laws. Moreover, it would then de facto not just be a simple registration for a platform, but a purchase process (even if you actually can't pruchase anything for money) that would have to comply with German distance selling laws. This, however, does not fit the concept of the platform. Additionally, an invoice would be issued when using the coupon in the end. According to German tax laws, we are then obligated to keep these records. With such a practice, we risk several costly warnings and would have to comply with other obligations. Welcome to German bureaucracy...

Please forgive me that it's so complicated. I am truly grateful for your questions, suggestions, ideas, and your patience here.

The problem that I can't imagine how to overcome is that JBD packages are set up to put every user on the best package for the given price. 

Perhaps George Bara can confirm this??

If I am right, then you can't create two packages which are both free where one is better than the other. Even if you set the better one to admin only and intend to manually assign it, all users will still upgrade to the better one. 

If that's right, then I simply have no idea how to get your desired result - even with a hugely complicated workaround. Sorry. 

My proposed solution is to have 2 free packages, one for regular members and one for institutional members. The one for the regular members can be on type lifetime.
When a user creates a listing you will have to check if it is institutional and if he has chosen the correct package.
The package for institutional members will contain the offers and events. If you set the automatic approval, after first item is approved, the rest will be approved automatically.

There is no other way for now, since the difference between an institutional member and regular member can be done only by human intervention.

Ok, thank you all very much for your kind help!