# Unlink secondary member from primary member

`DELETE /api/members/{primaryMemberId}/links/{secondaryMemberId}`

- **Products:** Operator (`FOH`), Consumer (`CONSUMER`) (any one of these products, not all)
- **Features:** Online Joining (`ONLINEJOIN`), Online Bookings (`ONLINEBOOK`), Front of House Generic Access (`FOHGENERIC`) (any one of these features, not all)

HTML version: [Unlink secondary member from primary member](https://support.gladstonesoftware.cloud/reference/members/unlink-secondary-member-from-primary-member)

## Overview

Breaks the link between a primary member and one of the members linked to them, and removes that member's access to the primary's shared memberships.

This is a two-step operation performed on your behalf: the link is removed first, then the shared memberships are withdrawn. **If the membership step fails, the link is restored and the whole call fails**, so a failure normally leaves the member as they were. Where even the restore fails, the response is a `500` whose message says the rollback did not succeed — treat that as a state needing manual correction rather than something to retry blindly.

Nothing here deletes a member record. The secondary member keeps their account, their own memberships and their bookings; only the relationship and the shared access go.

Two rules are easy to trip over:

- **`{primaryMemberId}` really must be the primary of the pair.** Passing them the other way round fails with `400`, and your access token must match the primary member, not the secondary one.
- **A member below the tenant's age of consent cannot be unlinked** — a junior's link is refused with `400`, because a junior account is not permitted to stand alone.

If the primary has other links left afterwards they keep their primary status; if this was their last link, their own link settings are reset too.

## Endpoint

`DELETE {base_url}/api/members/{primaryMemberId}/links/{secondaryMemberId}`

`{base_url}` is the environment URL issued to your integration. See [Authenticating with Gladstone APIs](../../guides/authenticating-with-gladstone-apis.md).

## Path parameters

| Name | Type | Required | Description |
|------|------|----------|-------------|
| `primaryMemberId` | integer (int32) | Yes | The primary member of the link — the account the shared memberships belong to. Must match the member id in your access token, and must actually hold primary status, or the call fails with `400`. |
| `secondaryMemberId` | integer (int32) | Yes | The member being unlinked. Must be 1 or greater, must exist, and must currently be linked to `{primaryMemberId}` — a member linked to someone else returns `404`. |

## Sample request

```bash title="cURL"
curl -X DELETE '{base_url}/api/members/{primaryMemberId}/links/{secondaryMemberId}' \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer {accessToken}' \
  -H 'X-Use-SSO: true'
```

## Errors

A successful call returns `204 No Content`.

| Status | Meaning | When |
|--------|---------|------|
| `400` | Bad request | `{secondaryMemberId}` is 0 or negative: `Cannot be called with non or purged member record` |
| `400` | Bad request | `{primaryMemberId}` is not a primary member — usually the two ids the wrong way round: `Called successfully but member {primaryMemberId} is not a primary member` |
| `400` | Bad request | The member being unlinked is below the age of consent: `Called successfully but member {secondaryMemberId} is a junior member` |
| `400` | Bad request | The link was removed but the shared memberships could not be, and the link has been restored. The message is the one returned by the membership step. |
| `404` | Not found | Either member does not exist: `Called successfully but member {primaryMemberId} does not exist`, `Called successfully but linked member ID {secondaryMemberId} does not exist` |
| `404` | Not found | The two members are not linked to each other: `Called succesfully but linked member ID {secondaryMemberId} is not linked to primary member with ID {primaryMemberId}` (the typo is in the platform) |
| `500` | Internal server error | The membership removal failed **and** the link could not be restored — the message ends `Operation rollback failed: …` and the member is left unlinked but still holding shared memberships. Do not retry; reconcile the state first. |
| `500` | Internal server error | Part of the platform needed for the unlink was unreachable, or another unexpected server-side failure occurred. |