Capturing bounces to a no-reply email address

Question

I'm trying to figure out how to best implement a bounce capture from a situation where the sending mail box is a no-reply. Here's the situation.

We send out confirmation emails to users for bookings they have made on our system. We never want the user to reply as this is not a marketing email but just a receipt. so we use a [email protected] email address (in fact our smtp server does not have this mailbox set up)

However, if that email bounces we would like to be able to get in touch with the user (maybe using another means) to make sure they have their confirmation.

We never want the user to reply as the booking can only be changed via another mechanism and not via an email.

I have considered using VERP for the bounces (although I'm not exactly certain how to implement this and not sure it will work in the above scenario.

My Question then is two fold.

1. Can this scenario work
2. Should the no-reply be implemented in some other way.

P.S our smtp server is postfix.

Thanks

Answer 1

IMHO VERP is the most "cost effective" way to find which email address generated bounce message.

1. Some bounces will be generated by servers "a few hops away".
   Parsing you SMTP server logs will hardly help
2. Number of bounce message formats is BIG.
   Some of the formats are "cryptic" (understatement).