Oh, I do. And HomeOwners had choices vs fastest fingers first! We’re more interested in pets and owners that they match. So much has changed … and not to membership benefit!
Do you have any idea what exactly they’re thinking about improvements ? “Many of the improvements members consistently ask for, including stronger trust & safety processes, clearer expectations around sits, and better reliability across the platform, require sustained investment to deliver properly at scale.”
Thank you
For any sitters looking to stay on basic membership and avoid paying booking fees there are already 21 x sits listed for Christmas holiday period 2026 and 23 x sits listed for the year 2027 .
If you confirm sits before your membership renews there will be no booking fees charged.
My hubby and I totally agree here in the US. I’ve sent several emails complaining about this as we are retired and do pet sitting full time. This fee would certainly eat into our retirement money and put our traveling costs up. But I got the same replies which were just placation ie that the ‘booking fee’ was to keep services running smoothly. What have they been doing all this time? Also, I wrote several emails about overlapping sits by one day were not allowing us to apply for other sits and now they want you to pay for that. Oh, and now a charge for couples! Jeesh! When will it end?
@MelMel. It won’t end, and how long will the “booking fee “ stay at £9? . I’m guessing it will go up every year. It’s all about the money now.
“Keeping things running smoothly” crossed my mind recently, given the various glitches people have mentioned, or improvements requested and not done… another not-smoothly-running thing I encountered was messages not tracking between app & website version. I’d replied to a HO on one or the other, about a call to take place, and it said “unread” on the app, so I was sitting wondering “so are we having a call or aren’t we?” when my phone rang and it was the HO, who had read the message, even though it said she hadn’t, and then it said on the website version that it had been seen. If I recall, that read/not-read thing happened a couple of times.
But hey, I’m sure the extra booking-fee cash infusion will fix that too 
…
I also mentioned that repeat sitters who have built a relationship with their pets parents can now go outside the company and ok privately. Two of our repeats just mentioned that t they’ll go outside the membership bc of the new booking fees and book us privately.
It happens very often. But, yes, I am sure it will be fixed with the new fee.
The Trusted Times newsletter today:
“243k successful matches between pet parents and sitters”
So now add roughly $10 x 2 per sit in booking fees (both sitter and pet owner pay), and it means nearly $5 million extra in annual income for THS.
For that money I would expect some serious improvement to my THS experience as sitter, vs. basically ‘buying nothing extra’ for the extra fee.
Nope your math is flawed as you aren’t accounting for Premium members who don’t pay fees and established members with high numbers of referrals who may not see the new fees for years to come, as well as the members who will leave as a result of the new fees, plus all of the sits that will be done “offline” to avoid the fees.
Of course it’s just a very rough ‘back of the envelope’ calculation, that THS may have done (while factoring in upgrades to Premium, which I haven’t).
I assume the number of people with years of ‘referrals’ (free months) is low. I’ve been a member for nearly 11 years, and of all the people I’ve recommended THS to in the past, I gained a grand total of 3 free months (e.g. 1 person joining via my link). Although I don’t walk around with THS ‘business cards’.
As to the number of sits that will be done offline: not sure if THS factored that in their original calcs. Although it is very clear that there’s a high ‘risk’ that more and more sits will be confirmed offline as, unlike some other sites (such as AirBnB), it’s not as if the HO or sitter is protected by e.g. an insurance or some sort of guarantee if confirming via the booking fee (which would provide an incentive to confirm online vs offline) - that only applies to Premium and even that scope is rather limited.
It has just come to my attention another improvement which THS implemented to help make a smooth experience for sitters: the impossibility of seeing how many applications a listing has got after you have applied. It makes complete sense that, once you have decided to apply, you go blind. Why would anyone want transparency?
Now, that’s what I consider putting Human Resources and technology into good use.
I always thought it was ridiculous as well that you can’t see that. Makes no sense at all. So many reasons why a sitter needs access to that information.
It has been like that for a while unfortunately.
We get ‘improvements’ we don’t need yet the ones we request are ignored.
I know, I just remembered now that I wanted to check how many applications there were and then I thought “yet another unwanted change that shows how THS
In spite of their false promises.
A conservative estimate might be that 60% of those sits didn’t involve premium members and would therefore be subject to the booking fee., that would be approximately 140,000 sits. The income from those sits would be £18 per sit (I’m using pounds as THS is UK based for financial purposes), which would total £2.5 million. At a stroke THS has increased it’s income by 10%, without adding any extra value for members. It will be a little less in the first year, but there will be added revenue from members who decide to upgrade from either basis or standard to premium.
Yes, that was lost maybe a year ago. I have no idea why. E.g. seems not very useful to make me aware I already applied; I can see that for myself. More useful would be able to see if I’m the only one or have 5 people applied etc.
And yes, another one in the list of changes we didn’t ask for neither need, versus changes we would like but that never seem to happen
The booking fees will help to pay for adding that extra line to the sit information 
This isn’t something I’d considered. I guess at worst I’d just figure I was 1 of 5, and if it was a less popular location, I’d shrug and “maybe they have a couple others.” 
This is interesting. I had cancelled my automatic renewal a while back (after this whole issue started) as a way of showing my discontent with the new fee (even though I am premium). I just looked at my THS account settings and noticed that I could cancel my automatic renewal (I had done that already). When I clicked on it I get an offer “How about 20% off Instead?” “CA$339 CA$271.20 / year” “We’ll apply the discount when your membership renews on July 23rd.” I’m given the options “No Thanks” or “Apply discount”. Am I being bought off?
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