Cancellations mentioned in your profile

THS News & Feedback
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Addition

Thanks everyone for their replies and perspectives and personal - sometimes sad - experiences.

Good to be extra aware that nobody loves to cancel an appointment easily.

And yes, we are not unique in the sense that life’s drama’s doesn’t knock on our door. I don’t believe I have to go into specifics to ‘proof’ a point.

I my opinion there is no harm in mentioning in how many times/years we cancelled an agreement in the past > 10 years.

And if some people label us as ‘negative’ because of this, we will probably not be a good match. That is ok. We respect different opinions.

We prefer helping people making well informed choices, even if this makes some other people uncomfortable.

And now I wonder: will this thread be forever ongoing, because I have a life outside TH going on :slightly_smiling_face:

THS has decided not to share information about cancellations by HO or HS/PS because of personal circumstances which may lead to a sequence of many cancellations.

Even so, this can be important information to decide whether or not to agree to people or not. And we all probably know people who have a sequence of ‘unhappy incidents’. Which is different compared to a year of turmoil.

Therefore we have decided to put in our profile the number of YEARS when we had to cancel due to personal circumstances. Which of course can also happen to us. This is unfortunately not verifiable by an independent third company, but nowadays with everyone being online I trust that the truth always comes out.

At this moment we have been members of a home exchange company and this first year of THS, totally over > 10 years (I haven’t checked the exact number) and we never, ever had to cancel anytime. I am super grateful that this was never necessary. And if it happens, I will mention it of course. Turmoil or Covid regulations can happen.

Why I found this important? We are house sitters. There is a significant bigger risk for us if we have an agreement in an area where there are almost no members of THS and the trip is far away. When we book in advance the travel prices are much lower but the cancellation policy THS doesn’t cover.

This might also be applicable for the HO, as they also often book much time before travelling date.

By mentioning it in our profile, we give HO extra information to consider.

What are your thoughts about this mentioning in our profile?

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I’m not understanding if you mean “cancelled a membership”, since you talk about years, or canceling a sit. I don’t get the concept of YEARS of cancellations.

And this part:
This is unfortunately not verifiable by an independent third company, but nowadays with everyone being online I trust that the truth always comes out.

How would this be known? And for what purpose?

In my opinion life happens, people who want to cancel because they never took the commitment seriously can always come up with an excuse, and people who need to cancel for a serious reason do it so with a heavy heart.
I’m glad that THS decided to not add this detail to our profiles, it’d be hard to differentiate the two.

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It would definitely give prospective home owners food for thought - but it also seems like tempting fate!

It might prompt a discussion about practicalities such as travel plans on both sides, which can be a good way to guage the level of committment of both parties, eg. are your flights booked yet? As a sitter this also helps pinpoint exactly when I’m required to arrive/leave, and whether I need to factor in a bit of leeway for home owners’ flights being delayed on the return leg etc. It might even prompt questions about the circumstances under which either party may need to cancel a sit, or leave a sit early, eg. elderly relative in poor health, and what would happen in that situation.

But ultimately, I think that @Peonie19 has hit the nail on the head, and that even if cancellations were marked on profiles, it would be difficult to know which were for genuine reasons and which were people being unreliable.

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If I am understanding you correctly, no I don’t see it as a problem. We’re sitters and we have never cancelled ANY sit, and we have always had plenty of notice if an HO’s plans have changed (6 months worth of notice in most cases), except for on two occasions recently, and on both of those scenarios they had a dog sadly pass away, which was the most traumatic situation for them, however, if you are looking at things from a sitters perspective, we filled those dates again within 3 days, so there was absolutely no problem at all.

For just two occasions where the worst possible scenario has happened, I don’t see that as something that needs to mentioned in our profile, especially when we can fill the whole period of 9 weeks in total within 3 days. I would rather stick to being positive, and attracting positive minded HO’s to our profile.

I think it’s totally right that THS doesn’t share any information of that sort, if you had lost a pet, would you really want that information sharing with sitters that don’t even know you personally? Grief is such a personal thing.

So no, I definitely won’t be mentioning anything of that sort in our profile. I’d rather HO’s read our profile and felt positive off the back of it.

Also, if you can’t afford to cover the transport/flight costs if an HO has to cancel, then you shouldn’t be doing the trip without having a backup plan in place, like volunteering for a charity in that place for example.

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Sadly as we get older and our previously ‘fit’ bodies fail in unexpected ways I’m afraid 10 years of no cancellations doesn’t ‘future proof’ you from having to cancel in the future as I’ve recently discovered.
The point is to cancel in an ethical manner so that HOs have the maximum opportunity to relist their sit.

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I second your last paragraph especially. You said it much nicer than I would have.

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This is a great sum up @Peonie19

#lifeislilkeaboxofchocolates

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I used to be very proud of having a history of never canceling until my ego got knocked down by a physical challenge and as was said, with a heavy heart had to cancel two sits.
It made me see things differently and the reality is I have had HOs cancel for health reasons as well.
There is no badge of honor so there shouldn’t be a black mark either. We are humans dealing with other humans and never is a bold statement very much subject to change.
And change is the only constant.

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