Hi, my family and i were meant to be on a repeat sit this weekend but the HO messaged me this morning about a serious medical emergency and that she needed to cancel.
No problem at all, but without thinking i cancelled the sit on ths from my end. The point was to take the load off her, to avoid blank reviews, and to see if we could find anything else. However we were communicating via whatsapp as had sat previously and i suddenly realised that this might now be a black mark on our record with THS. Am i worrying unnecessarily? I havent been keeping up to date with developments!
@catscatscats24, sorry to hear of both HO medical emergency and housesit cancellation.
Yes - THS profiles do not show any data on historic cancellations. Perhaps if this happened multiple times then THS may ask questions. But does not seem any impact.
That said, you (rather than HO) cancelling housesit on THS platform probably invalidates eligibility for THS Sit Cancellation Insurance (if you’re a premium member).
Sorry to hear the sit was cancelled. I remember when they first introduced this feature, I am fairly certain there was an additional reason that said something along the lines of the host cancelling the sit. Perhaps I was mistaken. It could be helpful to get in touch with membership services and see if there can be a notation made. Or reinstate the sit somehow and have the host cancel? I presume you chose ‘something else?’ and there was not an option to elaborate?
That should be one of the reasons–I figured one driver of the feature was for sitters to be able to open their calendar back up if a host cancelled without having to wait for them officially do it in the system.
I wouldn’t beat yourself up about it. From what you’ve described, the host had already told you she needed to cancel because of a serious medical emergency, and you were simply trying to make things easier for her and free up your dates.
I can understand why you’re now wondering whether you should have let the host cancel it officially, though. Given the circumstances, I’d probably contact THS and explain exactly what happened, particularly as you were communicating with the host outside the platform because you’d already completed a previous sit together.
Hopefully they can make a note of the circumstances if necessary. And in future, I’d let the host do the cancellation on THS even if you’re trying to be helpful.
The bigger issue here is obviously the host’s medical emergency, so I hope everything works out okay for her.
I think you did the right thing. Taking that task off of the HO plate was very kind. I wouldn’t worry, In sure once things settle down they’ll reconnect, if that’s what you also want.
You could also send a message to the HO via the inbox saying, “Just want to let you know that due to your need to cancel the sit this weekend because of a medical emergency as explained in our WhatsApp message, I have taken that load off you by cancelling it from my end. Thinking of you.” This way there is a record on the site.
We’ve cancelled on behalf of an owner twice before to help ease their hassle but I did it by contacting THS, explaining the scenario, and THS cancelled it and said they’d send an email to the owners saying what they/I had done. But fortunately in both scenarios, they’d messaged via THS, so I could say to them to look at our messages.
I’m not sure what is right and wrong from a THS perspective, but I know you’ve definitely done the right thing from a lovely and kind perspective .
I think there’s been some great advice here, thanks to everyone that’s contributed so far. I’ve asked the team for their “official” stance about this, and I’ll pop back when I know more.
Just popping back to confirm that this won’t have any negative effect - cancellations are only logged internally in case of multiple sits being cancelled which might require investigation.
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