Sorry this happened to you.
Luckily it is probably not a 1000+ flight price, since UK-Switzerland flight are doable for 100-250 euro retour. (Depending time of booking, airport, kind of ticket etc.)
That means that for you it is more affordable, but also that maybe the chances are bigger that HO may pay (a part of the) costs, if you cancel.
(We had it once with a ferry to Guernsey (350 Euro’s), HO re-imbursed our ferry costs, but we had a cancellation option, so only 50 euro left for them to pay)
Switzerland is expensive to stay in hotels.
But take a little tent with you and go camping in the Swiss Alps. I heard that public transport should be good.
Go and look for sits in Italy, France, Germany, Spain or Austria (also cheaper for hotels).
Especially France and Spain have a lot.
Take public transport to there.
(But the HO have to cancel first then)
Look at FB groups as “host a sitter”, “Urlaub gegen Hand” or other groups if they can help you out.
We’re in the UK and sitters. Sorry but it’s not the responsibility of the HO to reimburse sitters, because it is the sitters CHOICE to travel further afield. If they were responsible then I can’t see any HO picking any sitter that lived overseas.
We have a back up plan for all the things that could go wrong, such as cancelled sits, and the car breaking down for the ones that are in the UK, just so that we are prepared for anything, because there’s not actually that many things that can go wrong.
If I were in your position:-
A. With hindsight, if I was travelling to a country where there may be less its and I didn’t have family there then I would have paid extra to enable me to cancel the flights.
B. I’d find another sit in Switzerland.
C. I’d change my flight to a different destination if it were possible, even if a small fee was required.
As Switzerland is costly to pay for accommodation (and your concern is money), I’d get a sit in a neighbouring country and pay to fly or train straight out of Switzerland, to sit elsewhere. It’s amazing how cheap some flights are when they are just a short distance. For example a flight to/from the mainland of Spain to Ibiza is only £6 - I know it’s still Spain, but that’s just the last one I looked into, I know there are others between France and Italy etc that are cheap, no idea about Switzerland, but they neighbour each other so they shouldn’t be too bad.
But also, we sit full time, so when things do go wrong and there’s money involved, then we have changed the way we look at things now. We look at it from a whole year of saved costs of accommodation.
In the whole of our first year, we only had 1 thing go wrong, the car broke down and it was fine because we had a plan in place and still made it to our next sit in time, but there were costs involved. And in our 2nd year, we have had 2 sits cancel (for good reason - lovely owners), fortunately for us they were in the UK so we found new sits within days. In the grand scheme of things, the odd thing going wrong here and there, is actual quite a small thing in our minds now, 1 or 2 things going wrong, isn’t much of a price to pay over a year or two.
@TravelMan
I don’t think the small claims route will be successful.
There’s no contract between host and sitter . The THS T&Cs which both members have agreed to state that sitter is responsible for their travel expenses.
No contract has been broken, therefore no valid claim.
I think it is fine for sitter to ask for reimbursement for the cancellation to focus an owner on the impact on the sitter . However there’s nothing in the T&Cs that obliges the owner to reimburse the sitter for travel expenses in any situation cancellation or otherwise .
If the reason for the cancellation is not an extraordinary circumstance the sitter could choose to report this to member services and raise a member dispute. However that still won’t get them their flight money back which is @Jlt59 ’s main concern.
It is not that difficult. You wrote that this was in Switzerland, and there are often hosts in the area around Geneva (which could mean France).
Or around Basel, which can by France or Germany. I was in Weil am Rhein, technically Germany but within range of Swiss cellphone networks. The Basel tram was around the corner.
So set up a Saved search using the map interface and get the alerts for new dates.
Thanks. Unfortunately I would be lucky to have 10 sits as the site is very competitive, so struggling to see this as anything other than a loss at the moment.
Thanks, however, changing the dates of the flight and hotel is not an option without a fee and will entail me spending more money, so this really isn’t an option. The sits are also highly competitive so I feel unlikely to get a similar place or time.
What date was the cancelled sit @Jlt59 ?
There are sits currently listed in Switzerland
Contact member support via live chat - ask to speak to an agent -
Request that MS cancel the sit as host hasn’t done that - ( provide screenshots of the message where they are cancelling you )
Apply for another sit in Switzerland or neighbouring country.
As you already have a flight ticket this will be a positive to mention in your application.
If the dates don’t match exactly you may incur some accommodation costs for one or two nights - but if you have Premium membership you will be able to claim that back (-$150) .
This is your opinion. In my opinion, if you agree a sit, agree flights and times, the sitter should not have to lose out. I’m also not willing to change dates and times, paying more money for amendments, hotels and trains to make another sit work.
Hi all,
For anyone misunderstanding, I know there’s no contract. However, if I were a cancelling host I would reimburse the travel costs as it’s the decent thing to do.
I’m also unable to put any more money into changing hotels, flights and spending money on trains to go to alternate places. I spent months looking for these dates in Switzerland before I got accepted, as it’s highly competitive , so a lot of this advice is not pragmatic at all.
Thanks
Did you read the T&C before you signed up?
Unfortunately, as sitters we all know the perils and pitfalls, I never sit abroad for this reason.
It could happen to you again.
Yes I read the T&Cs - unfortunately was relying on the decency of the host. I agree with you, international sits are not worth the risk. Thanks for one of the few empathetic replies.
To be fair, you have had a lot of very good advice. Unfortunately, you don’t seem to be in a financial position to follow some of it.
Hope your luck changes soon.
Come on! I would not disagree when it comes to expensive transcontinental travel to remote places (depends on how much money one can afford to lose). But this is within Europe, just a short boat ride away from your island.
