With the amount of work many European sits want - beyond a few dogs or cats - I think I’m better off paying out of pocket for a modest AirBNB and hoping to offset the cost by having folks sit for me while I do so.
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Agree - I was incredibly fortunate in 2022 when our first four sits on the site were all in London. Now logging in twice or three times a day is not enough to get into the first five for the majority of London sits before they are reviewing. I won’t “have to take less popular sits” - these are generally not in places I wish to visit so as @systaran has said I’ll simply make other plans and weigh up whether it is worthwhile continuing membership when it is up for renewal.
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For the price of the annual membership, I’ve never thought that. We just completed a four night sit as a local in our own very desirable city in a great location(we live in a suburb of the city). It would have cost us about $1200 just in hotel accommodation to stay in the heart of the downtown area. We’ve been members for eight years and have also done some wonderful international sits. So I think for the cost, it’s definitely worth it.
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I hear you - I have also considered leaving THS after being a sitter member for many years due to the 5 application rule. I’m not UK based, and obviously as frequent users know there’s a huge ‘imbalance’ so to speak between UK and non-UK sits in Europe.
What probably frustrates me the most these days, since the rule was introduced, that 1) I have to be on the site more often & have to be faster (‘early bird catches the worm’), and 2) I find myself spending more time securing a sit -as well as finding myself wasting more time on THS - because the ‘pickings’ are now more slim.
I haven’t jumped ship to another site yet. Why not? Because the choice is limited. Unfortunately there aren’t 1 or more competitors in Europe who are up to the level of THS in terms of supply of sits, website sophistication etc. I tried 2 other sites some time ago and it was cumbersome.
And I think many sitters realise that as well. It’s not like internet or mobile providers, where there is real comparative choice. If such a competitor would exist, I would probably jump.
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@systaran . Yes. We’re now using our network of international contacts to go off platform. And have developed a few tricks to get around the limitations. But we certainly won’t take less desirable sits just because…
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@Timshazz pray tell? 
Our family spent 6 months in Asia and was able to secure a 2 week sit in Singapore so that saved us a ton in lodging. We flew back to Seattle a couple weeks ago and we lined up 9 day sit starting the day after we arrived so that we would have time to deal with our vehicle that was in storage. And of course it wouldn’t start so we made the right decision. The lodging for these two sits made this year’s membership cost well worth it. Next week we are headed to California to a beautiful location for a 2+ week sit. It still blows my mind pet parents will accept our big family
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@ziggy over a beer one day! 
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@Timshazz you’re on! 
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I still think it’s worth it for our way of life, travelling most of the time, however, it’s far more stressful and a hassle. There’s no time to consider anything anymore and a short note to secure the place in the first five must aggravate some pet parents. But it’s the only way to give yourself time to think.
We have been members for over five years and constantly use the site. After a long discussion we have decided to stay put as the quality of the sits cannot be matched on the other sites we have looked at. We have just had to change our method of applying.
All good things are worth the effort.
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I think it’s worth it - it’s just changed. It definitely is harder to get those really desirable sits (easy cats in great locations!) but there are quite a few really good looking London sits that stay open for a while. Usually dogs but if you’re mostly in it for the animals then that’s no trouble. I’m still desperate to get a sit in Madrid and that’s proving a challenge but it just feels like the difficult point has changed a bit - if I can get an application in there’s a decent chance it’ll get read and maybe chosen (much better than if I was competing with 20+ applications). With the old system I think I’d still be missing out on sits, but from not being chosen vs not being able to apply if that makes sense.
For us, the membership has paid for itself many times over - it’s not perfect but I can make it work for what I want. Massive caveat that we only joined 18 months ago so have never known any different and didn’t struggle to get our first sits.
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We’ve been members for just over 5 years now and despite all the unpopular changes we have never had a problem getting sits. And we have sat around the world now. In fact we’ve actually become more and more full time & in the last 2 years alone we sat for around 300 days per year! In many different countries. As full timers we frequently take less popular sits to fill gaps but quite often they turn into pleasant surprises. We have actually rarely missed out on any sits we really wanted and if they are gone before we see them- well, that’s just how the cookie crumbles! I do understand for newcomers the new policies and the stiff competition- in some areas- can make it tricky to get going. E.g we have lots of first timers who choose us for our experience as it makes them feel more secure. But we all have to start somewhere and we were once first timers! Persistance definitely pays off!
Our membership price has been fixed since 2018 as we’ve remained on auto renew. It is cheaper than all the new 3 tier prices so its absolutely worth keeping on- even just one short sit a year justifies the cost!
I can well imagine, unless anything drastic changes, remaining a member indefinitely and keeping all our options open.
We have saved a fortune in rental & utility costs over the years as well as having so many unexpected and interesting adventures! In many ways its been lifechanging and I feel lucky and grateful! 
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To Lokstar’s point, I figure THS membership is great value for money, because I get many sits I want, with low effort. And I search for sits only sporadically and have been sitting for only a year.
Since sitting is optional for me, the serendipity of it is fun. If I get sits in popular locations, great. If not, shrug, there still are plenty of interesting places to visit.
Even on Nomador, which I was just trying out to see whether I’d land sits in locations where THS is thin, I’ve been able to land NY and Hong Kong sits. One of those stays alone covers my costs. And I rarely search on Nomador — even less than on THS — because Nomador is much worse than THS.
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This is a great share out of your A/B testing 
.
A slight aside but I find it slightly better to have the app installed on my phone as I get notifications to it faster. If you’re asleep though and it’s a hot location, the sits are gonna go fast regardless.
Over 10 years of using the site and its definitely worth the subscription, even if you only used it once. My difficulty this year is finding a French sit in May. There seem so few listings and even with a saved search only one or two come up. Nothing at all in other parts of Europe. What sites are they using to look for petsitters? The 90/180 rule doesnt help.
Question, since text sit notifications were mentioned on this thread…when receiving text notifications of locations you have Favorited, do those notifications read differently than saved locations texts?
Yes, they look differently. They also arrive with different delays:
We had done a bit of testing: Sits gone by the time I receive an alert - #30 by HelloOutThere
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Hello @Peakysitter
I’m surprised : as a french sitter I’ve been house-sitting a lot in France these past years (though at the moment we are very lucky to be dog-sitting in Portugal for 1 month !! Still can’t believe how lucky we are !! thanks THS)… and still have a notification for listings in France : I count actually 10 sits in France in May (or including days in may : some are april-may or may-june). There are a lot for march-april : maybe you will have some more opportunities in few days ?
Being on THS for 5 years , it seems to me that there are more and more listings in France no ?
And to give my opinion to this thread @RR12345 : for us THS really worths it. Even though this 5 applicants rule makes applications more stressful that is for sure…
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Have you considered joining Nomador for French sits? It’s primarily French.
I joined to see whether I could land sits in locations where THS is thin and have been offered unsolicited sits in France, even though I have no interest in sitting there. (I like Paris, but I’d rather vacation there without any responsibilities.)
For me, Nomador has already paid off with sits in NY and Hong Kong later this year. And that’s even though I rarely search there, because the functionality is worse than THS and there are more flakey hosts, at least for sit locations that interest me.
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