I’ve marked several sits as favorites so I can jump on them as soon as they become available but something seems off. Many times I open the alert on my phone within a second of it coming though on my phone by they are already gone. How is this possible? Do some people get earlier alerts?
I know one possibility: when HO and sitter agreed to change dates, the HO needs to cancel the original listing.
Then the HO can relist with the new dates and the sitter immediately applies with maybe a single word in the application, is accepted and confirms.
I had a favorite that alerted me today and I checked immediately. Already 4 applicants.
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Me too! So i wonder if the homeowners can reject one sitter from the current five that responded, and then the sit comes up active again? I thought they had to discard all five applicants from the queue before they would get any more.
This happens to me daily. I favorited a lot of sits in popular areas so I would get notifications and be able to apply. However, the listings are already reviewing when I receive the notification. There is definitely a delay on the notifications. Favoriting sits really doesn’t make a difference.
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Pretty much every sit I have favourited for Italy is like that.
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Yes, that’s how it works. We can delete just one and un-pause the listing.
So if I understand this correctly a home/pet owner can only review 5 applications? Then must delete one or more and unpause the listing.
That’s what happens to me all the time. Can’t figure it out.
This is a well-worn topic and I believe the technical answer in another thread was that notifications are only sent every hour, they aren’t proper instant notifications like the system used by Microsoft & maybe other browsers (I’m wandering off my skill set here). Anyway, if the notifications are sent on the hour, for example, then a fab sit is listed at 5 mins past the hour, you won’t see it until 55 mins later at best. The only way to be completely on top of new sits is to have a Web page open with your saved search, sorted by “newest” and keep checking it as often as you can 
. I’m not App friendly but I don’t think it’s possible to do the same with App…techies like @MissChef and @geoff.hom will know better.
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I am a sitter. One of the HOs where I sit in Spain told me that over 200 people have marked her listing as a favorite. At any given moment lots of sitters are browsing the listings as well.
I think it’s just the math/odds of so many sitters being interested in sits in certain areas, they see it and apply right away, so by the time you get the alert, even if there are a few applicant spots left, one of those 200+ others who have favorited it have jumped in a second earlier.
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I think there must be a huge delay on the app, I gave up using the app ages ago, it used to get me so frustrated with the time I wasted to look, only to find out sits were already being reviewed. Instead of keeping me in my happy place thinking of furry animals xx
This subject has been discussed numerous times. Plenty of different ideas and speculations were presented as to why or what might be causing this issue, none of which were confirmed or denied by THS. In fact, to the best of my recollection, THS has remained silent on this subject. Perhaps it is time for THS to clarify this issue and put a stop to any further speculations.
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That was not my experience when the HO and I adjusted the dates of the sit. The notification came fast. Maybe not “instant” but within minutes, I do not exactly remember.
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Sorry @pietkuip I don’t understand the precise circumstance of your example. Were you already the confirmed sitter & you got a notification of the adjustment? That isn’t the same as what I’m talking about, when you have saved searches set on the App for which matches are listed, or your favourites post a new listing. In those circumstances then the notification is not instantly despatched, only within the maximum 59 minutes after the listing goes live.
Or is that not what you meant?
I sometimes feel we all need a glossary to explain the differences between favourites, saved searches, notifications (by App) and notifications (by email) 
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Heck, 75 have favorited mine, and I’m in Cincinnati, for heaven’s sake. 
Not exactly the tourism capital of the world.
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I just favorited your sit. It looks great and I sit in the Midwest a lot. If I wasn’t already booked for those dates I would apply.
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The circumstances were that we had confirmed a sit, but that we needed to adjust the dates. The only way to do that is for the HO to cancel the old listing first.
Then the HO posted our agreed dates and sent me an invitation. I believe that I also received at almost the same time a notification in the app because I had it as a favourite but it could be that my memory is wrong there. Anyway, I was told that we needed to do this (accepting and confirming) quickly to avoid getting up the hopes of others.
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