Hi all
I’m looking for a specific sit over Xmas and wondered if (other than changing your profile) if there was a way to find sits/ agree sits with HOs?
I have alerts on my app which are very regular and helpful, we had a great sit over Xmas last year so I’ve been watching all year to hopefully find something similar again. Something may still come up but would love to get thoughts from more experienced sitters than I! It’s possible I’m looking for a unicorn! 
Thanks all:pray: 
Sara
Specific meaning specific home owner? specific location? specific dates?
If HO, contact them now and ask. If location/dates, set up a saved search and check it daily. Sits in popular areas can be full of applications within an hour so you have to check regularly if you want to go to a high demand area.
If by specific sit you mean a repeat visit to the one you did last year, then there is no harm contacting them and asking if they are going away again this year
Which location are you looking at? Our current HO’s are looking for someone for Xmas and New Years but we can’t commit -wonderful sit.
Specific… place??? We’re returning to sit the same pets for New Year. Is your specific place the same place you went to last year? Our sit is really close to where our son and his family lives overseas, so the lovely owners KNOW we’re definitely going to show up when we say we are, even though there’s a flight involved, because our family are there. Owners will need to be sure you are going to definitely show up with it being Christmas/New Year, so I think that’s the key to getting the sit you want at that time of year.
If there’s a flight involved, then perhaps say you’ll book the flight within 24hours if they accept you, so they know you are totally committed, the flight times weren’t even released at the point we organised things earlier in the year, but we (and they) knew we would book flights as soon as they were… we get to see our family! Which means the owners could also presume that the price of the flight tickets didn’t matter to us at that time of year, because they are hefty between Christmas and New Year in our situation, whereas prior to Christmas they aren’t as bad.
In order to receive alerts quickly on your phone, for Sits with new dates, it is best to browse listings in the area that you really want, and “favorite” the listings that sound appealing to you.
If you do a NEW search for the area that you want, Owner profiles without current dates will show up below the profiles with current dates. You can browse and favorite Owner profiles there.
I realize that this can be somewhat time consuming, but it all depends on which area you want and how many Owners are there! I would sort the listings by “distance” so that the listings closest to the actual town where you want to stay, are at the top of the results.
The app might work differently than the web version, so I would look at both. Maybe someone else can comment on this.
Good luck!
May I ask where at? I’m looking for a sit in Europe over the holidays.
It’s in Kent in the English countryside, one pup and stunning property and gardens. You would need a car . Happy to send you the link if you’re interested.
Thanks, you sure can, however I’m looking for something in a city, possibly some xmas martkets, etc.
There’s normally a few Swiss 
town Christmas sits with markets that come up @SoloGal. If you haven’t done it already, it’s good to favourite the town and also the individual sits that you like as well, as the latter pops up on alerts before the generic one! #toptowntip
Thanks so much, I do have quite a few favorited all over Europe.
I would keep in mind that sits like that can be pretty high demand due to location and they are usually full of applications within an hour of going live. So if this is something you really want you should be actively monitoring new listings vs waiting for emails/alerts. Create a saved search that meets your criteria and then refresh it periodically throughout the day.
Apart from getting notifications you do need to be chosen among applicants, with a popular sit that would be your hurdle.
A key factor is to have reviews from actual sits. Maybe I misinterpreted - but do you have only one sit/ review? If so I would see how I could get more reviews. I think a host will prefer sitters with more than one if they have the option to?
Maybe a homeowner could share with us how many THS reviews is good to have before they don’t look at that factor any longer. 3-4-5?
To get more reviews a low hanging fruit to pick is to do a couple of weekend-sits locally, for instance.
Thanks, Ill start doing that as well.
Sometimes there is nothing you can do. I recently applied for a sit and was rejected without any comments. I have 20+ all 5 star reviews so I looked a little closer and noticed that the HO who had about 10 sitters already only had female sitters…
The original question’s kinda vague. Specific how? Changing your profile…?
If it’s an in-demand area, as others have noted, the “alerts” can be somewhat useless if you aren’t on it immediately.
In case it’s helpful, what I did when I wanted a sit in the solar eclipse path, was first to set a search in applicable areas for dates around 3 weeks either side of the eclipse date. This of course brought a lot of invalid results that I had to weed through (within the time frame but not that date, etc.), and that was time-consuming, but then I also spent a lot of time just trawling across the housesit map along the path and looking for a match. Took a few weeks of regular searches, and a couple times a day as the date approached, but I eventually scored an awesome sit.
So I’d suggest, set up a search, but then also use the map (wish TH would improve its searchability; it’s pretty cumbersome) and look in the area you want for the dates you want. Keep checking.
Good luck 
I meant an area, it is popular have multiple searches saved! Thank you and well done on getting the sits you wanted. I am checking responding immediately - well when I see my alerts but honestly this has been like having another job!
That would have been great but they moved! haha
Dubai - lots of people leave to visit family there were many many sits last year and I’m not having any joy this year
Good point I always use the app. I have been b diligent, searched for the entire city and then favourited every sit where I’m confident with the pet. thanks for the reassurance at least I am on the right lines and I will check the website too