I worked for a vet many years ago who allowed people to have an account. Whilst this allowed many people to get treatment they wouldn’t normally be able to it was also taken advantage of by a lot of people. It almost sunk the business but the vet was reluctant to stop doing it because of the benefit it provided pets. Now you have the opposite where it seems the owners are the ones getting bankrupted and the vets still aren’t the ones making money.
If you upgrade to Premium membership for a few extra bucks you are not subject to a booking fee, no matter how many sits you are involved with for the entire year. You also get free lounge passes and a few other perks that I found to be worthwhile.
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Oh, I know. I am from Ireland and Ryanair has had an terrible reputation forever.
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Homeowner… I’m concerned as I post a few short sits every year of 5 days in order to visit out of town family. This fee will absolutely stop sitters from applying. I would pay the fee for the sitter, however my biggest beef over this whole situation, is having had to agree to new terms and conditions BEFORE being able to see what it entailed. I do not want to stay as a customer with a company that operates this way. I am seriously looking at other options.
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Right, they’re infamous for bad customer service and fleecing people with absurd fees.
So it’s quite ironic that THS are calling it your sit ‘boarding pass’ with a RyanAir type format.
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I’m a HO and have a Premium membership. I post several sits a year anywhere from 1-3 weeks each time. I’m already having a hard time finding good sitters and I live in a very desirable area. Will I get sitters for upcoming trips, who knows, but I’m very unhappy with this new fee. This fee affects everyone. I’m willing to pay the booking fee for sitters.
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Ryanair are actually much better than their reputation. Usually punctual, get you there cheaply, they don’t pretend to be anything they are not. Never crashed either.
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I started a thread for hosts who have Premium and can see how many sitters favorited their listing. By tracking the list over time it might give an idea how many sitters are actually leaving the site because of the new fee.
The link is here:
I saw your thread. For one sit I posted over a year ago, I reached out to sitters who favored my listing and no one was interested due to availability. The favorites mean nothing to me as if they were available, they would have applied. Reaching out to sitters is a waste of time. I have tons of sitters who favored my listing, so what.
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I figure the “sitters who favorited you list” gives you an idea of how marketable your property is to the member base but I could be wrong, and perhaps they don’t drop off the list if they don’t renew which makes my theory even more pointless.
As far as reaching out to sitters, when I first joined I went through dozens of sitter profiles including those who favorited my listing (back then it was a short list), made a spreadsheet of an A list, a B list and a standby/backup list.
As you have found, reaching out to sitters, even those who applied for a prior sit who were interested in future dates was a wasted effort. Especially because when I list dates I’m overwhelmed with a high number of applicants, constantly having to clear the que when the maximum limit is reached, and often I would get as many as 8 applicants before I had to clear it.
Thanks for that, didn’t know 
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That’s exactly what they want — long time sitters and homeowners, who knew and belonged to this platform before it became a money grubbing corporation, just cause problems and grumbling, and will leave. And THS will say Good Riddance. It’s a high growth model and there will always be new joiners.
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I was very disappointed to read this. So much so, I joined the forum today to voice my concerns. As a pet owner on a very tight budget, I had just about managed to cover off the membership fees. The reasoning behind this cost appears vague and seems like a not so subtle ploy to upsell premium.
It feels like a money grabbing tactic to me. A fee on both sides, whether it’s a 2 week sit or 2 days. Ridiculous!!!
For the last year I had been singing the praises of this service to my friends, as the whole ethos is around trust on both sides- from us pet owners to the lovely sitters. This decision has turned the whole thing sour and the company should seriously think about reconsidering and listening to the voices of your community on here.
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So disappointing. I have been proud to recommend THS to others as a service based on mutual trust and interests, and one in which “no money changes hands.” This really destroys the integrity of the platform. I will no longer recommend it, and suspect I will cancel when my membership expires. I worked for Coca-Cola during the disastrous launch of “New Coke.” This feels equally ill-considered. To the credit of Coca-Cola’s leadership, they did a quick pivot (in response to consumer complaints and lower sales volume). I would like to believe that THS will do the same.
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If THS do respond to the tidal wave of criticism it’ll probably be some watery marketing spiel that means nothing of substance.
Saying nothing though, which they may do, will pretty wild given the scale of backlash.
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This is a great watch in relation to understanding the approach behind the fees. If you skip to 29 minutes in Cory talks about all the stupid fees on Amazon that are just a ploy to force users to spend more https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wE8G-d7SnY
Pure, self serving, corporate greed.
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They’re not the only one apparently; I just ran into an airline charging to print boarding passes. Think it was Loganair, also out of Dublin.
Printer shortage in Ireland, maybe…? 
You are a lucky gal.
It is extremely annoying that some, including me who has been with THS since 2010, have their subscription due much earlier.
I’ve been pretty amazed at how this rolled out, and the dearth of any meaningful effort by the executive or marketing staff to try to soften the blow, explain it, or to engage with the community whatsoever. Not even any “happy-speak” announcements about meaningful improvements that will come about thanks to our increased investment.
Ignoring the fees for a moment, which are minimal at this juncture. But the act of dropping a bomb like this 2 weeks before Christmas and leaving the forum moderators to single-handedly deal with the fallout — it tells me everything I need to know about the current management, company culture, & what we can expect from them in the future.
It’s not a good look.
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Hello everyone!
I’ve shared an update from the team so please take a look when you have a moment.
Due to there being over 1000 posts on this discussion thread, I’m closing it to new replies, but you can continue the conversation around the booking fee over on the new post.
Thanks to everyone who has contributed so far.
Jenny 
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