Hey!
What is folks experience with premium? Is it worth it? If so, why?
I’m especially interested in the travel lounges and how that works.
I"m starting to travel a good bit more (I work from my computer), and I’m enjoying the sits. I’ve never really used travel lounges but it seems like a nice perk. I couldn’t really understand how often you can use them though?
Thanks for any input and advice!
If you search the forum you’ll find this has been discussed a lot before
I wouldn’t pay for premium just for the lounge passes, tbh; they’re kind of the basic lounges you can get access to via Priority Pass, and you only get 4 per year. If you have a layover you could easily wind up using 2 on a one-way trip, or 4 if you’re traveling with a friend. On top of that, I also have lounge access through several of my credit cards already.
I pay for premium because:
it means I don’t pay booking fees; I hate being nickle- & dimed for things. I’d rather just pay up front.
the sit cancellation insurance, although people report differing results with claims. Be sure to read the terms & conditions as there are limits & maximums.
my perception that I have better access to member support 
(tbf, I’ve had positive results in my few interactions there.)
Personally, I guess I look at it as less than a true premium service, & more like a convenience fee. 
Personally, I really like the lounges. Without the expensive credit cards to get you in free, you can become a member and pay, I think, $35-40 to enter. Of course, there’s a fee to join. Also, I think it’s only a pair for the year, not 4. I hope I’m wrong.
When we travel a fair distance for a sit, we like the piece of mind you get with premium in case something goes side-ways with travel or the sit.
We only signed up to premium when the booking fee’s malarchy came into play, but it’s been totally worth it for us, simply because we get a lot of free months membership via referrals, so we only had to pay to upgrade to premium ONCE ONLY (ie just pay the difference to upgrade) and our future years will be free anyway. We’ve always got about 5 years free years ahead of us… so all those years are free, even though we’d earned them before we even signed up to premium, which is brilliant.
Lounge passes - our local airport lounge is pretty cheap anyway to get into in comparison to other places, so the amount to upgrade was actually more than just paying to get into the lounge for us both (and it’s only once per year), so that was never going to be a great benefit to us personally, but I can see how it would be to others, plus the flight we usually take is only 3 hours, so there’s no great need for lounge passes, but obviously we’ll definitely use them now that we have them. We’re using them for the first time in a couple of weeks, with it being summer (ie busy) we’ve ended up with not very nice flight times, so the perk of the lounge passes makes it feel a little less of a hassle.
Sit cancellation benefit - since we started sitting we’ve had the odd sit being cancelled by HO’s for various understandable reasons, but all of them would have been outside of the t&c’s timeframe required to claim, if we’d have had premium, so it’s hard to see whether or not we’ll ever have a scenario that meets the t&c’s, but it does now give us peace of mind for when and if a scenario arose, and that counts for a lot.
We think it’s worth it but almost all our sits are international so we always use the longer passes. If we had bought them they have ranged from $76 to $110 per person so makes total sense. The upgrade was $45 on a Black Friday deal and like @HappyDeb we have 5 years of referrals so happy days on not paying for renewals for a while. We’ve used the cancellation plan once successfully which paid out about $1000. The booking fee nonsense has been a hidden bonus of premium that we didn’t see coming. #goodforus
@dksnook, welcome to THS Forum. As @smiley rightly noted, suggest use magnifying glass at top screen to search historical THS Forum threads on this topic. Lots.
We have been premium members for a few years now. For us it’s a no-brainer as we are full-time international sitters. We have had one eligible claim on Sit Cancellation Insurance for ~US$1000. For us, incremental cost is small in big picture (e.g. travel costs). But housesitting objectives and personal preferences vary greatly across housesitter community.
We had not used airport lounges until we started housesitting. For us, the THS lounge passes seemed a nice perk - two per year and easy to use. Early in our travel adventures, we changed credit cards and a bank account to travel-friendly versions and now have bizarrely have more free airport lounge passes than we can credibly use. For us now, the THS lounge passes have one unique aspect - they can be used without our presence, say for a visiting family member. That’s a very nice gesture.
Across topics related to newbie housesitters, we encourage experimentation. Why not try Premium for one year and then re-assess value for money? Or take @HappyDeb approach and collect referral awards (that extend membership regardless of tier).
Hi @dksnook,
Welcome to the forum?
Is it worth?
For me, it’s totally worth for all the reasons @Cuttlefish mentioned and, given that you have never used those lounges, it will probably be worth for you too. As everything in life, it depends on previous experiences. Some people use them very often and are used to higher quality lounges so, for them, these are a bit poor. Compared to common areas of the terminal they’re great! Apart from comfort, you have access to unlimited food and drinks, not high end quality or choice but still worth.
How often can you use them?
2 free single-use airport lounge passes each membership year
This seems to be your answer of choice and every time I read it I wonder
hmmmm thanks for the advice. I’m having a really hard time finding anything though I’m not sure the search works well or at least well for me! Thank you for trying to help me though!
Do people use this as a lifestyle where they don’t really have a home?
I work from my computer and am starting to mix sits in with Airbnb stays, and I’m curious to learn how much of the year some house sitters actually just do sits around the world?
Seems like a few people that have responded back to me really do a lot of sits!
It’s a cool community!
Can I ask what credit card and bank you use now? I keep getting hit with international fees and probably need to make a change myself.
Some do it full time. Quite a few forum members.
Some don’t, some do own a house and they rent it out.
Hello 
and welcome! Yes there are people who sit full time, some work & some are retired. We’re almost full time sitters but not quite and also digital nomads, so 65 sits over 5+ years in 28 countries at a rough count. We have a home base in SW Türkiye but we slept in our own bed 4 weeks last year. We do have gaps and time off and we use Airbnb and booking.com mostly for those. We also work part time for ourselves so no boss and no company restrictions on location and plenty of flex with sit responsibilities. Where are you now and where are you headed? Are you employed or self employed? Time zone consideration is important in your plans with mixing in work schedules. Also don’t take on sits with multiple dogs who need lots of walking for example, if your work hours can’t allow for that. Feel free to DM us if you want any help. #digitalnomadlife
Wow it’s really interesting to think about that this can be a whole new way of life. Feels like a door to Narnia opening. I’m super curious to learn more!
Thank you for your input!
I just sit part time for fun but there are lots of stories in the forum, you can use the search function although it’s not very reliable, I’ll try to get back with some related threads. Because of the title, I remember The Loneliness of the Long Term Sitter
But there are others that focus on more positive aspects
@dksnook We have been sitting for 8 years and, since Covid, accidently became more or less full time! At least 300 days of the year on a sit. We have property we rent out but we ourselves have no home base. We’ve been nomads for 14 years! Right now in Germany on sit no. 140 (in 10 countries) with no plans to stop anytime soon!
Re- your question about- is Premium worth it?. If you plan to sit frequently/full time it certainly makes sense financially as there are no extra fees with Premium. The two lower tiers require you to pay a per-sit fee. If you sit frequently that will soon add up. We are still on an older tariff- pre 3 tiers tariff -that is fixed for life and is cheaper than all the three tiers. Unfortunately when we renew in September we’ll start to be subject to the per sit fee which is really annoying. As we are full timers it would make sense for us to upgrade to Premium to avoid separate fees. But we are reluctant to give up our special tariff! Personally not interested in lounge pasess and the cancellation insurance seems very restrictive and hard to claim on. In our 8 years we’ve never been in a situation where we would have had a successful claim. The only real incentive for us to upgrade to Premium is that fees are included. We are still thinking about it!
For all new comers who are not sure which tier to join I’d suggest joining the cheapest one for the first year. See how many sits you do and if it would be more cost effective to upgrade to Premium for the next year.
I noticed this too. quite a condescending attitude, and not very Smiley at all, more Frowny.
The travel lounges are cool, but you can get them for literally $50.
So I would skip premium if that is your only motivation to do so. If you are planning on traveling a lot premium makes sense not to pay for the booking fee. If you get a few referrals, you end up with years worth of premium for practically free.