Thanks, Katie. I’m interested that the feedback from current and prospective members wanted free airport lounge passes and a badge beside their name for Premium! It still is discriminatory.
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Hi @anon36831737 , I can understand some sitters like yourself who do a lot of flying would find the lounge pass attractive. I do use airport lounges for long haul flights but it is included in the class I fly. There are credit card companies in Australia that include lounge access as part of their deal but they are quite expensive and one would have to weigh up whether it was worth having one, certainly not at present with no international travel for us.
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Thanks @anon36831737
I have been in dozens of airport lounges and have never paid. Like @temba , it is included in the class I fly or it is a perk of my staff bank account package
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That is correct that many credit card passes include airport lounge access, I have 2 that do so would not be added benefit. Only speaking from my experience in US. These travel “perks” seemed to have also increased since covid to try and encourage people to travel more.
Hi @Sun42 welcome to our community forum it’s great to have you here and thank you for joining in the conversation.
We did do extensive member research before we introduced the new plans and airport lounge passes came out as one of the top added benefit requests and as you say many credit cards also include this for their members which in many ways endorses it’s popularity.
We look forward to getting to know you better and sharing in your TrustedHousesitters journey. Thank you again for joining and we hope you will enjoy connecting with members from around the world.
Angela & The Team
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Having read all of the above, and all the info about the new plans, I would like a comparison with the current plan - is it closer to Basic or Standard? What will the new plans cost? We are happy with the current plan, but will we be disadvantaged if we don’t upgrade. Yes, we have concerns about ‘Premium’ badges being mistaken for premium sitters! Our thoughts are that you don’t change what isn’t broken.
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It appears to offer just 2 lounge passes a year. I cannot see any benefit in paying more for just 2 passes. I agree with many of the other comments. As soon as I read about the Premium badge it made me think that Owners will see this as meaning experience. This new tier system seems to me a way of increasing prices to make up for lost revenue.
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It appears to be only 2 passes per year? Have I read this correctly? I agree with all the other comments re Badges. Owners will mistake these as referring to experience.
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But it looks like it’s only 2 passes per annum.
I find it hard to believe that pet sitters see these as a priority! I’ve been asking for a user friendly calender for years ! That to me would have been more beneficial. I’ve done 40 plus sits over the years, mostly flying out of the country and I’ve never once thought I would like to pay more to THS and get 2 free passes…very disappointed.
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Hello @Marion58 here is a full breakdown of each plan which clarifies the airport lounge pass inclusion.
https://www.trustedhousesitters.com/pages/tiered-sitter-memberships-everything-you-need-to-know/
Your feedback regarding the availability calendar this is a resource for all members, regardless of their plan of choice, a good place to highlight this would be to add to the Member Feedback & Ideas category Member Feedback & Ideas - TrustedHousesitters Community Forum which will bring it to the attention of the product team.
Thank you for contributing to this discussion
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I like the levels, particularly the cancellation insurance, and the passes are a nice bonus as well. We get 4 per year through our credit card but it’s always nice to have more.
I have no doubt we will pay for the premium upgrade. I’ve always felt that THS is excellent value, and even at a higher cost, if it saves me one-two nights in a hotel per year, I’ve broken even.
As much as I’d like a Premium Badge (because why not?), I can totally understand why it might give people an advantage to have it and could be construed as “premium” sitters, I have to ultimately side with not having them, or at least changing them in some way so there’s no suggestion that the sitter is “premium” in some way.
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I want to be supportive of everything THS does but I, too, am a bit concerned about the Premium badge. I’ve noticed it on a few HO’s listings and my first thought is that they must be exceptional HO’s to warrent the badge. Logically, I know that’s not the case, but it’s still my first reaction. It’s quite likely that HO’s will have a similar reaction to seeing the badge on a sitters profile, which means those of us who have a Basic or Standard membership will be seen as less “premium”.
Perhaps the name “premium” could be changed to something less emotionally-charged?
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I completely agree Myhnabird.
I’d like to also add that I hope we get the option to upgrade soon, before I start applying for sits again.
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Not a fan of the new tiers personally. But… unlike some others I understand the “premium badge”. If you want an edge over other housesitters - then you can pay to get the badge. I think this happens on a lot of other services so no problem with that. We would potentially be interested in getting the badge - but out of the premium perks that is about the only one I’m convinced by, but not enough to pay extra for it.
Again just for us, we aren’t bothered by the global lounge passes, haven’t needed one before and just don’t need it. But can’t actually find any information about this. Where are the T&C’s for this and what company is this with?
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Reading the Terms and Conditions for the “Sit cancellation insurance” it doesn’t sound a great a deal as you’ve made it out to be.
The policy will not reimburse sitters for any of the following:
The claim is for accommodation in an area not local to the original housesit.
So say we are at a housesit in Devon, and our next housesit is in Norfolk. The Norfolk housesit cancels whilst we are in the Devon sit, would we still have to travel all the way to Norfolk just to be able to claim compensation. Or what if we had a sit in Spain, that gets cancelled but we are still in the UK - would we not get any compensation unless we still travelled to Spain?
Does this policy cover partial cancellations, or even sits that are moved to a different date?
We expect sitters to contribute $50 towards any claim made against this policy.
This seems to be hidden in the T&C’s. Feel this should be highlighted in the pop up explaining what the the Sit cancellation insurance is.
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(a) Where time allows, sitters must allow us to recommend alternative house sits that may be of interest
(b) Where a sit is cancelled at short notice or abandoned during the sit, sitters must allow us to attempt to source an alternative house sit where possible.
So you can offer alternative house sits - do we have a choice to reject this? It’s all well and good you offering something different - but what if it doesn’t fit our requirements or just doesn’t interest us.
Also just want to clarify how easy it is to make a claim, is this just between the sitters and THS or does it also go through a third party insurance company?
(P.S The character count limits on this forum are ridiculously low)
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@Vanessa_A well we’ve had the long weekend and still no response from the team… "Hello everyone and thank you for all the feedback and comments on this topic. We can see it is causing concern for some members so we want to reassure you that all of your posts will be seen by the team, who will respond to questions and queries after the long weekend. In the meantime, thank you for your patience and we will update you as soon as we can.
Can we have a detailed response please? Most people here are still in the dark🙄