I would do the same
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Adding my voice. My husband and I sit together as a team. We do not overlap. I would not be in favour of paying additional fees because there are two of us.
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Surely it’s possible to have a tier of joint membership - call it what you like - that costs a little more and allows for parallel and overlapping sits (although even that’s debatable, as everyone benefits when it’s done properly, which it generally is) whilst leaving current membership as it is, with the ability to have family ‘sitting with’.
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Hello @Cat_Lover This is a great idea and has been passed back to the team as part of the new inbox ideas thread.
@Lassie Thank you for your feedback about approvals, this has been discussed on the forum previously and feel free to use the spyglass and continue the discussion there. Thank you for helping to keep this topic on track of ‘overbooking sits’ 
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I know that it has been discussed before, and I have made similar observations on other threads.
@Carla
I completely agree here. The pop-up notifying sitters that they had already committed to a sit was plenty precaution. There could be a notification sent to the HOs letting them know that the sitter is double-booking. If all parties are comfortable with a couple splitting up for a few days, then why is it an issue?
For instance, a couple agreed to a 2 day sit and a 3 week sit pops up- one person can go cover the short 2 day sit easily rather than cancelling on the homeowner. To not even be able to apply for the 3 week sit is a huge deterrent and massively changes the site usage for sitters. You should at the very least be able to message a homeowner, even if you can’t formally apply until explaining you have the 2 day sit. Completely removing any way to contact a homeowner that you have not sat for before is a huge game changer.
We completely understand that homeowners and sitters need to be comfortable and pets need to be the priority, that said, we really hope the team reconsiders this process if the HOs and sitters are comfortable with overlapping sits, particularly in the very common example above.
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Unfortunately, the pop up is gone and now you can not even apply.
Do you really think THS will think such an inquiry button would be a good idea? It would clearly mean the end of the limit of five. I cannot see that they would even consider it.
@pietkuip Great point, I think it was a great idea for the member to suggest it, but as with all feedback on the forum, the forum team can’t guarantee what will or won’t be implemented. Should anything like that be implemented in the future then we would of course let you know.
@eandnhousesit Thank you for contributing to the thread and I will pass on your feedback. 
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So many posts after the software change (Nov 2023) about overbooking sits
Hope THS realise it was a mistake & revert back.
So many sitters upset by this change…I’ve never seen so much upset on here as this.
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I guess the new no-overlapping dates will follow closely.
Edited as off-topic after many reminders in thread.
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…let sleeping dogs lie. Of course the possibility to contact owners is also going to be a workaround to the 5 appl limit, a rule which I find equally unfair.
The only thing is: if you do map search, unfortunately you can’t even see which sits have gone to “reviewing” status. For a brief moment, THS had a regional filter which made the manual map search redundant, but that feature quickly disappeared again.
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It seems to be a bug. According to Carla_C it can be done but on my end I’ve had some let me apply and some not.
I just did it 2 days ago.
It doesn’t take 2min from where I am. The phone line is always busy!!! I have tried many times; different days and times and never gotten through.
Chat took 20 min. and still had to wait for the HO to send an email with the info.
Just because that is the current “easiest” way, doesn’t mean it’s the best.
Currently it is the ONLY way to change dates once a sit started. (So yeah, it’s the easiest because there’s only one option.) There have been a handful of sits we’ve been on where we couldn’t even reach the HO. Once was during the recent Burning Man when there was massive flooding. The HO couldn’t contact us and we stayed extra days because that’s the type of sitters we are. Once she was able to contact us she was very happy that we had stayed. The site should cater to both sitters and HOs and making dates changes easier and where the sitter can initiate them would be a lot better. It would also take a few seconds as apposed to 2 min.
If they can “improve” their site for pets then they should be able to improve it for the people who use the site. Maybe it’s easy for you to call during your vacation or business trip but not for everyone. Most don’t update dates once they are in the system for this very reason. If this wasn’t a big deal there would not be so much discussion on the topic.
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It would be helpful to have an option to ‘propose’ a change of dates, from either sitter or owner, that then gets ‘accepted’ or ‘rejected’ by the other party. That way it’s done without needing any backend action by THS and also needs both parties to actually implement.
Slightly off-topic - when were the owners at Burning Man planning on leaving and arriving home and when did they actually leave and arrive home? Fortunately all my people got out on time for their flights and hotel bookings. We even had better internet access there this year than I’ve ever had on a sit 
As a couple which relays on the system of overlapping dates to avoid expensive gaps - I am truthfully upset and disappointed. We have 30 reviews, only 5 stars and never let anybody down.
We had a overlapping sit in Canada last year. It was literally the neighbors of a sit that we had. The HO and we were all so happy when we found this out, cause we were so close by, could visit them easily before, my partner and I had both our own appartment, could visit each other, could wave to each other from the window. This was a great experience for anybody.
I and can’t believe TH changed that!
For whom this is a benefit?
If you are a shitty sitter, you are a shitty sitter. If the dates overlap or not.
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*** A SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM CREATED ***
Have a warning pop up if overlap, but allow applying.
This way, suppose an owner leaves a cat on the evening of say the 14th, then normally HO s are quite happy for sitters to arrive morning of 15th.
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Hello everyone, I’m glad that the forum is providing a place for this discussion. I am just sharing a quick reminder from higher up the post in case anyone missed it and to keep everything on track.
Happy weekend to you all
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@Carla at this point, I’m curious as to the purpose of this “great discussion” with 558 comments, mostly not in favor of this latest move by THS? It was mentioned by Angela 7 or 8 days ago, way upthread, that this is a done deal and will not be changed.
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Hello @Knowmad Great question, while it’s not up to the forum team to decide an outcome, what we can do is provide a place to have this discussion and for members to share peer-to-peer advice and support.
The forum team has been collecting the feedback and helping answer as many questions as possible. So the thread is an important source of information for both members and the team.
As a direct result of some of the feedback, such as the dates not being easy for owners to change once a sit is confirmed, the product team are now looking into how they can make that easier and the forum team can share this outcome with you all via this thread.
Hopefully, that demonstrates some of the ways that this has been an important discussion, even if the overall outcome is not what some of you had hoped for.
Thank you for asking this as it is helpful for the community to know what the benefits of these types of threads are and how the forum team can help. Please also have a look at the new product category topic as it can explain more.
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