It hit me recently that while the company offers automatic discounts for autorenwal, it expects churn and the model doesn’t “value” renewal as much as it values using members to spread the word and disseminate discount codes leading to an immediate cash infusion of new members some of whom won’t actually use the site much or might be terrible sitters or even worse homeowners. The new members will be more valuable to THS because if they don’t sign up for premium they’ll be paying additional fees. A lot of the old members who might have years to go before renewal due to the extentions won’t pay renewal or fees for years and frankly, THS just isn’t that into us!
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@Marion, excellent observation.
We may be wrong. But our understanding is that the only retention benefit available to THS members is grandfathered fixed legacy pricing some years ago. For reasons only known to THS, there is no positive incentive to continue membership for multiple years - other than a believed threat that inactive profiles are deleted after two years. All stick, no carrot.
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II joined at the end of 2022, and upgraded mid 2023, so I don’t know how long they’ve been offering “legacy” pricing or details. I last renewed in 2024 at the same price as 2023. Now with extensions I have years to go before the next renewal but according to my settings the price is still the same as I paid in 2023 which is a whopping $80 less than the newest price for a combined membership.
I’m guessing that as with most companies and most subscriptions, a call from a concerned member with questions to an actual customer service human might yield a “special” discount. Then again, that never worked for me with my old phone carrier, which is why when I found a better deal with a new carrier, I ran.
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@Marion, legacy members are those who joined before the 3-tier-level structure was introduced. As long as their account was on auto-renewal, their membership fee stayed the same. I don’t remember when the tiers were introduced.
I joined after tiers, and I think if I changed tiers I’d have to pay new prices, but it looks like my membership has remained the same with autorenew plus a promise of 2 months free or something next renewal. If I think about it, this might have happened after I took off autorenewal which I did because I was going through a lot of subscriptions and getting rid of a lot of autorenwals to avoid getting ripped off.
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I dont see it like that. I don’t renew my membership for them, I renew it for us! So we can keep on having access to amazing opportunities! Because, despite all the unwelcome changes over the last couple of years, including the fees intro, we have benefitted greatly from being members. We joined in the ‘good old days’ when the site was simpler and friendlier and over the last few years we’ve become fulltime sitters so we are not going to shoot ourselves in the foot and cancel membership just like that- as a reaction! THS won’t give two hoots, or even notice!, & the only ones who’d lose out would be us!
We are open to new platforms and new opportunities alongside THS but until a really viable alternative appears we’ll probably continue as members of THS for as long as it still works for us.
We, like many others, had a strong negative reaction to the very unwelcome news of the fees. It sucks. However- l already feel, now the initial emotional reaction has died down, that we, and probably, others are looking at the bigger picture of what we can still get out of THS regardless of changes. When the 5 App limit was introduced it caused an uproar at the time(that ofcourse went unheard!) And there was strong opposition to the no overlap policy too. But people found helpful work arounds and we all moved on. The new fees policy is a bigger and more damaging issue, but again, people will find a work around- whether that is to leave THS and pursue other options, to upgrade to Premium, or to go all-out to recruit new members to get their free months to escape fees a bit longer.. etc Only time will tell what the really outcome will be.
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Again, hasn’t worked for me. Member for almost 11 years, definitely not paying the membership fee I used to. Even with auto-renew it has gone up multiple times
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“Bitly”! I love learning new words!
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It’s a brand: https://bitly.com.
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Oh, never heard of it until now.
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Lokstar, I fully agree with you. Thank you for your post.
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Me too. My disillusionment is as deep as my previous crusading zeal to share the THS way of doing things. New Year hangover? Times 100.
I’m embarrassed to mention I do this “job” still although THS may be rubbing its hands at the profits.
If I have not charity I am but a clashing cymbal.
Where is the love?
Cynical at best.
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I was assured that our profile would remain until we were ready to rejoin. It was 8 years and our profile with our reviews were all still there when we rejoined in 2023.
The neighbor thing gets tricky. I will admit when I mentioned THS to a neighbor within my complex, she not only wasn’t interested but expressed concern that her neighbors on her floor might object to a stranger “living” in her apartment. This can be a gray area of “unsupervised guests” in many rentals and condos. I have cats. The people on my floor know I have cats and know the name of at least one of my cats. I’ve told sitters to be friendly to the neighbors and introduce themselves if neighbors say hello, and let them know: “I’m __. ____ and __ are away this week. I’m taking care of __ and ______.”
I would not be suprised if in certain cities, sitters were asked to lie outright and pretend a familial relationship or long friendship with hosts.
I can understand a host not wanting the details of the arrangement discussed with neighbors. But I also think if that is an issue, it should probably be mentioned to the sitter and not assummed. It falls in the category of one person’s common sense isn’t always another’s, and nobody is a mind reader.
With a cat sit there is probably less neighbor probing, but when neighbors see a stranger walking a famiiar dog, there may be questions and chat. And I do think how to answer those questions should be discussed during the video chat so that there is a mutual understanding.
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I have very mixed feelings about my “zeal” particularly in light of both the new fees AND even more so because recent wording changes on the site seem to present THS as a service that “has” vetted and reviewed sitters, and much less as a mutual exchange.
That said, the easiest way to give away the codes and get the extentions is give them away online to people already looking for them. It doesn’t involve “selling” or “endorsement.” Caveat Emptor.
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Won’t people who are able to view your profile already be paid-up THS members?
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Hmm. I’ve sent profile links to others who’ve never mentioned they had any issues, but either way, I believe you can create a login without subscribing to a paid account.
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