I’m putting this in the “owner” section but am interested in hearing from sitters and owners. I have premium combined. Assuming I renew, I’m sticking with premium combined because of now there are no changes to it being proposed.
I looked at the tiers today to see what renewal looked like and how “booking fees” were being “sold” to new members. At least for my plan the thing I noticed that stood out was that Standard is only $10 less a year than Premium, but doesn’t include booking fees making it effectively useless. I don’t understand why they haven’t elminated it.
I think there are a lot of homeowners who have this tier. I could be wrong about that, but it’s what I initially had as a homeowner. It doesn’t offer homeowners the cancellation plan, but it does offer “home protection.” I don’t know how good that is and haven’t heard of actually payouts, but there it is. In any case even if the payouts for “home protection” for homeowners or “personal liability” for sitters paid off, it would make no sense to get this tier as you could get premium and then save on bookings.
Basic looks very basic and is really there I think as a means to get people in. I’m guessing they’ll either roll out “a la carte” services per “booking” or just constantly drop prompts to upgrade.
So I’m hoping this thread doesn’t degrade to more complaints about the fees. Let’s start with the premise that nobody is happy with the booking fee. If you aren’t planning to leave: Will you stay with your tier or move up or down? If someone else was interested in a membership how woud you advise them? (Personally I think it makes referrals tougher both ethically and practically as the fees are so much higher now than for similar (but smaller) sites.
I’m quite surprised to learn that for homeowners the difference between standard and premium is so small. For sitters, in euros it’s 119€ basic, 149€ standard and 239€. The biggest difference is between standard and premium.
This was on my combined. So I’m not sure about the difference for just sitters or just homeowners. I was a little shocked by it frankly.
Update: Okay just looked. Here are details:
In the US for a homeowner it’s a $80 difference between basic and stndardard and a $60 difference between premium and standard, but it’s a $150 difference between basicand premium.
For US sitters it’s: a $40 difference between basic and standard and a $90 difference between standard and basic. It’s a $130 difference from basic to premium
I just realized that the reason why I saw so little difference when I looked at the difference for combined is that my price for renewing premium is lower because I already have the tier. I believe the prices may be frozen on autonew. With the new prices there is a bigger difference between standard and premium even on combined and if I lowered my tier, I wouldn’t save as much because I’d be paying the new prices. (My tier would cost $40 a year more if I signed up today!)
It seems to me in terms of marketing they should have offered people deals on upgrading and autorenewing at a higher tier for a lower price. I didn’t want to turn this into another knock on their rollout but oh my did they ever miss an opportunity to frame this as “deal” for existing members to “upgrade now” and and save money compared to the new price!
As a HO I have always had premium and will renew in January with it. I like the cancellation insurance as one of my biggest headaches would be if a sitter has to cancel very last minute and the cancellation coverage would at least cover a boarding kennel or Rover sitter.
I have the host only plan, originally signed up with the lowest tier and subsequently upgraded to Premium.
I asked the wife if she’d ever be interested in doing occasional sitting when we travel but we both agreed that despite being animal lovers we’re not really looking to spend our vacations caring for pets. So no combined membership for us.
After checking out a few other free or low cost platforms as a potential backup in case THS actually tanks as a result of its unfavorable fees and policies, we were contacted by so many sitters that there’s a good possibility I won’t renew THS on any tier level.
Wouldn’t it be funny if one of the unintended consequences was more homeowners with “desirable” sits due mostly to location simply saying, “Don’t need to do this through a matching site.”
I’m a sitter on the legacy “Classic” membership. This means that I currently pay less than the Basic Membership cost. I’ve never been tempted to upgrade as the benefits of Premium have never been worth it. There are 3 of us, so 2 lounge passes a year is not much use!
Fortunately, I have until next year to decide what to do.
Upgrading to Premium would represent an 124% price increase to me and I would have to do more than 12 sits to justify the increased cost. This year we will have done 13 sits and last year 15.
We sit mainly during school holidays and weekends as I work in a school and my sons are at school / college. So most of our sits are short - rarely more than 10 days and often just a weekend or even 1 night. This year, all our 1 and 2 night sits have been repeats.
My plan is to no longer do very short sits on THS. For the price difference between my current price and Premium, I could try out 2 or 3 alternative platforms and facebook groups. There is also the option of a private arrangement for regular repeat sits - something we have done already.
I suspect we may also become even more selective and only do THS sits of a minimum length of a week. We have always previously been very flexible. This is a great shame for those hosts who like to take shorter breaks, there will be less sitters available to them.
I have previously happily recommended THS to friends and colleagues, but I would be more reluctant to do so now.
I’m a sitter. First year with THS. I’m on the standard plan, but I paid about what the basic costs now, so I think I got a discount. I think we mostly chose that with the idea we could call a vet if needed. Now that we’ve done a few sits we would always make sure we had any vet information from the HO so actually considering dropping back to basic or possibly not renewing. For us it would likely only be useful for sitting in Europe and as we are extremely picky about the sits we choose I’m not sure if it will work for us at all, the number of suitable sits in Europe for us is not huge. If we sit locally we would likely join Aussie sitters and/or kiwi sitters as they seem to have a lot more choice. We are icing sitters so maybe only 4 -6 sits a year. Usually looking for a minimum of a week, but then probably not too long. Goldilocks sitters
I originally joined at premium, but dropped that tier, because I had a couple of hosts end sits early for legit reasons and I decided that I didn’t want to jump through hoops to claim coverage. I can pay out of pocket as needed. And I don’t care about lounge passes.
The booking fees don’t deter me cost wise, but on principle it puts me off to pay extra fees to voluntarily sit. That’s similar to my stance on utility costs – I refuse to pay a penny so I can watch someone’s pets and home.
Sitting has always been icing to me anyway, and after the first couple of years of membership, my sitting has fallen off steeply. I sit only while telecommuting anyway, because I don’t want responsibilities for pet or home care when I vacation.
If I want to continue sitting even without THS, that’s easy, because I’ve been invited back by hosts and even gotten unsolicited referrals to their friends, who also want someone to sit. I love pets and naturally live cleanly, so I’ve received rave reviews across the board.
I’ve already had previous hosts offer to pay booking fees for me, unsolicited, or ask me to sit off the books.
Today, I accepted my first sit off the books. A pair of hosts offered me airfare to repeat sit. They’ve asked me repeatedly before, but now they’re not renewing with THS.
I’m a basic member and pay £99 a year as a sitter, if i were to upgrade, which I’m not, it would be over £200. Not worth it to me, don’t want the insurance as I always have a plan B anyway and couldn’t care less about the lounge passes. I also have plenty of contacts. I have decided to continue with basic, but only do a few longer sits with THS, no more short sits, and have also joined some Facebook groups.
I joined with the only membership there was in 2018. After Covid, THS obviously lost a lot of members so they introduced the extra tiers, standard and Premium. I was happy with the original (now basic) and would never have upgraded but, after writing an article and being interviewed about my experiences, I was upgraded to standard. I have no interest in upgrading to Premium. I am currently on my 104th sit (not all with THS) and have only been cancelled twice. Once because the dog I was due to sit died unexpectedly 2 weeks before the sit, I was able to find another sit. The other occasion was, what was due to be, my first Australian sit. Covid hit so I flew home anyway. As @Maggie8K says, I really couldn’t be bothered, should I be cancelled in the future and were I to upgrade, to try to claim money from the insurance company. It seems such a long winded process. Having introduced many people to THS my membership expires at the end of 2030.
I’ve had a combined standard membership for five years. The introduction of the booking fee caused me to evaluate my membership for the first time. I pay $229/year now, and to increase to premium would cost me $399/yr, a huge increase and a substantial amount of money.
I have no interest in the lounge fees or the cancellation/homeowner coverage benefits of the premium membership. I evaluated those previously and my opinion is much like Maggie8k’s.
I don’t do enough sits for the $15/sit fee to matter much, so wasn’t much of a driver in my decision. But, this new fee did cause me to really take a look at my use. As a homeowner, in five years I’ve only had 11 sitters over 5 years, and most of them were in the earlier years. I have two cats and my neighbor’s daughter is now old enough to mind them when I’m gone. Also, my sister moved in with me last year and doesn’t travel as much as me. The likelihood that I’ll need THS to find a sitter is now fairly remote. But, right or wrong, I felt as though having an owner profile might improve my chances for getting competitive sits as a sitter. If homeowners could see my profile and how my house looks, I thought they might be more inclined to pick me. If the fee hadn’t been introduced, I’d have been quite happy to continue with the same membership. And now that I have a solid number of five star reviews, I think it less important.
I am due to renew in early February and have just changed to Pet Sitter Premium for $259/year. That’s $30 more than my current combined membership.
I’ve learned things from the forum in the last couple of weeks and this thread. My first reaction to the booking fees was negative, but I didn’t quite get how much it was really _________ on long-term membrs. Because they consistently allowed people to renew at the old price, the price bump between the two plans is huge. It’s really winners and losers with longer term members who already have premium being the “winners” and long term members with all other plans being the “losers.”
I don’t see any upside in losing so many veteran members. I would think they would have run the numbers somehow and accounted for some churn. I get how adding a fee to so many bookings would have looked like a great way to raise money quickly, but it’s like they completely didn’t take into account bad publicity, increased churn, slower growth, and that the booking fees really would be gradual since many members don’t renew at once.
I was also dismissive of the anti-cancellation insurance people because I felt I’d done due diligence by asking for and reading stories of “success” with the cancellation, but after rereading the actual terms, I understand why people are reluctant to sign on.
Even assumming the mercenary nature of private equity, the scheme seems to have been ill-advised. Keeping the backbone of core members including many sitters who consistently do a lot of sits and really act as “brand ambassadors” at least relatively happy could have been easily accomplished by offering basic and standard long-term members an easier ramp to upgrade, and issues with the unpopularity of the cancellation plan and other ways to “sell” premium should have been addressed.
I’m an HO and I have the lowest level membership. My renewal isn’t until the 2nd half of 2026 - I have one sit that was confirmed before all this blew up, and will probably have one more before fees kick in for me. I plan to stay on my current plan at least one more year. My sits are usually at least 2 weeks, more often a month or more, so the booking fee, while annoying, can be easily absorbed within the length of my sits.
My biggest questions are about finding good sitters. So far, my long sits have gotten a good pool of applicants. If tons of great, experienced sitters leave, that will make me look into other options.
I joined as a Premium member and my decision process was basically, “Am I likely to spend less on the membership fee than I would on hotels?” Since the answer was yes, I didn’t spend a lot of time obsessing about Basic versus Standard versus Premium. I didn’t care at all about the lounge passes. I did care a lot about the vet coverage and a little about the cancellation plan, which I’ve never needed to use.
I would have stayed as Premium even if they raised prices, just because I love cats so much and I find travel much more rewarding when I can snuggle them. The introduction of the booking fees, plus being forced to agree to Ts and Cs I couldn’t read first, are why I am leaving. Even though I’m a premium member, if I sit for a “Basic” host, the relationship has now changed completely - they’ve paid an “extra” fee to “book” me, so their expectation of the sit is completely different than when it was just member to member. I never even paid attention before to whether a pet parent was a basic or premium member - and I don’t want to. If I had stayed, and had confirmed with a “basic” host that seemed trustworthy, I would have been willing to confirm the sit off-platform to save them the booking fee, provided they made great, written arrangements for emergency vet care in advance.
I’ve been with THS long enough that I’ve built up quite a list of happy hosts in all of my usual travel haunts, and all of them have said they’d be fine booking off-platform. I suspect that will become a big issue for anyone who stays - members who match on-platform but book off-platform, and then something goes wrong and they expect THS to help. Which is one reason I don’t want to hang around.
In answer to your question, I was happy with my “tier” and would have renewed even at a higher price, had these changes not occurred. Overall I would have preferred having only one “membership” level so everyone would be at a level playing field, and that playing field should have included a focus on the needs of the pet, such as emergency vet care for all, rather than a focus on money. C’est la vie.
“Even though I’m a premium member, if I sit for a “Basic” host, the relationship has now changed completely - they’ve paid an “extra” fee to “book” me, so their expectation of the sit is completely different than when it was just member to member. “
@KittySitter this is a very good point! The booking fee will likely change the relationship dynamic and not in a good way. I too will now be considering an owner’s membership status.
I mentioned something similar to this in another thread. This is exactly the issue I have with the booking fees. Having someone pay a fee to book me for their sit changes the relationship. It then seems as if they (or THS) are my employer since they are paying to ‘book’ me. I will never do a sit where a HO is paying to book me.
Also, I think most universally seem to agree that the lounge passes are useless, either because they are wanted enough to pay for or people have other means of accessing lounges.
As HO we have lounge access vias other means so the 2 lounge passes are useless to us, but we offer them to sitters because why not. Just a thought for HO who do the premium tier but don’t need the lounge passes.
