Last month I had pet parents cancel a sit on me last minute very callously–I had had a seven week sit booked months in advance, had met the pets and their parents in person since I’m already in the area travelling, and agreed to do a short 4 day “trial run” sit while the PP were on a business trip 2 weeks before their longer trip. The day after I left the short sit (which went great! the pets were lovely, the house was clean, the PP seemed really nice) I upgraded to Premium so I could have more support for the seven weeks solo, and then the PP cancelled on me for a very flimsy (non emergency/extraordinary) reason. At this point I was crashing on a friend’s couch between sits, so I suddenly had nowhere to live and no time to find an alternative sit/accommodation.
I contacted THS about the sit cancellation plan, scrambled to find a place to stay, sent them all my receipts and timestamped screenshots, but because I’m on the other side of the world THS is claiming I upgraded after the timestamped cancellation messages–which show muddled dates because of the international date line–and won’t help me at all for the financial strain I had to deal with even though it’s well under the $1500 USD cap.
I’m really frustrated, disappointed, and disheartened and was hoping for some advice from anyone who’s been in a similar situation. I feel like the PP tricked me into watching their pets for 4 days with the promise of a longer sit and then pulled the rug out from under me, and that THS is just enabling them. I’ve done other sits that have gone really well, have good reviews and experiences, but this has been so upsetting I’m considering cancelling my membership altogether.
It’s interesting because it’s not a booked hotel, but there’s some common decency around canceling sits. If a homeowner is going to be in their home, it makes no sense for someone to be there. I’m sorry that happened to you. If the timestamp for you getting a premium is that close to the cancellation, I can’t help but wonder: were you buying the premium in hopes of getting some of its memberships last minute, or did you plan in advance to have the premium features? I can understand trying to soften the blow after being canceled on.
It’s so thoughtless of the host to cancel and not offer some kind of concern for the sitter. Especially if they are not sick and have the strength to consider what situation that puts the sitter in and especially a nomad. I would like to see THS in the future have a cancellation fee put on both hosts and sitters if cancelled less than one month before a sit without medical papers provided and given to other
Party. That will never happen of course but I feel for the nomad sitter in these situations. I hope you get paid out by the insurance. Maybe add to the review you already wrote for the 4 day sit that they canceled your 7 week sit without a plausible excuse.