We were booked for a sit that starts in 3 weeks and were just told by the pet parents that they were cancelling their trip. The system is giving us the option to cancel our application, but I am concerned that if we do that, it will appear that we are the ones who backed out of the sit. I asked the pet parents to please cancel the sit from their end and have not received a response yet.
Please help. Fortunately this was a relatively local sit that we could drive to, so there are no airline tickets or other travel arrangements that are a problem for us to cancel.
I’d send an email to THS support (email, not chat) with copies of the communication. State the HO cancelled but is ignoring the request to cancel the application. And point out, you need to cover the dates ASAP - and they don’t want that 3 weeks to become 2 weeks and call under the insurance cancellation policy due to the cancellation delay:)
I just submitted an email through the THS website and included a photo of the correspondence from the pet parent. I couldn’t find an email address to directly send my concern so hopefully this method works.
The image you sent that pops up once you hit cancel makes it appear that you as the sitter are canceling the sit. This is what I didn’t want. I contacted THS support and they said on their end they can see that the homeowner cancelled the sit. Strange, because on my end it shows the sit still open and that pet parents are reviewing applications. THS said I can apply for other sits and don’t need to do anything else from my end.
We were really looking forward to this sit and are bummed it was cancelled by the pet parents, but at least we hadn’t incurred any travel costs.
I’m confused. Sitters can’t cancel the sit directly. If they need to cancel they have to ask the HO to do it or contact THS if they can’t reach the HO. Would love to follow this thread to find out what’s going on. Did we all miss a major “product update?”
Yes, that was my concern. The pet parents cancelled and the box made it look like I as the sitter initiated the cancellation.
I’m a little confused about the whole situation. THS policy says that once a sit is agreed, neither party can cancel but I suppose it is ok to do so. The homeowners did not provide a reason to us for the cancellation.
Does it shock you a cat sitter who wants to go ahead with the trip when the PO announces the death of the cat 5 days before the sit starts ?
The PO told me that most cat sitters would have canceled their trip under these circumstances.
I don’t have travel or THS insurance. My train is booked and not refundable. I had planned meetings, outings, bought a transport card and a show ticket.
The PO replied that their apartment is not an Airbnb accommodation.
However, I was a faithful catsitter who returned regularly and I spent most of my time at home, with the cat. They know it very well.
The PO go ahead with their trip on their side. They finally canceled the catsitting 2 days before departure.
In response to the OP: To avoid looking like you canceled as a sitter, get any request to cancel from a host in writing. Then take a screen shot and ask THS membership services to cancel for you. If the hosts didn’t give a good reason for canceling, I’d report them to THS as well.
I’d also consider going on the Facebook group — not run by THS — and sharing the hosts’ listing info and warn off other sitters. Depends on how I felt they’d behaved and communicated or not.
Thanks. The HO finally did cancel. They never provided any explanation, just said they had to cancel their trip. I didn’t feel it was appropriate for us to ask why, especially since we were local.
Given that the HO can cancel as close as 15 days to the scheduled trip and the THS insurance doesn’t cover it, we only apply for local sits or sits at destinations we are going to anyway and spending more time before or after the sit. That way if someone cancels on us, the only issue is finding an alternate place to stay.
No they don’t @Solela but you can raise a complaint about them if you feel you’ve been messed about and can supply evidence. They may then be given a warning.