I am new to HE and my first experience has not been very considerate. I was contacted by a very experienced Canadian exchanger to stay in my primary home as i am going away during the holidays and they wanted to visit Florida. She sent me the request but before i agreed to the exchange i asked to video chat. i explained that i did not want to officially join HE until i had a definite exchange. We spoke and everything seemed settled and a go, so I signed up to HE. They were using guest points. I pre-approved their stay and changed my calendar to unavailable, but they never finalized. i thought it was just an oversight. I sent messages through HE that went unanswered, because i was concerned about possibly having to adjust the dates but no response. Finally I sent a message on WhatsApp asking if there was any reason she had not finalized and she finally responded. She made up any excuse that didn’t make sense about there being delays with HE so she found another place. I’m wondering if this is the norm on HE? Do people often grab what they can until something better comes along without any consideration for the person they are exchanging with? All she had to do was let me know that she was not interested in proceeding, but instead she took advantage of my inexperience and used me as her back up plan. This has closed the window for me to exchange with someone that would want spend their 2024 holidays in my home in Florida.
Hello. It’s quite common yes, as it’s difficult to find exchanges, members generally send several requests and then finalize with the best exchange for them. Of course, it would have been more polite and considerate to warn you, but some persons forget or don’t update you unfortunately. You Can see it like a positive thing that it was not a good start for an exchange and that it’s better it was not made somehow
Agreed that it is best they did not stay in my home
Don’t take it too personally, until an exchange is finalized then no one is entitled to anything. Anyone can change their mind, either host or guests.
So don’t be too emotional about it.
I had hosts that changed their mind after saying that it would agree, and also me as a guest a changed my mind sometimes, it’s just the normality and no one gets upset by it. 