On People Like Us, the exchange process starts with an Enquiry. This is really just a message from you to another member to ask about an exchange. It is free-form and is just initiating the conversation between the two of you.
Think of it like an email or a message. Introduce yourself, let the other member know about your home, what you're looking for and what you're offering.
After you've made an enquiry, you're satisfied with the details and you're ready to proceed, you can make a formal proposal. Go back to the enquiry and you'll see a button Make proposal.
Click it, and fill out the known details: dates, who is travelling, which home you're exchanging if you have more than one. Click Send and the proposal will be sent to the other member.
The member will then need to accept the exchange and, when you're ready, finalise it to lock in the details.
Once an exchange proposal is made by you, it must be accepted by the other member, then you will finalise the exchange to confirm the details.
To either accept or finalise an exchange, go to the Message and Exchanges screen and click in the check box Messages with Exchanges. You'll see your exchange with the status. Click on it to open.
The exchange will have the status at the top. Scroll to the bottom and you'll see a button to do the next step, Accept or Finalise.
All exchange proposals go through these same steps.
If a Globe is offered, it will transfer to the other member when the exchange is finalised.
The most common way to search is by using the main search bar on the Homes page. Just type a destination, select it from the list, and it will automatically search for the location. But you can do so much more too:
Zoom and pan the map to change the homes showing in the list. Hover over a listing card to see the pin highlighted in red on the map.
Use our Filters page to narrow your search.
You can search for your favourites, homes where the owners have favourited you, people who want to travel to your area, different types of homes, different styles of travel, homes features, home rules, different size and makeup of the travel party, and so on.
You'll find filters for nearly everything you can imagine. There are, in fact, over a hundred!
Under Homes on the main navigation bar, you'll also find some useful search links:
- Your favourites
- New listings in the last week
- Search by listing number or first name of the owner
- Search by most popular countries and continents
Yes, you may offer a car on your home listing and you can search for homes that offer a car. Be very careful to check your insurance to ensure that you are covered, and check the size of your excess as well. Agree with your exchange partner what will happen in the event of an accident.
On every home listing card, you'll find a little blue heart in the top-right corner. Click that to make a favourite, or click again to unfavourite the home.
Once you've done that, you'll see that home appear with a blue pin on the map and you can search for your favourites using the main navigation bar, Homes/Favourites, or using the Filters screen. Or click this link: https://peoplelikeus.world/en/homes?favourites=1.
Click Homes on the main navigation menu. The very first option below the Where do you want to go? search bar is for your favourites, indicated by a love heart.
Favourites appear on the main map as with a PLU Blue dot inside the marker.
There's an option under Filters: Only show homes belonging to members who have favourited my listings. Easy!
Reverse search is available in Filters, accessible on the main Homes search screen.
Search for any location that a member may want to visit: a country, state or even a city. Bear in mind that members may not be so specific to the city level e.g. they may put the Netherlands instead of Utrecht, even though they'd be happy to go there, so less-specific is usually better.
Reverse search works with Desired Destinations. If you want to appear in a Reverse search, fill in Desired Destinations for where you want to travel.
Exchanges and messages are all together on the same page under the envelope icon on the main navigation menu.
You'll see all of your conversations on the page with the most recent message on each. If you have an exchange with someone, it'll be below the message.
Use the filters on the page to see just those conversations with people with whom you have exchanges, or to see exchanges of specific statuses.
Response rates are measured upon your response to enquiries and exchange proposals. If you haven't responded to one, your response rate will be below 100%
It's important to answer all messages and proposals as people are more likely to send you enquiries if they know you'll answer. Anyone can see how many enquiries and proposal you have had, and how many you've responded to.
If you can't immediately see which enquiry or proposal requires a response, there's a filter on the exchanges and messages page (the envelope icon).
Notifications are always sent so the issue will be with the way they are being received. There are a number of possible reasons:
1. Email notifications are going to junk. Check your junk folders and add drew@peoplelikeus.world to your safe senders.
2. If you signed up with Facebook the email address is the one registered with Facebook. This is often not someone's most common email address. Check your Facebook account to see what address you're using and change the email address in your PLU member profile if it's not the one you want.
3. You may have unsubscribed from all our emails. It happens. If you want us to check, email us.
While it's true that it's easier to get an exchange if you live in the centre of London or Paris, PLU is definitely not just for touristy places. One of the wonderful things about People Like Us and home exchange in general is that people are far more likely to travel to different and unusual places.
If you do live in a less touristy place, send lots of enquiries and make sure to advertise your home on our Facebook group. It really works to help you find an exchange.
Make sure that your listing is as good as it can be. Refer to our Tips page https://peoplelikeus.world/tips for ideas.
Favourite the homes you like. Ensure that your desired destinations and your calendar are up-to-date.
More than anything though, be proactive. Advertise your listing and get involved in the community. Make enquiries to others. Don't just sit back and wait for enquiries to come in.
Simultaneous and non-simultaneous exchanges are both reciprocal. In a simultaneous exchange, you travel to each other's place at the same time. In non-simultaneous, you travel at different times.
With a reciprocal exchange you and another member swap houses with each other either at the same time (simultaneous) or at different times (non-simultaneous).
With a non-reciprocal exchange, only one of you travels to the other's home, but you still have full use of the whole home.
In a hospitality exchange, you stay at another member's home while they are still there to host you.
There could be many reasons. We send email notifications for all enquiries but some emails go to junk folders or are just not seen, or they may have unsubscribed from PLU emails. Some people don't visit the People Like Us site every day (as hard as that may be to believe!) and, in other cases, someone may have read the message but just decided not to respond just yet. Don't be discouraged. You can send a reminder after a while or just move on to the next home.
When you first send a message, there's a grey tick indicating that it has not yet been read. When the other member has seen it, it will turn green.
If you have a message that you haven't yet read, it will have a blue dot next to it, and there'll be a badge on the envelope icon to show how many messages are unread.
One of the beautiful things about People Like Us is that this is totally up to you and your exchange partner. We don't place any price on your home so you are free to determine where you want to travel and whether or not you'll accept an exchange.
When you go to propose an exchange, only the exchange types that are accepted by the home listing are offered to you. If the home does not accept non-reciprocal exchanges, that type will be greyed out and you won't be able to select it.
Often, people don't realise their listings are only set up to accept simultaneous exchanges by default so, if you've been discussing a particular type of exchange and find it's not offered, just send them a quick message to ask.
We don't require members to have an agreement for exchange between them and don't offer a template. One of our members has provided a template that they use in the Files section of our Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/peoplelikeus.world/permalink/2138430599789221/. This is offered as a sample only.
Each message has a small red 'x' next to it to delete it. Doing so will only delete your copy, not the other person's copy.
Update your details in your listing and then talk to your exchange partner. Make sure they know if the accommodation details have changed so that they know if their needs are still met. If it's still ok by your exchange partner, no problem.
Feedback is shown at the bottom of your listing. There are two types of feedback: home feedback (feedback about your home) and guest feedback (feedback about you as a guest in other members' homes). Both are found in the same place.
There are 2 different ways to search for a listing by number:
1. Click Homes on the main menu, then Search Listings and enter the number.
2. Replace the number '1' in the URL https://peoplelikeus.world/properties/1 with the listing number you're searching for.
Your response rate is the calculated on two things: it is the percentage of new conversations and exchange proposals to which you've responded.
For messages, only the very first message sent to you in a conversation counts toward your exchange rate to avoid an endless loop. Any subsequent messages or responses do not count.
When someone starts a new conversation with you, you are given 3 days to respond before it counts against your response rate. If you respond within that time, it is counted immediately.
Only conversations that were started by someone else will count in your response rate. If you started the conversation, it will not count. Only conversations started by Premium members count.
Consider also that a message deleted without response will count forever against your exchange rate. Contact support if you have no visible messages without response but your response rate is not 100%.
The full address details are in the exchange agreement. Go to your messages, find the exchange and click on it, and you'll find it with the other details of the host's home.
Map markers are either green for Premium members, or grey for Trial members. In addition, if you make a home a favourite, it will have a blue dot in the middle of the marker.
Last Minute searches are used to find availability within the next month. Just click the Last Minute button on the main search page.
This will show you homes with any availability in the next month. Homes must be explicitly available, not just not unavailable.
Both searches are date searches but they work slightly differently.
With a regular date search, a home must be available for all of the dates.
With a Last Minute search, a home only needs to be available for some of the dates (any of the dates).
Both can be combined with Exchange Type filters and any of the other filters.
On your home profile, it's possible to say that your home is generally available for specific exchange types. For example, you could say that you accept simultaneous and non-simultaneous exchanges but not non-reciprocal and hospitality exchanges.
It's also possible to add explicit availability while specifying the type of exchange for a date range.
The Exchange Type filters on the main search screen work with explicit availability. They don't have to be used with date or Last Minute filters but it makes more sense if they are.
No. Homes that do not use the new explicit availability will not appear in Last Minute searches.
The reason is that entry of Available dates is active whereas availability due to the lack of Unavailable dates is passive. If a home only uses Unavailable dates, we can't know whether a particular period is really available or whether it's just because a calendar is not actively maintained.
The use of Available dates and therefore Last Minute searches favours members who keep their calendars up-to-date.
Currently, there isn't a way to restore a single message. Instead, do this:
1. From the Conversations screen, https://peoplelikeus.world/chats, delete the entire conversation.
2. Go to your Trash using the button underneath the search bar.
3. Restore the conversation using the button at the bottom-right.
The whole conversation including all messages will be restored.
You can save an enquiry / conversation by clicking the Flag button inside the conversation or the smaller flag icon from the conversation list.
You can then filter for those flagged conversations using the Flagged filter at the top of the enquiry list.
There are four types of exchanges:
Simultaneous: you and another member exchange your homes at the same time.
Non-simultaneous: you exchange with another member but you travel at different times. If you don't know when you'll travel for the second leg, you can leave the dates blank and bank a future exchange.
Non-reciprocal: in this type of exchange, you stay in another member's home but they do not come to yours. In a non-reciprocal exchange, you have full use of the home. In People Like Us, you can host a non-reciprocal exchange just to make you feel good, or you can do it for a Globe, PLU's token system. When you earn a Globe, you can use it to travel to someone else's home.
Hospitality: also a non-reciprocal exchange in that only you travel to the other member's home and they don't come to yours, but in a hospitality stay, you only have partial use of the home and the other member will also be there. You can also use a Globe for a hospitality stay.
Yes, home exchange can involve various accommodations like houses, apartments, villas, and houseboats. Exchanges often involve different types of homes depending on location and preferences. People Like Us offers a plethora of accommodations to explore and enjoy.