People Like Us

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Browse the questions we're most often asked in Support and in our Facebook group.


Feed and Communities

The Feed is where PLU members talk to each other. It is the place to say where you are hoping to go, offer your home for dates you have free, ask a question about somewhere you are heading, or simply introduce yourself. A post is a few lines of writing, with photos if you would like them. Other members can comment and react, and you can bring someone into the conversation by typing @ and their name. Mention one of your homes by its listing number, or paste a link to a home or a meetup, and it appears as a card alongside your post. You will find the Feed in the main menu. You can search it, save posts you want to come back to, and narrow it down to just your own.

The Feed is now more than one place. Where there used to be a single Feed, there are now two, plus a Feed for every Community you have joined. - Everyone — the public square for the whole PLU community, open to every member whether or not they are Premium. Say hello, ask questions and meet people before you swap. - Premium — a private space for Premium members to share homes, swap travel tips and plan exchanges. This is the Feed you already know. - Your Communities — one Feed for each Community you belong to, listed underneath. You move between them using the list down the left-hand side of the Feed. Wherever you are, posting, commenting and reacting all work exactly as they did before.

Communities are groups of members who share something — a place, a language, an interest, or a way of travelling. Each one has its own Feed, where members post, comment, plan meetups and share their homes with people who already have something in common. Joining one is among the easiest ways to start exchanging, because exchanges are better when people know each other first. Communities are a Premium benefit. You need to be a Premium member to join one, and to read and post in its Feed.

Everyone — every member can read and post, Premium or not. Premium — Premium members only. If your membership is not Premium you will still see Premium in the list, but opening it shows an invitation to upgrade instead of the posts. Your Communities — you need to be both a Premium member and an approved member of that Community. If your Premium membership lapses you keep your place in your Communities; you simply cannot read or post in their Feeds until you renew. Posts never move between Feeds on their own, and when you search, you are searching only the Feed you are currently reading.

Nothing has been lost. The Feed you have been using becomes the Premium Feed. Every post, comment and reaction is still there, and old links to the Feed or to an individual post will take you straight to it. Everyone is a brand-new space, so it starts out empty. Nothing was moved into it. Your Community conversations have come across as well — each one now appears as a post in that Community's Feed, with its replies as comments.

Two items in the main menu, next to each other. Feed opens the Feed itself. Its left-hand column lists Everyone, Premium and every Community you have joined, so you can move between them without leaving the page. Community is the wider home for everything you do here when you are not travelling: the Feed, Discover Communities for finding new ones to join, Meetups, and Stories and Testimonials from other members. The old My Communities menu has gone — the Communities you belong to are now listed down the side of the Feed. Your dashboard also has a My Feeds card, showing which of your Feeds have been active most recently.

Choose Discover Communities from the Community menu, or the same link at the foot of the Feed's left-hand column. You can search by name or simply browse — each card shows how many members and homes a Community has. Some Communities you join straight away. Others ask their admins to approve you first, and you will see Requested until they do. Private Communities are not listed at all — you join one when a member invites you. Joining is open to Premium members. You can leave a Community whenever you like from the Feed options menu, and you are welcome to rejoin later.

You can propose one, and we will set it up with you. Choose Propose a New Community on the Communities page and tell us what you have in mind — what you would call it, who it is for, and how it will contribute to People Like Us. We are looking for Communities that get members talking and exchanging, so the more you can tell us, the better. We will be in touch as soon as we have read it. Proposing a Community is open to Premium members.

When you write a post in the Premium Feed you will see an option to cross post it to Everyone. Tick it and your post is shared in the public Everyone Feed as well, so that every member can see it — handy when you are offering your home, or asking something that is not only for Premium members. The two copies then live in their own Feeds and gather their own comments and reactions. If you edit the post you can choose to update the copy too, and if you delete it we will ask whether the copy should go as well. Cross posting only runs one way, from Premium to Everyone — a post in Everyone can already be seen by every member.

There are three levels, from the broadest to the most specific. - Your notification preferences page sets how you hear about Community activity in general. In-app notifications arrive as things happen; emails arrive as a single weekly digest of what you missed. - On the same page, turn on Customise per Community to set each one separately — so a busy Community can email you while a quieter one notifies you in the app. - In any Feed, the options menu lets you mute it for a day, a week, or for good. A muted Feed stops notifying you in the app, and is marked in the list so you can see why it has gone quiet. You can also open Notification settings from inside a Community's Feed to change that Community on its own.

Every Feed follows the PLU Community guidelines, and each Community may add its own on top of them. You can read both at any time from Community guidelines in the Feed. If a post or a comment is not right, open the menu on it and choose Report. Pick a reason, add anything you think we should know, and it goes to the people who can act on it — a Community's own admins and moderators for their Feed, and the PLU team for Everyone and Premium. We would always rather hear about it. If you are unsure whether something warrants a report, start a Support Conversation and we will help.