To be frustrated we’ve come all this way for his daughter just to cancel

Yet she is happy to take money from him! The money needs to stop, it's being sent to someone who treats him like in inconvenient stranger.
The OP says she doesn't know how he was as a father when they were younger yet the superbrains of MN know he was a bad father!

Nothing in the OP suggests anything like that.

Still happy to take his money though.

She's still interested in having a relationship with his money though.

Yes it's disappointing to be let down at the last minute, especially as you had only really travelled there to spend time with her. I can only assume that there are some underlying issues that you're not aware of. I wouldn't make arrangements around her any more and leave your partner to manage his relationship with her from now on. You don't have to make an effort as she's clearly not going to make any effort with you.

Hell would freeze over before I didn’t see one of my children for 3 years. I’d have my doubts over how good a parent he has been.
And really sorry if it sounds harsh but she’s now not interested in a relationship with him, and even less interested in his partner.

It must be very frustrating, but please don't fall into the trap of feeling like you have to fix this. You don't, and you shouldn't try.

It does sound like your partner is being treated badly, but if so, he needs to be the one to realize this and put a stop to it. Trying to speed that process up will backfire on you. It's sensible to refuse to make your holiday plans around her, but the rest is out of your control.

If this isn't just a case of a young woman being incredibly spoilt and ungrateful, then any attempt to fix the situation could end very badly. I hope that she is just bratty rather than traumatized, but you never know.

Perhaps it was unreasonable to expect this arrangement to work out. Clearly DD is actively avoiding seeing her father., and has been for years She didn't ask him to come to Lisbon, she only agreed to spend a couple of hours with you all during your holiday, and then decided on the day that she couldn't face it.
We can't know what is the background to this avoidance, but I'd stop making any arrangements that include DD and think about how you feel to have a partner who is almost certainly keeping a big secret from you.

I obviously can’t tell her side of things but from the limited information I feel I had a similar relationship with my father. I did things like this for two reasons:

1. I had a difficult childhood because of him and so although on the surface our relationship looked ok I carried a lot of hurt. I could either reject him outright or try and keep things bumping a long in a non committed surface level way. The latter option was much less hurtful for both of us so I did that mostly. It sounds like she’s doing the same.

2. I was torn between wanting to avoid him and wanting a better relationship with him. So I’d agree to the odd meet up but then chicken out when it actually came to it. She might have done this too.

This is one of those things you probably need to gently back away from.

You can listen and support him emotionally, but leave him to see them in his own time. For whatever reason their relationship is barely existent, so don't waste your precious time planning leave around them. At least not until he's sufficiently sorted it out.

Because if her partner paid for it all, it’s a case of “oh well we didn’t see his daughter but at least I’m not out of pocket and I got a nice trip out of it.”

Guilt or just generous.

Well maybe he should stop?

Not saying he’s not in the wrong but seems bonkers to me.

Why does this matter?

My guess is that she can’t be bothered to put herself out for you and your family.
She could have been thinking that you would go to Moscow with him.
She feels resentment for something and I think you would be better staying right out of his relationship with her - for now at least. Let them continue to message often and see if her dad can build up the relationship with her that way.
She is probably afraid to tell him outright what the problem is in case he cuts her off financially.

But…. She has no trouble taking the money. Don’t fight your partners battles.

That is absolutely unforgivable. In his shoes I'd stop the financial support and the messaging. Fwiw, my daughter is a similar age and lives in Australia. We visited last year, and whilst she didn't blow us off, she didn't seem to bothered to see us either. I actually had a cry on the last night (when we got back to the hotel). There has been no bad blood between and I'm a damned good mother, so I'm lost as to why she had attitude. It's hard. Hope he's ok.

If he stops paying her money he will more likely start hearing from her more!

It all sounds very… Russian!

I think people with crap parents fall into 2 categories; the I do not want anything from you including money or the yes I’ll have money as payback for the shit I went through as a kid. I’m the former but the latter is perfectly acceptable. Also it could be £20 a month we don’t know how much it is.

She obviously doesn't want to see him. He will know why. It's probably the same reason he still sends her money. I appreciate you weren't there, but after 5 years you must have some idea what kind of father he was...
At the very least she's likely upset because he's going on "family holidays" with your teens when he was living in a different than her as a teen.

Op that is very shitty behaviour but there must be more to it as most normal people would have been made up that you made the effort to visit. I would just leave it to your partner and let him deal with her.

She’s happy to take his money though.

sounds like she was going for maximum impact.

rude of her, I'd be irritated, but stay out of it - whatever issues she has are with her father.
don't arrange future holidays around her, let partner visit her solo if he wants to see her.

Sounds just like my god-daughter's relationship with her father.

He was career man (aka a workaholic) so bit of a disney dad - when he was there he was very fun/cool/generous/present but utterly useless as a father or for anything practical, emotional, etc. she's mid 20's and lives elsewhere and he can't understand why she doesn't make an effort with him on the odd occasion he's in contact - aside from just not being arsed because she barely knows him, his new wife & children are always there and it's always when he's free so on his terms . His whole family seem to be upset & perplexed as to why she's 'so cruelly shunned him' and talk about what an amazing dad he was, how close they were etc. Honestly, as an outsider it's embarrassing.

My GD is thankfully bright, self-assured and independent enough with lots of other fab male & female roles models not to let it bother her too much but I know as a teenager she was desperate for him to just turn up, take her out for the day just the two of them, spend some quality time together and properly get to know each other but he's call, ask what she was doing and she'd say something like 'meeting my friends in town' so he'd say, oh ok speak to you soon presumably taking that as a rejection.