To book holiday without friend

You are leaving her out either way.

I don't really get why you can't cover some costs. A suite in a good hotel gives you separate bedrooms. You could pay the difference between that and a cheaper hotel and still get an elevated experience compared to a normal room.

The polite thing to do would be offer her the option.

The fact that you’re contemplating trying to go without her finding out paints you in a poor light. Your posts are disdainful of your friends career and life choices and honestly are coming across as a poor friend and perhaps it’s best for the friend to know this so she can make informed choices about the people she wants to surround herself with.

Of course you should be able to enjoy the fruits of your labour and go where you want - it’s the rest of what you’ve said that is the problem.

Reading your latest post, it sounds like you have already made your decision.

Your friend might not be bothered in the slightest but she might be really upset so you need to think about how are you going to handle that if she is.

If she is upset, as long as you’re ok with that, then 🤷‍♀️
You are purposefully excluding her though, I’m not sure I’d be able to get past that.

But OP doesn't have to "always" compromise on accomodation. This is one of several holidays this year.

She does need to compromise of she wants to holiday with this friend.

[disclaimer I'm going to end up sounding like a gawking peasant on this post - I promise I'm a normally civilised adult woman really!]

To be fair to the OP, I can see why they don't always want to compromise on accommodation etc. A luxury holiday is just so different from a normal one. I used to do a lot of solo shoe string travelling (not any more because I can't even afford that 😆) and you could see the disparity in holidaying choices so clearly in some places. The most stark I can think of were Rio, Morocco and Athens. In many ways I don't think I'd want to swap my version of travelling in dodgy little hostels often in literal slums as it creates memories and stories for life (assuming you do actually survive - definitely hasn't always fel like a guarantee for me!) but walking past huge hotels where guests pull up in taxis, are met by uniformed doormen who put cases on wheeled gold cages and walk into huge, marbelled air conditioned lobbies ready to be taken to rooms that can cost more for 1 night than I'm paying for my entire holiday including travel was an eye opener. I went into some of the lobbies to look around and - wow! I'm assuming they also have beautiful restaurants, swimming pools etc. I can see why that can become an essential part of being on holiday if you can afford it. Even a lovely, expensive villa requires guests to shop, cook and clean which lots of people don't want to do on holiday.

So I'd have no issue with my friends inviting me on a holiday like that and saying no to it. I wouldn't want them to change it for me. But I would want to be invited, I'd be devastated at a secret holiday.

You sound very snobby, especially regarding the "hobby job" that ONLY earns around 40/50k what an awful attitude to have
My other half earns less than that as a full time class 1 hgv driver and works damn bloody hard and long hours too!
I suggest you tell her where your going and let her decide but i wouldnt want to go with friends with your attitude

I think your friend may be relieved to be honest.

Pay for her between you - clearly money isn't an object. Or are you lacking in generosity as well as grace?

…..and yet, on hundreds of threads, ‘£100,000 is not a high salary’ 🤷🏼‍♀️ you can’t win! OP, tell her you’re going to whichever hotel you choose, if she can’t afford to go, then she won’t be able to join you…she chose the last time.

MN world rarely bears any resemblance whatsoever to the world I - and I'd imagine most of us - live in. If everyone on here really is in the top 1% of earners, then why are they all dicking about on a message board all day long instead of performing in their top-earning jobs?

I have friends much wealthier than me, and who have far less than me (well, before COVID retired me, anyway)

Wealthy friends fancy an outing for a Michelin starred tasting menu : invite everyone, I would decline with no hard feelings.

Agreed few days camping with less well off mates: fab , it’s something we all enjoy. (Including the wealthy ones, actually… they bring the drinks!)

I wouldn’t have ever wanted subsidising for the fine dining, nor to make them feel they shouldn’t go. But if they had treated me for my birthday… bring it on!

But I am confident that none of them were so dismissive of my job or income. As I wasn’t about less well off friends.

Completely agree. Obviously calling a 50k job a hobby job or suggesting it’s a low income is ridiculous but in terms of the rest of it I really don’t see why they should pick a different hotel or subsidise the friend, sounds like she could technically afford it but is prioritising different things which is fine. Doesn’t make any of them bad friends imho though I would never go behind friend’s back about it.

Wiry friends like you, who need enemies.

I have one friend who has a lot less disposable income than the other two of us, not on the level of money you are talking about as I’m the higher earner and don’t earn much more than your friend’s “hobby job” (how insulting).
Anyway, we tend to be really open, we invite our friend and she chooses what she can and wants to do. We’ve paid for a weekend away for her birthday, sub sometimes if she can’t afford it and at other times give notice so she has longer to save. We have also done things without her but it’s always open and talked about. We really like her company and are happy to help out so we can enjoy things together.

Yuck. 'Hobby job.' Piss off.

Is Neil Armstrong available to run the concierge service up there?

🙄 at hobby job!
out of interest OP what do you and the rest of the group earn in your high flying careers?
£45-50k is way above what I earn, I think I’ll quit my job and find myself one of these hobby jobs

Is friend 3 likely to come? I would pitch it as follows.

Hi Sarah and Janice - me and Silvia have been talking and have decided to go to the moon. Would you like to join us? It's going to be 3.7 million so I know that's a big ask and totally understand if that is beyond what you want to pay. But we wanted to ask you as it would be lovely if you could come.

I think what's annoying people is that the 'hobby job' the OP is so dismissive about still pays her considerably more than many. It's not like she's earning £1000 a year from selling ceramic mermaids on the internet.

I'm certainly not suggesting the OP subsidises her friend. I do think that the suggestion that the rest of them go away surreptitiously and not tell her suggests that the 'friendship' in question is not anything particularly close or valuable.

You sound insufferable. But on the plus side I think it’s a win win outcome for your friend.

I'm imagining some sort of SatC type clique where they're all as awfully vacuous and tone deaf as each other. You can just picture their conversations...

"No, no, no, I'm telling you for the thousandth time, I'm not stopping in a hotel that doesn't have a concierge service!"
"Me neither. Why should I be penalised because Jenna's basically on the minimum wage?!"
"I mean 50K?! How does she even manage to feed herself?"

Wow op you sound like an absolute snobby bitch and a terrible friend.

If you care about your friendship maybe work on being less of a terrible snob?

I don't see why there's so much outrage about this. The OP has said that the friend in question's husband is a high earner, which enables her to work in a niche area that she's passionate about. Because she's chosen this path (and been fortunate enough to do so) she doesn't earn as much as the rest of the group. Surely she's therefore winning at life. She's doing what she loves, with the full support of her husband. It's not as if she's some poor downtrodden single parent. If her passion precludes her from affording luxury hotels, that's her choice. I don't see why the others should subsidise her or stay somewhere they don't want to.

Agreed
I think lots of people must sign up to the site and then suspend rational thought.