Ski trip cost- are we subsidizing “host “ family

I'm not sure most people would write-off £840 as a "not insane" amount they'd pay to avoid social awkwardness.

If transfers / equipment hire is to be paid seperately then they are taking the piss as 4 x 1640 covers the full cost of everybody

I wonder OP if they have forgotten some costs like car hire, etc. but it’s not unreasonable to ask with such a big investment!

She has!

I’d go back and say

“Hello, thank you for this, I am still a little confused by the costing, as £4k divided by 8 would be £500 and then £300 for the pass, is some of it for food and drink or any other costs? I really appreciate it, thank you!”

Just ask for a breakdown - simple!

Posters here are so weird. Do you all seriously socialise with people who would be intentionally scamming you?? Seems like that is the default reaction for so many.

My assumption would be that they’ve had to pay more for accommodation to fit the kids in and or hire a minibus to do the transfer - or something similar. I did I combined trip with another family once and the jump from 5 seater hire car to 6 seater minivan was an additional 480 euros. This will be more for most aspects of a ski trip because everything is expensive. They likely forgot to include something.
I would question the maths or the communication skills before i questioned their motives
ps. Do they want an additional kid?

If you want to be tactful ask for a breakdown of their guesstimates of everything "including the other costs" and they migt say "oh no that's to cover every thing" in which case I think they sound amazing people to take on all this sorting out and planning!!

I'm curiously invested in this one.

Food, drink, entertainment, trips etc, we don’t know if op’s ‘other costs’ include stuff like this.

You are not being unreasonable to ask for a clearer breakdown of costs, but I do think you should bear in mind how much effort the parents will be putting in for your child, so be tactful and appreciative.

But that cost doesn’t include any of the flights or travel expenses. Those are being paid separately. That cost is just for the ski pass and accommodation, which the OP has been shown the full cost of and it is clearly only being split between the guest children; so the host parents get half their holiday for free.

The cost breakdown seems odd but personally I'd just pay it as it's not insane and I wouldn't want to supervise teenagers. I'd be worried if i queried it my kid wouldn't be invited in future. Just treat it as a fee to supervise your teenager and organise the whole thing - that usually costs money you know!

Unless you know how many bedrooms there are, and who is sharing and who's getting their own room, it's difficult to say.
Likewise whether food is included.

Husband and wife will likely be sharing. If the wife is spending part of the day cooking, and therefore saving you exorbitant resort-restaurant costs, I'd say that would be ok to 'charge' for as that's eating into her holiday. In the same way, will the husband have to supervise more than he would otherwise have to do? If the older kids will be off on their own, but he'll have to watch over your 15yo, I'd give them a bit of leaway on that.

Do they strike you as CFs generally? If not, and it's not going to kill you financially, I'd be inclined to think that they think this is a fair split. It's possible for eg that the wife doesn't want to go, isn't a skier, would much rather be spending the cash on some Morocco winter sun, and is only going in order to facilitate the big fun teen-focused active holiday that they're planning for it to be.

I think the only way you can ask without causing upset is to say, so sorry, this is awkward, but it's about 50% more than we'd budgeted for and things are a bit tight - so can I just check the workings-out? Is the accommodation divided equally or...?

Couldn’t say unless you say what travel + other costs means.

Skiing is expensive it’s not just accommodation plus ski lift it all adds up.

Skiing hire, boots, helmet
ski school or group if they are
Transfers a big one
Food if catered or if not
Are you paying own insurance?

To put it into perspective we are doing half board (breakfast and dinner) on the cheapest week of the year for 4 nights and its costing 3.5k for 2 people. And I still need to book a ski guide and pay for food on mountain.

You can still be direct without sounding like you're sending a work email.

"£1640? Oh yikes - I had it in my head it'd be about £800 (£500 for 1/8th of the chalet and £300 for the lift pass), what am I missing?"

This is another highly provocative 3am post on here which doesn't give enough information and the poster doesn't answer any questions!

Is there a set of siblings going and they have accidentally sent you the cost for 2 teenagers?

An example of when you would say 'send me a complete breakdown of all cost items' would be if it was a school camp.

An example of when you would say 'so that I can budget and make sure you aren't out of pocket, can you let me know what that includes' is what you would say to a family who has offered to take your child skiing.

Both will get the same outcome. Different communication to different audiences.

Hth.

I think it would help to have a bit of context as to how and why this came about OP? It seems an unusual situation. There's no way in hell I'd want to take 4 extra kids skiing with us! Why are they doing that? If their own kids don't get on at all, I can see why they'd bring two extra kids (a friend for each) but four?!!!!

That's not how skiing works though. Most often you have a quick lunch and snacks on the slopes (which presumably each teen pays out of pocket).
So it might be breakfast + smth for dinner at most eaten at home.

None of that maths makes sense. How do you know the costs? Maybe that’s just the extra children's costs. Yanbu to not want to pay for the family but you need to approach it carefully. Ask what’s included and what the costs are, what additional money he will need etc. Are you in contact with any of the other families?

My concern would be not the money, but the fact you have only one adult skiing and six teenagers.

That is a responsibility and a level of risk, even if the teens are all competent skiers and always sensible. (They may ski as a group, but it's easy to imagine a couple of them deciding to take a different route down and whizz off.)

A ski holiday does cost around 1.5k pp when you add flights, transfer, accommodation, ski hire, lift pass, ski school, food and drink. We normally pay that much for a 4/5 day trip.

People thinking they need to ‘ask delicately’ is what causes misunderstandings and confusion.

In this case they pretty much are providing a service by booking the holiday, OP has every right to simply ask directly what she’s paying for and how it’s been worked out.

Sorting out finances isn’t the time for pussy footing it about, things get sorted much easier if direct questions are asked.

Jumping to pulling out is really passive aggressive, and is just going to cause more issues, there’s nothing wrong with asking a simple question.