Friend has cancelled me for a holiday that's already booked and paid for.

[Snowyxmastree]

I don't know how to handle this situation.

9 friends 4 couples and 1 single have booked to go on a holiday. I have paid for the flights outright and the hotels get paid for on check in. Everyone has paid for the flights bar the single friend.

I have had to rearrange the booking once already as we have booked non refundable rooms and 4 in the party got invited to a family members wedding.

I have just received a message from single friend to say that she is embarrassed to say that she can no longer go due to the cost. She's owes me for the flight and I have been chasing her for a couple of weeks now. Plus the hotel needs to be paid for nearer the time.

Everybody knows this all non refundable but she hasn't mentioned reimbursing me.

How do I go about doing this?

I will not be doing this again despite this being a annual thing for 5 years now with no issues.

I am so pissed off with friend as the hotel was booked mainly as she was unhappy with a lot of hotels as they didn't do single rooms.

Please help me ask her for this money I am owed. It's £550.

Slightly - if BIL had done that to me with the £50 and a "chill the fuck out" dismissal, it would have triggered a "Carrie" scene response. £15K - promise me your DH isn't lending any more....

That's a shame that nice friend couldn't come OP but not unexpected.
At this stage I think it's worth focusing on there being one less person rather than a replacement.
Have you spoken to the hotel about the possibility of a refund or upgrade for the remaining party ?

I can't believe FF has just buried her head in the sand and is just ignoring everything!

I hope nice friend can get it through to FF, I wouldn't hold my breath though. Although FF would henceforth be flakey as she would be no friend of mine (of the rest of the group by the sounds of it!).

Eee what a cheek not getting in touch!

I hope it's sorted soon for you? I don't blame your friends for not paying for her to go away.

OVienna Inside me, I AM Carrie. And I am setting him on fire. I try to keep things reasonably pleasant for the sake of all of our DC but it is the most enraging thing imaginable. He bought a new set of gold clubs in the january sales yesterday and texted DH to tell him what a great deal he got - £699 from £1200. DH texted back to say "are you actually fucking kidding me?" and got a smiley face back. SHAMELESS.

His wife is worse. She pretends to 'busy herself in the kitchen' so that she doesn't have to be part of it. It is not embarrassment on her part, if it were she would be busy showing me her designer shite an hour later, she just likes to pretend that she is unaware of the debt in its entirety. She almost annoys me more.

I swear there are people who don't view owing money to someone in the same way most of us do (i.e. the priority is to return payment asap before spending anything other than strictly necessary on ourselves).

Sorry OP, I have hijacked your thread to vent, but just to say that I hope Nice friend can talk some sense into FF.

Slightly that is just soooo awful, how does your DH feel about it? Why did he keep lending to him if he's so obnoxious or is your DH just too kind-hearted?

Jaded, has your DH actually sat him down and said 'You owe us £15,000 and you need to start paying it back. How shall we start?'

When he shoves a £50 in your DH's face, does your DH ever say 'No, that's not the point. We need to address the whole debt'?

I'm 100% on your and your DH's side, obviously, but things like getting embroiled in sweary text exchanges aren't helping move things on.

He was too kind hearted in the past.

He is now cold, ruthless and made of steel (thank fuck)!

Yes umpteen conversations had. DH did a spreadsheet asked BIL to come up with a number that he could contribute every month as a standing order - BIL offered.....£50. DH pointed out that this would take 25 years to pay back to BIL upped it to £100 - whoop-de-doo. The payments came through for 3 months then stopped because BIL had a 'fucking nightmare car repair bill and needed his car to work' - and they never started again.

DH gets pretty upset actually and we have had tears because he can't understand how his Brother could be so disrespectful to him - there is history.

He will never lend him another penny though. BIL has asked....

BIL has asked....

Can't believe the brass neck!

How did you make him start paying? Can you open the conversation again the same way? Seriously, I'd never be off someone's case if they owed me this kind of money and were being twattish about it to boot.

snowy, what a mare.

it's good of your mutual friend to offer to talk to her but if you don't hear anything after that, I would write her an email saying "a reminder that owe me £550 - I would accept instalments as I understand you are in trouble at the moment, here's a suggestion of x per month".

that said, I am sorry but you are unlikely to see her again I reckon.

will anyone on this thread admit to being like the Flaky Friend, or Jadeds BIL?

I am interested in the thought process that leads to you thinking that taking advantage of friends and family in this way is anything like reasonable behaviour?

Why would you say you will pay someone back, never do and then ask to borrow money again. Or blatantly spend money on luxuries while owing people money?

If it was me, I would be living on beans until I had paid the money back and would be too embarrassed to do anything as outrageous as going on holiday.

Sighjaded: you and your DH both sound too kind. A bit too soft really. Your BIL is awful, but I can kind of understand feeling obliged to hand out stuff to family if you can (but how on earth did it reach that amount?!)

And you with your friend who fucked you over not once but twice. Why did you let him do it again?! And at your wedding! I would never want to see someone again who treated me like that - what a betrayal. Can't understand what makes someone want to stay in a relationship with someone like that.

Fidelia has nailed it.

A friendship didn't survive a holiday with a Flaky Friend. In fact, I was so angry that FF nearly didn't survive either.

It was the 80s, the days of travellers' cheques and cash. We didn't have credit cards. There were three of us and we'd agreed how much to bring.

I don't think FF took the agreed amount with her and spent a lot at the airport on duty free Clarins.

After a few days she confessed she'd run out of money and suggested that we'd be taking it from her.

We were living off one bowl of tinned tomatoes and pasta a day otherwise we couldn't have afforded to go out. I've never been so thin in my life. At one point I was hallucinating.

We didn't feel that we could make her stay in, so she came out with us while we paid. One night she even met a bloke, stayed out with him, and then arrived in the cab the next morning demanding that we paid. I saw him the next night and demanded the money like I was her pimp.

Sensible Friend and I sat down and SF worked out that if we stayed in for two nights we could just about manage. That was the point when I wanted to kill FF.

We also decided to hide our taxi fare to the airport because FF would have spent it.

The end of the month fell and I kept thinking there was money in my bank account but I couldn't get it.

When we got back, her mum paid us in full instantly. And then it was like we weren't allowed to bring up the fact that she'd ruined our holiday because we had the money back.

'Heard nothing what so ever from FF'

And you never will. Nor will you ever see money from her.

NO more paying upfront for these things.

to the question upthread, yes, DP has been left out of pocket on several occasions.
AND STILL HE CONTINUES TO PAY UPFRONT FOR UNRELIABLE FREELOADING "FRIENDS"

Any news today?

OVienna

Slightly - if BIL had done that to me with the £50 and a "chill the fuck out" dismissal, it would have triggered a "Carrie" scene response

Am catching up with the thread and was baffled about WTAF would you going and buying lots of shoes - and getting YOURSELF into debt for that - would do to in any way improve the situation for you???

...and then it dawned on me that you were talking Carrie the movie, not Carrie in S&TCity...

I had a friend who did this. We had arranged for the two of us to go to a European city for a long weekend as a catch up after I had lived abroad for years.

I paid for flights, she booked accommodation.

Three days before we were due to travel, she pulls out, saying that I had not seen her enough in the two years I lived hours away and she doesn't want to go away.

Cue a big argument where she just spits vitriol down the phone at me until I hang up.

No mention of her paying me for the flights, her hotel booking was entirely refundable. The day of the flights, there is a huge storm, all flights are grounded and I get a full refund

She has since apologised, but things cannot be unsaid and it just isn't the same.

Sometimes you are better off without these people in your life. It hurts and it is difficult but otherwise it just festers.

Yikes to Squad and Slightly! My God. The utter bizarre level of cheek of these people. Can they not put themselves in your shoes for one second? How does BIL not think "ah, but these golf clubs really belong to Mr Jaded. It's his money." I would be drawing up another spreadsheet for the New Year, with interest payments. It's too insulting to let him get away with it.

I think, once the money has passed over to the FF brigade, in some weird way in their minds it is now their money. It makes no sense but I think thats it.

I often organise things and even getting small amounts out of people can be tricky. Eg a thing I organised needed a £5 deposit. Obviously not very much but for 10 people I was down £50 so had to chase people for £5 that felt petty. The crap thing is that the poor organiser ends up in role of miserly, kill joy, parental bossy meanie. That is their "reward" for trying to organise nice things for a group.

Lets hope there is a reward in heaven for all us organisers while our F ex F are burning in hell

It's an interesting point Kerala1.

I think for me what is heartening from the OP's story is that all of her other friends instantly agreed to split the cost, which shows that they clearly appreciate the OP's organisation skills and it's a real shame, but totally understandable, that because of one bad apple a system that has worked well for 10 people over 5 years has had to be stopped.