What's the fairest way to split cost of this holiday?

[Theknittinggorilla]

Three families hiring a country cottage for a week:

Family 1: couple, no kids, 2 dogs
Family 2: couple, one baby under 6 months old
Family 3: couple, three kids (4, 2 and baby under 6 months old)

Cottage will need 4 bedrooms, one for each couple and one for the 4 and 2 year old to share. Babies will be in cots in parents rooms.

If cottage is say £3k for the week, how much should each family pay?

I'd go by the cost of a 3 bed split three ways.

Then you pay the additional difference of the 4 bed price.

When we go with friends we just split the costs.
For us it is normally family 1 = 3, family 2 = 4.
If going separately both families would want at least two bedrooms. So figure that is how we split it - we both need the same amount of space so we share equally. Otherwise you can do it per bedroom but that doesn't then take into account the living space and bathrooms, and who gets which room (which are rarely even.)

3000 pounds for a WEEK? For just a single house?!?! Where on earth are you staying?
Find a place at half the price and shout your family!

Misses point of thread

There are loads of cottages for way more than that neli, especially in school holidays.

Houses or apartments never have 4 equal bedrooms, and in this case scenario, two kids will most certainly end up in the smallest bedroom while probably the grandparents will get the master ensuite bedroom as they are usually on a lower floor etc. Besides, being a family it s probably best to split 1/3 each, if everyone can easily afford it. If the couples were friends it would be different, probably 1200-900-900 would be better

"I wouldn't want to go on holiday with a group of people that calculated everything down to the last penny."

Can you explain this? It isn't everything or any last penny - it is £3,000 they are talking about, likely far and away the biggest expenditure item on the holiday. And one family is using twice as many bedrooms as the others. Why on earth should it not be taken into consideration? It's not like they bought a communal bottle of salad cream for the week and are splitting the cost per spoonful.

I'd prob just split everything 3 ways. Or trey the two kids who aren't babies as an adult, i.e. Divide by 7 let one family pay 3/7, the other two pay 2/7 each

Pay per room plus the dog couple pay the inevitable supplement for extra cleaning incurred if you take a dog to a rental cottage.

Family of five pay half, each couple pay a quarter, plus dog people pay the cleaning supplement for taking pets.

Why on earth anyone thinks a baby sleeping in the room with its parents should be allocated the same chunk of the bill as an adult is baffling, unless there is a large charge for a cot and high chair (obviously any specific cost for baby items should be met by the baby's parents).

We do this type of group family thing often. We pay per room for accomodation but for food, cleaning, days out etc per family. So the accomodation would be £1500, £750, £750 (we're the larger family and also least affluent in the group but strongly feel the need for several rooms rather than shoehorning ourselves into one). We'd then each put a few hundred from each group into the communal pot to pay for stuff as necessary.

As it is family split 3 ways, but offer to pay per room as the bigger family.

I've panmynefor mNephew to come on holiday (flights etc) otherwise Dsis wouldn't have had any holidays.

So I'd pay for me and nephew to get to hotel. We'd share one room or two and split that 50/50.

These arrangements can be unfair on all sorts of combinations, but there aren't any singletons in this group, so no need to worry about them is there?

Often parents are expected to share with children or put up with very awkward sleeping arrangements for children (children expected to share a bed, mixing cousins who don't know each other well and don't particularly get on in a room together, meaning a kid will be picked on and end up in their parents bed, but being expected to pick up an adult share of the bill for that kid anyway is one example, another is stuffing two kids in the worst room sharing a bathroom with their parents and cousins and perhaps more people but expecting the children's share to be the same as a couple in the plush 4 poster en suite with dressing room master...)

As far as we know those things are not relevant here though...

I would probably do it per bedroom.

Definitely one to have as a group discussion before booking to see what arrangements everyone is happy with.

Thirds