To ask for payment of deposit now

[Pinkerpellosa]

I have booked a group thing for the summer. Deposit was unexpectedly 50%. Which came to a good few hundred pounds. I booked on my credit card so we wouldn't miss out. Should I ask other members of the group to pay their share of the deposit now?
On one hand I will be incurring interest on it up until the summer/until I can manage to pay it off.
On the other hand I and one other member of the group made the decision to book. We could have taken our chances and waited to get it later and risked there being no availability. Though everyone else is on board with it.

YABU take the money only when the thing happens
YANBU ask people for their share of the deposit now.

You should have asked before you booked. There is a huge difference to people saying they want to do something and then actually committing to a date/expenditure. I do t really have a feel from your comments as to how presumptuous you’ve been TBH and that drives whether YABU or not.

Gosh, just ask now. Keep in mind that some people might need to pay after payday or in installments.

I'll leave it a while and see if anyone offers to send a bit of money my way
Full amount is due 2 weeks before the thing happens. Would it be ok to ask for full payment by then?

I'm starting to wonder if you're kidding us, OP; why on earth wouldn't you ask for the full amount before you have to pay it - unless you're planning to treat them all of course?

YANBU in any way shape or form, to ask for the agreed participants to pay their part of the deposit.

Full amount is due 2 weeks before the thing happens. Would it be ok to ask for full payment by then?

No it wouldn't - you must pay for everyone and not expect them to have to re-imburse you (insert giant sarcasm emoticon).

FFS, of course it is reasonable to expect them to fork out their share. If one of your friends told you that they had booked and paid for tickets for something, would you not expect to actually have to pay them at some point?

It depends entirely on if these are the kinds of people who will likely have the money spare or will struggle to pay the deposit without saving first.

I think you need to tell everyone, just be completely transparent, explain you booked it because of the limited places left and fear it would sell out, that the deposit was a lot more than you anticipated but put in on your credit card to secure the places.
I would say that I understand if people don’t have the deposit straight away and you are able to leave it on your CC until they can afford to pay it but would hope everyone who does that would be ok with splitting the interest charges.

That seems like a fair comprises to me.

Ok on rereading, I think once you discovered that deposit was 50% you should have checked or got the cash from everyone at that point.

However you can't change the situation so I would contact your friends and explain the situation. If they have enough then they can pay the 50% upfront but if not suggest instalments. To me the key thing is to get some money out of everyone ASAP even if it's not the full 50% so they have some skin in the game - so to speak - otherwise you might end up with a bigger problem than the interest on the credit card.

Just ask them for the money. You've paid for it, they wanted to participate. If they don't want to do it now, then I suppose you may be able to get a refund, depending on what you've booked?

Thanks for the input everyone. I'm overthinking it, I know. I wasn't being presumptuous. The thing is definitely happening. We're all definitely going. One person doesn't have a credit card. One person is too lazy to book. Two are on holiday this week and not contactable. The last person and I discussed the options, two others said go for it, as did our OHs. Holiday people not contactable. So I booked it.

I am way overthinking it obviously and taking up your time. So I'll send a message saying "deposit was X. Would be great to get £50 each whenever possible. Balance is Y, due on 14th July (or whenever)."

No don't say whenever possible!! Give a firm date preferably before your credit card bill is due. Pop your bank details in with the text so they have easy access to them.

Also say please add your name to the note so I know who has paid what

There's too many 'whenevers' there OP.
Give them dates for the deposit, but be wiling to accept some people may reply back saying they weren't expecting to fork out that much so soon, so you have to wait.
The final payment needs to be an absolute deadline, preferably a week or two before the balance needs paying.

Op, can you lend me few hundred quid?
I will return whenever possible

Or whenever....

WalkingDead I'm a walk over!! Ok point taken.
"X amount due X date. Thanks."

Ad your bank/cc/paypal (as preferred) details to the message so they can't claim they didn't know.

I can see a post in a few months saying you are several hundred quid down. Hope your fingers don’t get burnt.

I'm lucky we do this all the time for holidays and concerts etc and my friends are reliable so it's not an issue. May be a week or two if near pay day but mostly same day bank transfers.

I'd have booked it then immediately sent the what's app or text explaining it was a higher deposit at £x so please can you forward that in the next 2 weeks as on your credit card!
Then explain that Balance is due at x date.

Let's hope you don't have CF friends!

Certainly don't wait and see if they pay that's ridiculous. People forget and lives are busy and may need reminding.