Grey area of group holiday finances

[Lalalalala555]

Hey.
Looking to see what is considered 'fair' from external perspective.

Ive gota holiday cottage booked for three nights. Fr Sa Su.
Invited friends (two couples).
It sleeps 6.
So theres me and my partner, and then two other couples invited.

We posted in a group chat saying how much it would be each if they wanted to come.
We have done it so that its a set amount, as the cost of the cottage is fixed as booked already and non refundable.

We said it would be 110 each for them.
For my partner and i we decided we would pay a bit more (124).

After posting in the group, one of the other couples want to pay less as they dont want to stay the third night.
They want to pay 2/3 of the cost of 1/6 of the total (if that makes sense).

Its tricky for what is fair. As if they pay 80 instead each, then it means its 200+ each for my partner and I.

Its this wanting to pay for how much someone will be present at the property vs there is already a fixed cost.

Obviously it benefits them to pay less. And us if they pay more.

I don't feel its entirely fair that we would have to pay 3* the amount they pay, for choosing to stay an extra night.
They also will benefit from not having to check out at 10am on the Sunday, which would be the case should the cottage have been booked fri and sat only.

There was no clear consultation in making the booking, we did it after having had a few casual chats about the weekend but not with group consensus. As we are attending an event and the local accommodation had sold out. This one place came up months after so we just booked it.
Hence why we offered it for being cheaper for them.
We didnt know how long they would stay, but they had the option to decide what works best.

Thanks!

I agree with @stichguru but put a slightly different spin on it. You voided and paid because you couldn't find any other options.

You offered the other couples the option, thinking that it would be useful to them and they would contribute to the cost to you.

Win:win

The family couple tried to drive an even harder bargain.

In that situation, I would always turn them down and pay the full cost myself. I absolutely choose not to spend time with people who are so focused on a bargain, to the exclusion of all else.

Firm but fair.

Agree with most of this. They are being cheap wanting a discount and expecting you to pick up the slack. It’s not like you can benefit from the room they have used for two nights - and highly unlikely they will have vacated the property by 10am - in which case they go into the third night’s cost.

OP said the other 2 couples decided not to stay the Sunday night, only Fri and Sat

your friends sound rather unfair, they must know them leaving early will mean you pay more.

I would n't fall out over I but I probably wouldn't go on holiday with them again.

Plus next time I'd get the full amount from each person before booking it.

I’ve had this happen too.

my family is 1 adult, 1 child. So I’d only ever need one room, 2 meals, 2 tickets etc.

others families have 2 adults and 2 to 3 kids.

they all thought it appropriate to split via family meaning I’d subsidise all of them.

Haven’t read all the updates but I think a 1/3 split for the weekend is the only fair thing to do regardless how many days/nights everyone is choosing to stay. Your original offer sounds very generous.

Have you all paid to go to a concert or festival or something and can you either cancel the cottage and or cancel the tickets to the event?

If you have offered to pay extra I am also wondering if this is maybe because you have bagged the biggest/fanciest main bedroom in the property? We had one NY break away one couple booked it and said it was X amount per couple. They had booked it and we accepted the price and agreed to go and stay without seeing the room. We were the tallest/biggest people going and had a tiny double room, no outlook and use of a shared bathroom with two other rooms (another couple and a single male friend). The couple organising it paid the same as us. Yet bagged the biggest room, had a private ensuite, fabulous view and a massive superking bed.

No, we actually said we would take two single rooms. The other couples could have the king and double.
Tried to be nice there too.
Because i know we booked it without consultation. Ie trying to make it less of a compromise for others if they wanted to come.

Update: for anyone following along wondering the outcome.
Couple with the quibble have said they are not coming (after a double check and explaining the maths ect).

Thanks for the moral support.
Think what we offered was more than fair, and even if they dont see it that way and act offended. At least i can feel confident after this thread, feeling we were fair with what was offered. Thank you! Has been so helpful. Thank so much to everyone who took time to weigh in and offer perspectives and advice.

:)

Well you might be right if that was what happened but it isnt.

The OP, and the two sets of friends are all going to a "thing". They struggled to find accomodation and when something came up, OP booked it. At this point she fully accepted that they may have to suck up the whole cost and was happy with that. However.....it was opened up to the group "We have booked this place, it has room for all of us so if you want to stay it will cost £X per person, up to you, let me know". One lot of friends said "yes thats great" the in laws decided to haggle, instead of what they could and should have done, which was say "No thats more than we want to pay, but thanks". At this point th eOP would have paid the balance or offered it to someone else.

The issue here isnt OP booking it, it isnt the cost, it isnt about how many nights people are staying. Its about the fact that a facility was offered that would cost £X per person for the weekend and was a "Yes please/No thank you" situation that got turned into a haggling situation by cheeky fuckers.

Add into the fact that the cheeky fuckers will still expect to use the place as a base on the Sunday, even though if they had paid for 2 nights in a hotel they would be expected to vacate by 10 am, and not pay any extra for it and is extreme stingy bastard CF behaviour.

Suspect that the OP is a people pleaser thats why she has tied herself in knots over this, and why the in law in communicating with her and not her husband (their direct sibling), because they know she will more likely give in than he will. He has done the right thing by saying "decide by tomorrow or the invitation is rescinded", which actually is more than I would have done.

Are you sure the 'tight' couple were going to stay until Sunday evening? You said it was 'needed' for Sunday during the day. That would mean it wasn't a simple case of 2 nights for them.

Is there a 3 night minimum on the rental, if so, your original figures are more than fair in that they offer a discount

You did the right thing not to cave OP. We were once the couple who booked the big accommodation for a family and friends holiday - various combinations and comings and goings - with everyone else being able to be precise and no more about their share, DH and I ended up paying about double what we should if WE had been precise about our share. Because no-one else was helping to share out the extra costs. The burden of being the one who was responsible and booked the place! And you have booked reasonably priced accommodation in a situation where its the last available accommodation. I hope you can successfully invite friends instead.

Think it’s the best thing that they aren’t coming. The quibbles over the money that was completely fair wasn’t going to end in a happy break away. They would have carried on quibbling over other things.

TBH, I think you've dodged a bullet there. They sound insufferably tight and would probably be penny pinching over everything all weekend - down to taking half a tin of beans/a quarter of a bottle of wine from the fridge when they leave.

You have been more than fair and I think you should invite someone else. If they can't find anywhere cheaper (sounds like they won't) and you have filled their space, then that's their tough luck

Are the nice couple not coming now?

In that case OP you have been generous in the extreme this tight couple would never have been happy whatever even if it was free to them and you were paying them to go with you and all weekend they would be like this food and any alcohol etc etc and penny pinching and getting a free ride with every mortal thing.

The amount of events over the years I've ended up paying for.

Life is short.

Pay the money and don't hold grudges and have a great time.

Let them do their 2 nights at less cost and don't invite them on any trips ever again.

a good sign that a friendship is not really a friendship

is when you find yourself starting a thread about the negotiations and tensions and stressing surrounding the split of holiday costs and posting 78 (78!!) very long posts about how annoyed and stressed you are about it

You booked it without discussion, so entirely on you.

There was some discussion, just not specifics. I don't think £220 for a weekend for 2 people is unreasonable so if I had agreed to go away for a weekend and then friends come back with that price I would pay. The fact they are getting a third night is a bit of a bonus. £80 a night would get you a room in a premier inn or a cheap hotel, it won't get you a nice house and all that comes with it.

To those posters comparing it to only paying for what you eat rather than splitting the bill are not getting it. If you eat and drink less, then the bill over all will be less. Paying for what you use is fair.

In this case, the price is the price so that should be split based on people, not nights using it. I know OP said it was an option to only book for two nights, but it often isn't and when I it, I've found it's still the same price as the main cost ie cleaning, bed linen, towels are the same fit the vender if you stop one night or 3. So often the cost for 3 nights is not 3 times the cost of 1 night.

The only difference I would have done in this case was cost per person by room with king size paying more, double slightly less and those in the single rooms less again. It's madness that you are paying more but giving yourself the worse accommodation!

Thanks.
Yes its not as simple as going to a restaurant.

Its we booked somewhere and its a fixed price. As a group we had discussed this trip about going and said we'd find a place. The places were very very hard to come by. We had been looking for about two months, maybe longer, as we'd missed out on booking early ie 10months in advance because at that point hadnt had everyone give a hard yes they want to come for that weekend.

Anyway.
We did the legwork, eventually found a place to stay. Booked it in a panic. Knowing full well people may decide not to come despite saying they did, because that is the way group plans work.

Unless you get everyone to agree and pay up before competing the booking, you're open to roulette on if people will follow through on coming and also on paying.

The thing here is that i knew that was the risk and we chose to take it. And were not saying to them you have to pay even if you dont come.

We approached it as we've booked a place for this long.. If youd like to join its this much. We said we'd take the single rooms and we'd booked somewhere that didnt have three doubles.
The amount we were asking for was fair and did the maths for it.

What happened was one couple thought that then they should pay significantly less and everyone else should subsidise them, because they are not staying for the full time.
They did not take into account the two fees the place charges ontop of a booking. We checked our maths with chat gpt and on here, and we were already more than fair. Ie the amount they should pay for a proportional shorter stay was more than what they said they wanted to pay.

Its stressful because we tried to be more than accommodating in all the variables. And yet they came back saying they would not come unless it was 80pp for them.

We said no.
They are now not coming.

As you said it was a gamble booking before getting a firm agreement and advance payment from the other two couples.

Two ways you can go. The cost is the cost whether for two or three nights. Or accept that they pay less and ask the other couple to chip in more. They could of course find other accommodation. It's always difficult with these type of things. You need to get agreement before booking and have their money in your account.

@Lalalalala555 It's so stressful trying to please everyone!

Years ago we booked for siblings and our parents to go away for a birthday celebration. It was treat to parents so siblings groups were happy to split cost 3 ways but one sibling has 3 kids so there was 15 in total which made it really difficult to find and expensive. 12 birth and below was a reasonable price but as soon as we went above 12 the price was almost doubled.

One sibling wanted it as cheap as possible and would have gone youth hostel type places (while property booking but rooms were bunk beds and multi occupied rooms) we suggested the 4 girls top and tail to reduce one room requirement (all three siblings had girls), this was fine for two of us as we do that when we visit each other but other sibling didn't agree to that.

All in all, it was really hard to find a place that suited us all - but at least how we split the cost was never a worry 🤣