Friend should pay me back?

[sneezethemoment]

There was a discounted spa deal for two people and so I paid and friend said she’d pay me back.

Then she got asked to go on holiday and said she couldn’t make it anymore, but she’d still pay and I should take someone else. I asked a different friend, we went, had a nice time.

Original friend came back from holiday and said she’s not paying me back and should get the money off the person who went.

If I was the replacement friend I'd most likely offer to pay, to help out the first friend whose plans changed or even to help OP who's been stitched up by first friend. But that changes if replacement friend was offered the spot as a freebie, and wouldn't have chosen to go at full price.
First friend is being a CF. She had the option to find someone to buy the spot from her. Lesson learned, now you know to get money upfront before booking anything for her, and personally this would make me take a step back from the friendship.

I’m bored of this now. I believed what my friend said, I offered it as a freebie as I don’t want to make money off my friends. I thought I was already being paid by friend who repeatedly said she’d pay me back

What other side?

I wouldn’t say to my friend - I’ll pay you back the money I clearly owe you and because I let you down please take a friend.

To then turn around and say - you took someone I’m not paying.

How about just be clear upfront what your intentions are and what stipulations are for paying me back. If you weren’t under any circumstances going to pay then just say, why contradict yourself.

Friend 1 should have paid because it was agreed but theirs not much you can do now about it unfortunately

what other side?

This says it all really. Clearly you have difficulties with perspective taking and therefore I imagine this won’t be the last time you have difficulties in your friendships.

You may think that there’s only one way to look at this situation, but 2 in 5 people who have responded to this thread voted YABU. That’s worth trying to understand.

I agree with you OP. She said she'd do it, so she should do it AND she told you to take someone else. It doesn't get much simpler than that @Tandora is being a CF

The friend said she'd pay for it and for OP to take someone. Otherwise she should have said, can you see if someone else will buy the ticket and if you can't then I'll pay for it. Two very different things. Not that hard to understand

Not that hard to understand

Yes I get it

Generally, if you’ve made plans with somebody, planned to pay your way/pay for your ticket, and then make other plans last minute with other people, you’ve dumped your mate in it and should still pay regardless. Because firstly, backing out of a plan for no good reason other than you found a better offer is a shit thing to do and says quite a bit about you as a friend, and secondly you’ve left your mate on their own, stuck with a bill and/or the prospect of having to find someone else short notice. All pretty rubbish things to do to a friend. So IMO the decent thing to do is to still pay for your place and then whether your friend gets to go or not/manages to get someone else onboard, that person is not at a loss.
This is just common courtesy really and I would say it kinda goes without saying among friends but you blame OP - who did nothing wrong, paid her way, didn’t back out, had to do all the scrabbling around to rearrange plans and find someone else to go etc - why shouldn’t she be made whole irrespective of who else may or may not go?

This thread is bizarre.

OP seems very clear on what she thinks is right. Doesn't appear to think for a second that she is being unreasonable, and yet for some reason decided to ask a bunch of strangers if she is being unreasonable, then got angry at the ones that said she is.

OP, if you are confident you are right then just go with that and do what you want to do. What is the point of being here? Do you understand the purpose of AIBU?

The friend who let OP down said she would pay, presumably for the inconvenience and to apologise for letting op down.

Now she has changed her mind. That's unreasonable, no?

No but she must meant free spa trip presumably

it's not that leftfield

and incidentally I haven't gone against the OP - I agree the first friend should pay but some of OP's posts are odd!

this post is bizarre!

Surely the reason people post on AIBU is to see if someone posts an alternative POV that might change their mind, or at least help them understand the other person's view better. I've been on several threads where my initial opinion has, if not changed, at least been given pause for thought by the explanations of other posters.

The fact that nobody has done that in this case (which fair enough given half the people who thought she was BU don't seem to understand the scenario and the rest still haven't actually given any coherent rationale as to why Friend 1 isn't responsible for paying for something she specifically agreed (twice) to pay for) doesn't mean OP shouldn't have bothered posting at all!