Do you divide up the cost per person or per rooom?

[NatureNatur]

Friend is hiring a house abroad for a big birthday (v short plane away) Around 5 couples going, and 3 singletons. It's for 4 days.

I have confirmed I am going, but said my DH will have to see closer to the time. We have young kids and no family who could have them for longer than one night really. Elderly or unwilling family either side.

Just had the cost through and it's £400 per person. I had thought it would be worked out by room - e.g. I can just pay to have a bedroom and if DH joins for one night - all good as he would be in my room. Was I unreasonable to presume this?

But it's costed per person - so would be £800 for a room, and the singletons pay £400 for their room.

Is this fair? Of course we can't justify DH paying £400 for one night so I'm going to need to say that and then i gues costs are going to go up for everyone so ppl aren't going to be happy and DH just stays home.

Do you divide up the overall cost by person or by bedroom?

They are, as there are two of them paying for that room. OP will have paid half and still had her own room.

Per person, as it’s not fair on the singletons to pay twice as much as the people in a couple.

I do one of these kind of holidays with a big group of friends every year- its always split pp regardless of who is sharing a room with who, its the fairest and easiest way. There are always single people, or people who come alone as their partner can't make it, or people who get the master suite because they get there first, or people who get the bunk beds because they turned up later etc.

I think it would be unusual for your friend to have found a house which sleeps 14 people in 8/9 rooms where all of those rooms are of equal size and standing. We go a lot of group trips in big houses and it’s pretty much an eventuality that there will be a couple of reasonably shit rooms with bunkbeds or whatever, which the single people will graciously take. Ask to see the villa listing and then it might immediately become apparent that there’s a more equitable way to divvy things up than everyone paying an identical price.

Don't be that person - if your DH can only make it for one night, he can't make it. Just go on your own, makes life easier for everyone involved.

I figure this kind of comes out in the wash as a singleton. I get my own room on an Air BnB holiday (sometimes, sometimes bunk with a friend) but get stung on hotels. But the hotel is just life unless there's someone else who wants to share. It is a pain though!

In this situation it feels a bit unfair to charge the husband extra for one night, he's not causing a bigger place to be rented so I'd say free or low cost. This sort of thing is such a pain to do fairly though!

If it's a rental it's per person not per room. I've got a 4 b/r villa rented and we're 6 people - 2 couples and 2 singletons so divide the rental by 6.

If your DH turns up for one night then he should pay for food that day or something similar rather than full price. Seems crazy that he'd go just for one night though.

Won't you be using any of the other rooms?

I think it should be per room, but with room prices set to reflect room size and facilities. Otherwise you could have one person paying half the cost and nabbing the king size with ensuite to themselves, while a couple are given the pull out sofa-bed at double cost.

You should obviously pay less per person for a shared room than you would for a whole room to yourself, but equally the ensuite king shouldn't be priced the same as a small single or a standard twin.

I think per person is probably fairest given you’ll all be using the living spaces and outside spaces equally no matter if you are single or in a couple. Some people will do slightly better out of the room situation than others but the alternative of splitting by room seems less fair.

Definitely per person, otherwise people attending on their own are paying double what a couple is, it’s only ever couples who suggest the per room split despite it then being massively unfair on people attending solo.

It doesn’t matter what would happen in a hotel, that’s irrelevant, this isn’t a hotel.

Isn't this just a risk you take when you go on one of these kinds of holidays? It's not a hotel, the rooms will all be different, someone will have to end up in the slightly less nice one.

As the person who is usually the organiser of these sorts of trips, it annoys me when people pipe up with suggestions like this to make organising even more complicated. Where would you even start with pricing things up proportionate to the type of room? The master suite might have a bigger bed, but less windows than the twin room down the hall, or be further away from the bathroom. Where does it end?

But in a hotel you are more likely to end up in a double bedroom with an on suite bathroom.
Villas have different sized rooms, often only 1 or 2 with on suite and the rest a shared bathroom.

I therefore villa holiday pp unless you want to price up the different types of rooms which overcomplicated things.

Whatever you decide, tell the party organiser now if DH is coming or not so that there are no surprises with costs.

You not paying for the accommodation, you're paying for quality time with friends regardless of the accommodation.

You shouldn't be asking is the room worth it, but will the experience be worth it.

so if there's a mix of single and double rooms, and the same charge per room, the single guests have as much entitlement to a large king size double?

But per person, the single person is paying half the price for a whole room to themselves thsnca couple is for a shared room.

If it's per person, I assume the couple are entitled to 2 rooms if they'd prefer not to share, or if they feel they could use two rooms?

It swings both ways. If it's per person, couples are subsidising singles, unless all singles are sharing 2 to a room or having a small single room.

If it's per room, everyone sharing a room pays the same, people (single or otherwise) can choose to pay more if they want the luxury of a room to themselves without sharing with someone else.

Single people and people without children always end up with the shit rooms. Single people are often expected to shared a bed with other single people or go on a sofa bed. It's so rubbish. If you care about your friends and you want everyone to be there then paying per head is the fairest way to do it. And it's just kind to have picked somewhere where the Single people get their own bed and room for a change!

I had one holiday where we split the villa equally, despite our friends having an extra bedroom for their 4 year old, which I wasn't bothered about. We took the room downstairs off the living room so the two sets of parents could have upstairs with easiest access to bathroom/ensuite.

The only thing that really bothered me about having the rubbish room off the living room was said 4 year old would be awake and down there at 6am every morning of the holiday playing loudly, knocking on our door and asking when we'd come out.

We didn't get any peace. Probably should have guessed that a holiday with a 4 year and a baby wouldn't be the most relaxing but in hindsight, we should have had a nice room at the top of the house so we wouldn't be disturbed. (Oh and yes, it was me who found the whole place, booked it, organized everything).

I'd not be paying anything til I saw the house details - what if she's decided sofa beds are proper beds? Nope.

Well either way you'd be paying double surely? Because if you split it per room then the singletons, which i presume would share rooms would go half each on the room to share?

I think somewhere in the middle is fair as the payment isn’t just for a room but the use of the whole villa.

Just to add id want to see the villa first, if you hate it then i wouldn't go. Also what if some beds are singles and some are doubles? Sofa beds! I'd totally resent being asked to split it evenly if I'm shafted with a sofa bed and anyone else got a massive king bed and paid the same as me. If it had a sofa bed I'd probably say "ooh I can see a sofa bed, to make sure no one's stuck on that all week we'll have to take it in turns" put it out there from the get go.

Is the villa really £5,200 for four nights?? Is it fully catered? That's an obscene cost

This is not a hotel but a villa rented privately. So I guess the person just wants the cost to be divided btw the persons attending. I think it's cheeky to suggest a birthday party where guests are supposed to pay. Personally I would decline. I would never expect people to fork up money to pay for a villa I rented for my birthday, how entitled is that? One thing if it's just people going on vacation together. And ofcourse you need to buy a birthday present as well.

I would say sorry, we can't make it and then go on a week-end break with DH and children to a place YOU choose.