Santorini explosive argument

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I always go in holiday once a year with friend. Normally Europe, something chilled for 10 days. We switch who does all the admin / booking but will have a few places in mind. This year it was my turn to organise. Have booked Santorini. Got a fantastic deal. Beautiful venue. I booked it over Xmas for this July. Friend happy.
After several earthquakes we were nervous but agreed to wait it out (aware this is 'act of god' so couldn't get refund on insurance). There's been nothing major recently. So I assumed trip was on.

Over the weekend friend forwarded BBC article and said that the lead scientist said the " big earthquake/ volcanic eruption was coming this summer " and has said she's not coming.
I've read the article and it doesn't say that at all. In fact if anything it seemed the team had no clue what was happening and just let a journalist hang out with them for a day.
We can't cancel without losing a lot of money and friend said she would rather pay not to go. She won't reimburse me if I go by myself though.

We had a heated discussion and tbh I think she's making up earthquake scenarios/ catastrophising. What would you do ?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm25lz56rezo

Is it because if you cancel you'll get most if it refunded, but if you still go she's out of pocket for her half?

OP has said that that both the flights and the hotel are non-refundable. So if they both cancel, OP loses her holiday and her money.

She should pay her 50% share regardless of what she decides to do.

I would contact the hotel by email and ask if there is any way they would consider either transferring you to another hotel if part of a chain, or postponing the hotel until next year. At least if you do that, you are demonstrating that you have investigated all the options.

So options are she cancels and friend gives her half or she goes and friend gives her nothing? Sorry if I'm being dumb

This. At the time of booking she agreed to pay for half the trip. She needs to pay for this regardless of what you actually do this summer.

Effectively telling you that you can’t go as she won’t pay her share if you do is controlling. Does she have form for that? Or is that her way of putting pressure on you to change the destination and write off the unrefundable costs?

I would tell her to pay up her share of the trip as you are short of cash. Then tell her that if she wants to look into other destinations while you monitor what is actually happening in Santorini she can. But that you shouldn’t make any rash decisions. How she behaves over the next few weeks will tell you if the friendship is now dead in the water as she can’t see your point of view at all. And you need to try to see hers. You may decide a change of destination and the cost of a new hotel is worth it to keep the friendship going. Or you may still decide to go to Santorini without her.

This is a good idea. I doubt you will be able to postpone but it shows your friend you are exploring all options.

I have been since the tremors. It is beautiful and quieter than usual, and the locals are understandably nervous about their local economy. Some areas are still inaccessible by government order. There are some spanking newly-laid roads! I would definitely go - it is stunning and yes, an easy ferry trip to eg Naxos and others. Keep leaning on friend for her share - including small claims court if necessary although appreciate that really would blow up friendship Vesuvius-style! - invite a more intrepid replacement along and bear in mind that the government would quickly sort out evacuation plans if there were tremors while you were there. There were cruise ships in the port, regular fast cat services, slower ferries going all over the Aegean - blimey, it was heaven.

I would have just asked for her share and not told her you are going, being as she seemed keen to prevent you going without her.

Her behaviour is awful and I think you have to accept this friendship is over.

Do you have another friend to go with?

Yes so the way I won't lose money is if I go by myself and find another friend to come. If I don't , and go by myself, original friend doesn't want to pay her half for a room she won't be using. If I cancel and rebook somewhere less shakey with friend I'll lose money that went to my half of booking.

If the friend agreed to pay her share for the trip and is now unwilling to do so, that’s unfair and IMO a friendship ending thing to do.

If you have her promise to pay in writing, you could take her to the small claims court.

This is just wrong OP. She can’t decide isn’t paying her half of the original holiday. She’s taking advantage of the unfortunate fact that it was your turn to book. No idea how she can even think it’s an option that she doesn’t owe you that money.
Never book anything on her behalf again.

So you tell her you aren’t going. She pays up. You go.

You are allowing yourself to be manipulated and bullied by this person.

She does need to pay her half if she doesn't go though. Not your fault that you booked it...what would she do if she had booked it? You'd still go and pay her back where costs could be redeemed (your half plus anything you could get back for her by bringing another friend) and that's the only fair way of doing it.

She is being massively unreasonable. If she tried to claim under a travel insurance policy it would be declined under disinclination to travel. Either she goes or she pays her share. I can't see how she thinks she is being fair by insisting she doesn't pay if you go alone as it's not your fault she has backed out

I agree with this too. She is manipulating you as she probably doesn't want you to go without her so would prefer you both to be miserable at home when you could have been on holiday.

It's not ideal but I can't say Santorini would be top of my list of places to go right now.

Have you paid for all of the flight and hotel cost already? Booking things separately might save a little bit of money but it does really limit options where things don't go as expected.

Have you checked your and her insurance details? I paid a bit extra this year on our annual policy to cover natural disasters. It seemed a wise decision. It might be worth checking the exact terms just incase.

I think I'd first look at whether someone else would take her place.

The only other options are to go alone or change to a different location taking the hit of the flight change cost and loosing the hotel money.

You should really have got her to pay half of whatever you've paid out already.

It's irrelevant whether it's a volcano or not. Essentially she is withdrawing from a commitment she made. Have you an email or WhatsApp message where you have told her the costs and she has agreed to pay her share? That's a contract that will stand up in Small Claims court. Make sure you screenshot it in case she deletes it.

I'm sorry but your friendship with her is going south one way or another. You may as well insist she repays you.

I with you on the "a jam-packed touristic hellhole in summer" but would add, "that becomes a desert at night when the tour ships pull out and half the island closes!"

But I thought I'd cheer everyone up by pointing out that according to some scientists (and not others, but nature has a way of confounding scientists anyway) the Yellowstone supervolcano is due to erupt, and if that one goes the entire world is potentially screwed, so it won't matter where you are 😁May as well go to Santorini... If not Yellowstone, there are a few other contenders.... I saw a programme about the last super-eruption of Yellowstone that said the planet was plunged into a sort of "nuclear winter" and was so powerful that we can trace a significant narrowing of the DNA pool in the population of Europe that indicates massive numbers of deaths across Europe. And we won't have to be worried about tariffs - deadly volcanic ash would engulf most of the USA. On that cheerful note...if I were the OP I'd be tempted to start googling supervolcanos and sending the links to my friend.

Well that was uplifting 😆

It's the standard after hundreds of year of common law. Nothing, as such, to do with insurance companies particularly.... "force majeure"

I would be very upset at her trying to manipulate me and thinking she got to set "the rules" here op ☹️

I'd be willing to transfer what we could and go somewhere else, but only if she covered all losses. I know this is also manipulative, but considering the friendship looks to be in serious trouble anyway I don't think I'd have told her I was still going until after I had her share in the bank...

I really hope she comes to her senses and you can salvage this, the friendship if not the holiday. Speak in person, texts are so much less personal and more likely to escalate things.

Get the money back from her and go with someone else.

I'm going with another friend! This has meant that I haven't had to force the issue with original friend but her card has been marked. Ironically the new friend is a volcanologist so particularly keen to go !

She sounds delightful. Relationship is over whatever you do. Not sure of the costs involved, but send her a recorded post letter clearly stating why she owes you money and if she doesn't pay, take her to small claims court. After that, forget about her, she's not worth it. Or get someone else to go and cover the cost. Your friend is a bit of a psycho by the sounds of things.

You should always get paid as soon as you pay it why do people think it’s ok to book something then choose not to pay. I would not contact her she’s chosen to ignore you she’s out of order I hope you and other friend enjoy and you start going with her but always get paid as soon as it’s booked then it won’t matter if someone backs out.

Your friend is being ridiculous don’t book anything for her again.