How would you split the cost of this trip?

[GetBendyWithWendy]

Surprise birthday trip for the parent of adult children.

Attending:
The other parent.
One adult child with a spouse and teen.
One single childless adult child.

Are you the spouse of the birthday guest?

Depends on who is organising the surprise:
If parent is organising for other parent, parent pays.
If adult children are organising then they pay for both parents

I feel that it depends on how you see things.

Is it a holiday that you organise and you decide to pay ‘for mum’. A bit like the example in a PP - you organise a surprise birthday meal and say ‘mum that’s for your birthday. We’re paying’.
Then you’d expect people to pay depending on the number of adults. It’s just a holiday and your gift is basically paying for the parent’s share of the cost.

Or is it a gift to her that involves the people she cares most about? Is it Something organised around the parent only? So the gift is the holiday, centered only around the parent.. In which case, it’s divided in 3 for the 3 gift givers.

That’s true, but equally if 2 parties have more available cash than the third, they might make assumptions based on what they want and can afford. Then the third party looks mean or churlish not to join in. Families can exert a lot of guilt or other pressure.

If it’s the other parent’s idea, again- if the split disproportionately impacts one child, it seems unfair to insist on equal splits. My parents used to invite my sibling and me to holidays because we didn’t earn very much and couldn’t afford to stay in the sorts of places that they wanted to stay in. They’d rent a place and we’d make our way there and probably invite them for a meal or do all the chores between us, that sort of thing.

@GetBendyWithWendy

this is how we do it, and in personally wouldnt organise a birthday week end any other way.

• if my parents organise it. For instance my dads 70th, or if one of my parents organise it for the other and wants to make it a family (just us children with our partners and our own kids), my parents i know would pay for the accomodation.
• if we organise it for one parent. For instance my dads 60th birthday (we baught ticket for the The Ring tetralogy by Wagner at the opera in Vienna - my parents are big into operas), we paid for 2 tickets for the whole lot, 1 meal out with wine and champagne, and they sorted out their accomodation and flights.
• for my mum 70th we took her to rome, she sorted her flights, we paid for the 1st meal and hotel and visits, she insisted on treating us for another meal.

in your scenario it is either your parents pay the accomodation or you siblings share the accomodation between you and treat your parents. Or do something cheaper.

@GetBendyWithWendy thats how we do it in my family i should say

My parents would do that.

One parent organising with the adult dcs a few days away as a surprise. Very similar to what the OP describes.
The parent would be paying.
None of the children would say it’s their birthday gift though and would plan separate gifts to give to the parent. (And a meal etc….)

In my mind (making up a scenario much as others have done) this sounds like a joint thing - where you've all gone 'what shall we do for Dad's 70th? How about we all go down to Cornwall together? Ooh great idea, we could book a big house!'. Rather than one person forcing the idea on everyone else.
Or tbh, even if its not that, assuming everyone is happy with the idea of contributing something to the cost, then it doesn't really matter who's idea it is, its just a case of making it 'fair'.
I do the whole big house thing with a group of friends quite often and we generally split it between adults. In your case I'd just remove the birthday person from the equation and split between the 4 remaining adults.

I think you split per person then everyone chips in for the Birthday adult.
That way the person with a child is paying for that child as it doesn’t seem fair on the single person to pay a portion towards the child.
So are you just asking for advice prior to making a decision with your family or are you having a dispute over this with your family?

We’re going on a family holiday next year, and we’re all just paying for ourselves, partners and respective children.

Split the cost by number of people going, everybody pays their amount of people.

I wouldn’t dream of paying for my brother because he’s single and earns less. I wouldn’t pay for my sister’s kids either - I’ve got my own to pay for.

When we did similar for my stepdads 60th we did it the same way, but split the cost of him between the paying adults. We didn’t pay for my mum, and she didn’t shell out for all of us either - it was only his birthday.

I think 60:40 between child with family and child without (if non birthday parent is retired) or 30:30:40 between single child/ parent and child with family (if non birthday parent is working). Revise as appropriate if someone is incredibly well off (eg really rich retired parent should be nice and pay for the whole family) or really struggling (eg the family with the teen even if both adults working might be hard up if on NMW). As a general rule you should be arguing about who puts in MOST not least with family. If that's not the case probably don't holiday together as it will only get worse.

Each household pays for their own element of the trip. Why make it more complicated than it needs to be?

@GetBendyWithWendy

I assume you’re the parent who knows about the gathering or the childfree person?

Do you think you’ll all be able to work this out fairly? It would be a shame to go away together and there be the potential for any fall outs or arguments.

I would first off get everyone to pay their own way in terms of flights/travel (not including birthday parent) then in terms of the air bnb the family have 2 rooms they pay their share. Then the other two one pays their share of one room and the other half (again not including birthday parent)

then the birthday parent costs are split 3 ways between spouse and 2 children

your way @GetBendyWithWendy has the person with a partner penalised and paying more and the partner in effect supplementing a present for a parent that isn’t theirs

@GetBendyWithWendy I think splitting it 3 ways is treating it like a mutual shared holiday - a scenario where it does seem fair that the single person pays less.

However this is a birthday gift. If the gift was something other than a trip away how would you split the bill? 3 ways between the adult children and the other parent? Or would you expect the adult child's spouse to contribute as well?

Would the cost be any less if the spouse and the child didn't come?

Yes, because they wouldn’t need as many bedrooms

How many rooms are there? I would split per room and split the cost of the parents room between the families or have the parent who’s birthday it isn’t pay for the room. If teenager has own room then the family pays for two rooms.

If it were me I would say three ways if it was both a surprise and a gift.

Assuming you are the adult with no spouse or child. Yes, it’s unfair to expect you to pay 1/3 but represent 1/6 of the people in the house.
To make it more palatable/easy to understand for the person who I assume is your sibling, I would split per occupied bedroom.
1 - you (you pay)
2 - their teenager (they pay)
3 - their couple (they pay)
4 - your parents - either the other parent pays, or the other parent pays half and then the birthday parent’s half of that room is split a further 3 ways so you are all paying for them.

It can obviously be split between the adults but I would also look at the finances of each. My brother was kind enough to pay for the majority of a holiday for my parents anniversary a few years ago and I paid what I could. At no time did he tell my parents or hint at me it wasn't enough.

The obvious answer

This.

whose idea is it? I’d bet at least one of the family units is joining this out of obligation rather than genuine enthusiasm!

In a typical family dynamic the non -birthday parent would pay for your accommodation if they are requiring your presence for the weekend

Yes.

We done similar for my mum’s birthday! Dad didn’t pay! We just paid between us siblings. 3 siblings, 2 marriaged. Married couple have 3 kids between them.

we split it 5 ways between 3 siblings and the 2 spouses. Kids didn’t pay and single sibling was happy to split the cost of their nephews

This is precisely it, thank you! We all agreed, so I don’t know why people are getting hung up on who made the original suggestion.