Splitting family holiday costs

cyantist

We are booking a family holiday for this summer and I’m trying to work out how it’s fairest to split the cost.

There’s me, my husband and our 1 year old, my parents, my sister, her partner and her 3 kids.

Would you say it’s fairest to split it per person (including kids), per room or per couple?

z1a

I'd just divide it equally based on adult and child prices.

cyantist

z1a wrote: »

I'd just divide it equally based on adult and child prices.

As it's just a total cost for the accommodation, it would cost the same if 10 adults went, as 6 adults and 4 children, or indeed if 2 adults and 8 children went.

So you're saying you'd go with the split it 10 ways, sister paying 5 of those, parents 2 and us 3?

Tom99

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]That's a difficult one because what you are really asking is how much extra should your sister pay for two extra children, otherwise it would be 50/50.

[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Has additional cost been incurred to accommodate the extra children, an additional room perhaps? I presume your one year old is sharing your room.

[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]If no additional cost has been incurred and you would have gone to the same place even with one child each then it may be unfair to ask your sister to pay more than you.

[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]If additional cost has been incurred, say you need a three bed villa instead of a two bed then maybe your sister should pay the additional cost and you split the rest 50/50.[/FONT]

comeandgo

cyantist wrote: »

As it's just a total cost for the accommodation, it would cost the same if 10 adults went, as 6 adults and 4 children, or indeed if 2 adults and 8 children went.

So you're saying you'd go with the split it 10 ways, sister paying 5 of those, parents 2 and us 3?

That’s the way I’d look at it but if it was my family we would just divide the costs between my family and my sisters, my retired parents would not be expected to pay for the accommodation.

clairec79

It depends

Obviously transport is for each individual family

The obvious thing would be to say to split equally based on adult/child prices - however when you get free child spaces that can get awkard.

In your case it does sound like you'd have your child in with you, siblings would share etc, so it could be a case for room by room basis (though then you get the argument of but they have an ensuite and I don't why should we pay the same) - I know when we thought of doing it all the cousins would be mixed up together based on who gets on better and age etc - so my son has a step uncle who is a month older than him, they get on well so the pair of them will share a room when together, rather than him share with his much younger brother - who would either go in with his female cousin (a few months apart in age) or with me and his dad

When we've done it with three families, even with different numbers of children, we've split equally on the basis of each of us would have rented a 3 bedroom place (even though some of them could have two teenagers sharing they won't due to opposite genders - but are happy for them to share with teenage relatives of same gender)

thorsoak

If the children are sharing accomodation with their parents, then divide the cost by three - if the children are going to be sleeping in separate rooms, then divide the cost by the number of rooms used.

cyantist

Tom99 wrote: »

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]That's a difficult one because what you are really asking is how much extra should your sister pay for two extra children, otherwise it would be 50/50.

[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Has additional cost been incurred to accommodate the extra children, an additional room perhaps? I presume your one year old is sharing your room.

[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]If no additional cost has been incurred and you would have gone to the same place even with one child each then it may be unfair to ask your sister to pay more than you.

[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]If additional cost has been incurred, say you need a three bed villa instead of a two bed then maybe your sister should pay the additional cost and you split the rest 50/50.[/FONT]

We are having to have a much bigger place because of my sister having 3 children, none of which can share a room with them. Whereas as you suggest, our daughter will share our room. So I am only looking for places that had either 2 extra bedrooms for the kids, or 1 extra bedroom with at least 3 beds. These places are much more expensive but as we didn't even consider somewhere smaller I didn't look to see exactly how much more it would be.

But if it were about extra cost incurred because of the children - then you could get into really complicated discussions regarding having to go away in the school holidays - which is costing 50% more. And if it weren't for the school-age kids we could go during off peak times. So I think looking at extra cost incurred isn't necessarily the best way to go about it.

comeandgo wrote: »

That’s the way I’d look at it but if it was my family we would just divide the costs between my family and my sisters, my retired parents would not be expected to pay for the accommodation.

Trying to get my (retired) parents not to pay anything would be pretty much impossible!

clairec79 wrote: »

It depends

Obviously transport is for each individual family

The obvious thing would be to say to split equally based on adult/child prices - however when you get free child spaces that can get awkard.

In your case it does sound like you'd have your child in with you, siblings would share etc, so it could be a case for room by room basis (though then you get the argument of but they have an ensuite and I don't why should we pay the same) - I know when we thought of doing it all the cousins would be mixed up together based on who gets on better and age etc - so my son has a step uncle who is a month older than him, they get on well so the pair of them will share a room when together, rather than him share with his much younger brother - who would either go in with his female cousin (a few months apart in age) or with me and his dad

Luckily none of the rooms are en suite, and are all of a similar size/quality so room by room basis could work. But then that means we pay less than splitting it any other way so I don't really want to suggest this and look tight!

74jax

I would probably split according to bedrooms used.

Red-Squirrel_2

Tricky one! What's the financial situation of the three households? Can all afford it comfortably regardless of the way its divided up? Is any one household substantially better or worse off than the others?

There are a few ways that could be seen as 'fair', its not clear cut, so my opinion would depend on the actual specific circumstances. If my family was a lot better off than my sister's family or than my parents, I'd suggest to split it in a way that meant I bore more of the burden, and I would hope they would think to do the same if it was the other way around.

Fireflyaway

Divide the total cost by 10. So you pay 3 parts, your sister 5 parts and your parents 2. That seems fairest to me.