But why wouldn’t the other two friends traveling say “hey…now there are only three of us…lets divide by three”.
Hope they can just add your daughter to the other room. She should check the cancellation policy of the room she has to make sure it is not approaching full penalty time on that room.
Tomorrow I’m going on an overnight hiking trip with a group of women. 12 of us were scheduled to go. Now 2 have dropped out. We are staying in a “hut” Saturday night. Now the rest of us are being asked to kick in an additional $10 to cover the cost. The two women who canceled will end up paying about $25 each. I’m a little annoyed but will go along with it, I guess. If it were more money, I would squawk.
One of D’s best friends from college invited her to be in her wedding party. D is in grad school in Europe and the wedding was in Texas during Christmas break. D was not necessarily planning on coming home for Christmas, but she (we, because D has no $) bought a ticket home and another ticket to Texas for the wedding, and ticket back to Europe from Texas. After the tickets were already purchased, the bride’s mom (momzilla. . .) decided they should limit the wedding party to “only family members,” so D’s friend informed her that D would not be in the wedding party after all. D did attend the wedding, but it was a big expense that she/we wouldn’t have commited to just to attend.
Annoying.
More recent problem: S goes to college out of state. He signed up for campus housing, but then, before he signed his contract for the upcoming year, 2 friends asked him to join them in renting a house near campus. The last day of the semester in May, S gets a text from one of his “friends” that they no longer had room for him because 2 girls they knew from high school moved in, (4 bedroom house) and the girls decided they didn’t want to share a bedroom/took S’s room. S’s friends had known this “problem” for months, but were afraid to tell S, so he missed even getting on a waiting list for campus housing (which he could’ve done had they told him sooner.) Only thing S could find was a single apartment off campus. More expensive, and not available until 3 weeks after school starts. School starts next week and S still doesn’t know where he’s going to stay for those 3 weeks…and his best friends from last year are now “ex-friends.”
@atomom, those are two really crappy situations, especially the last. To not even tell him until the last minute, wow. However, there may be a payback coming. The two girls sound rather selfish, as they must have also known what this would do to your son, and boys that were too intimidated to pass bad news on to your son, living with selfish girls…they may not like it much.
Has he looked into a sublet?
^^ D is living off campus this coming year. One thing we learned early in the process is that nothing is final until everybody signs the lease and pays a deposit. Parents with kids planning on moving off-campus should stress this to them: things can completely fall apart right up until the day the lease is due to be signed (which happened to my D more than once with prospective roommates).
It was definitely an up and down experience, with at least 3+ “committed” roommates (they had one last slot to fill for a group of 4) disappearing at the last second. We did insist that D sign up for campus housing as a backup, so it was definitely nice to always have that as a backup plan. Fortunately it worked out in the end and she likes the roommate they finally found. But we didn’t breathe a sigh of relief until everybody had signed the lease!
S is looking at various things right now. . . something will work out.
I’ve had various people stiff me over the years. We didn’t become “ex-friends,” but I became a much more cautious and more wary friend. People hate to admit that they can’t afford something, and will wait until the last minute and then throw up some lame excuse as to why they can’t do something.
Friends are actually pretty hard to come by, even flaky friends. Don’t banish them to the Ninth Circle of Hell, just remove them from your Circle of Trust.
I actually read the post and thought that the plans weren’t that concrete if they didn’t have confirmed and prepaid reservations. The girl backed out. It happens. Plans (and finances) change. If they had already paid and the drop out wanted her money back, I’d say she’s SOL. If OP’s daughter had to travel alone or lose her plane fare and other deposits, then that would be bad, but she has other friends to go with.
I have a pretty strict definition of what constitutes a friend and, therefore, don’t have many of what I would label as
“friends”. I will be friendly with many. many people who are acquaintances. If my friends pulled some of the stuff mentioned here, they would be regulated to the friendly acquaintance category PDQ, unless they had a good reason.
When I turned 50 (quite a long time ago) I unloaded a boat full of so called friends.
Many had been in my life because of kids and schools and events.
Never looked back.
To be “healthy” you only need one or two true friends.
Maybe the important thing it for all 4 of the people involved have a discussion about how to handle
the expensed.
I just gave my daughter $150 towards a cabin rental she is supposed to share with a group of friends for New Year’s Eve. I have my doubts whether or not this plan will materialize and also realize there is a chance that the money might not come back if the trip doesn’t happen…that being said, I would be annoyed with the friend who backed out.
I hope this gets resolved @rosered55
In case anyone was worried, S has found temporary housing 
Less than a week before move-in. At one point he went from 0 to 2+ potential places at the same time. Committed to one. Not too far away, not too costly. Hope it will be OK, but he won’t know for sure until he gets there.
S’s “friend’s” text to him said, “I feel like an AH telling you this, but. . .” (Yeah, there’s probably a reason you feel that way. . .)
Imo a flaky friend like that of OPs daughter is no friend at all. I would be stunned if she decided to pay her share. In my experience, people like that never do. If someone buys tickets for me because we are going together to a show, I always make sure to say that I will repay them and if for some reason I could not go, I pay for the tickets in any case! My DD has had the experience of people not paying back for tickets/last minute cancel plans etc. For small things like tickets at college, I always told her to offer ticket to someone who would appreciate it gratis when someone cancelled last minute. For major items the financial arrangements need to be in place first as posters above stated. My impression of college students (based on many stories) is that many people’s word as to plans is not worth too much, and many are moochers (promise to pay but never do). I am not sure that those people ever improve. I think that problems involving money and cancellations with relatives can reach a whole different level of aggravation. You may not have the luxury to tell them to go stuff it.
doschicos, I am with you (your post 49). I don’t give many second chances; true friends wouldn’t pull this kind of crap.
We have a fairly large group of friends who vacation together. When renting a house or some other expensive group activity, each party pays in advance.