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[quote=Anonymous]Huh. I anticipate this being a thing as my kid gets older, especially as she is an only.

We are very generous, but in addition to being just barely UMC in a literal sense (DCUM would say we are just barely middle class), I feel like if this were a kid close enough to invite on a family vacation, we could be having an easy and not uncomfortable conversation about airfare (if any) in particular. I wouldn't expect to pay airfare or vice versa, even though I would be very generous otherwise and not nickel-and-dime our guest.

I'm not sure exactly why, except that airfare is a big, *discrete* expense. Lodging and everything else is either not increased by the presence of another person, or at least shared with my own family. Like if it's a beach house, price is the same either way. If we get an extra hotel room when we might have only rented one, still, my child would be staying with that child, so it's not like we wouldn't have received a benefit (extra bathroom, etc.) For meals and so on, we tend to eat family style most of the time, so it would be hard and annoying and feel ungenerous to separate out the guest's expense-- even if they order a separate meal, what are we going to do? Keep a tab on that $37.83? For activities, I guess I could see where you could separate out a $40 admission to whatever, but still...

Airfare, however, is really a distinct kind of thing, and usually the single largest expense per person that isn't commingled.

My BFF was an only, and I was almost like an only (sibling 10 years younger) so we did each go on a family vacation with the other. Similar SES. I would have to ask my parents, but it's my recollection they paid my airfare and sent me with $100 spending money (early 90s) and probably (?) my BFF's parents paid everything else. It was a destination, but it was also like a semi-camping sort of thing with a shared cabin, mostly free activities and we didn't eat out much, so airfare was the biggest chunk. Then she came with me to Ocean City, so she just jumped in the car and we had a timeshare condo. Again, I think we paid for everything except she brought spending money.

I do think it's possible (although not likely) that our parents also gave the other family a set $ amount to generally cover us-- but they wouldn't have broken it down or anything. Again, these were two fairly close families.

I feel like if you trust the other family to take your kid that long, or vice versa, you can easily have these conversations. Unless you're rich, I guess, and you expect to pay for everything all the time. [/quote]

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