That was nice of you 20:42. Did the visit go well?

We just paid for my MIL to come visit us.

My parents, and now just my Dad, 89 years old, pay for our airline tickets. Always did, never stopped.

For years we were the only ones doing coast-to-coast with both flights and rental car and we paid our way. It's just the best way unless they really want you to come for a special event at their insistence.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I never understand this. Adults pay for their own travel expenses. If you can’t afford it, you don’t go.

+1000

Who said? Is that written in stone somewhere?
Different families do things things in different ways. My parents have a lot of money, and pay half of our airline tickets.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I never understand this. Adults pay for their own travel expenses. If you can’t afford it, you don’t go.

+100

Ok, but what if your parents really want to see you, and you have no money? Staying apart makes more sense?

THE PARENTS CAN VISIT YOU!!!! How can you not see this option?

We pay. It means we only go once a year or once every other year. If we can't go, they'll sometimes fly to see us instead.

The money is a lot ($500 tickets are the norm, x3), but it's the effort of traveling more than anything. It's 8+ hours of travel, layovers, and uncomfortable plane seats. No one wants to deal with it, and I don't blame them.

My parents pay but I never ever ask them too- it’s just the parent in them that takes care of it for us. We could afford it but to be honest my parents have a lot more money then we do.

My parents pay when we travel to see them; they also visit us once a month, and pay for themselves.

We pay for ourselves when we visit my ILs (more often than visiting my family), and they very very rarely visit us.

Different family cultures.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I never understand this. Adults pay for their own travel expenses. If you can’t afford it, you don’t go.

+100

Ok, but what if your parents really want to see you, and you have no money? Staying apart makes more sense?

It doesn’t make sense to not see each other if the parents can afford to cover the costs.

My parents pay. We are a family of five and We can’t really afford to travel across the country every Christmas. My parents want us to be home with them and cover the cost. We also visit each summer and we do pay our way then. I’m actually fine staying home for the holidays but if my parents want to pay for it - we will come.

OP, have you asked your parents to part or all of your flight costs? You should. Both sets of grandparents are right here so we are fortunate that we don't have to travel. But my parents do pay for the travel costs for one sibling & family, and one cousin & family. Neither family never asked but we noticed that they weren't coming to family events until my parents made the offer. Now they come to every single one and we are all happy.

We pay, but we don’t travel on holidays.

We don’t go often. H’s parents don’t live where he grew up, they moved to a very boring locale, haven’t got enough beds for us, and the nearest hotel is 40 minutes away, the airport is over 2.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I never understand this. Adults pay for their own travel expenses. If you can’t afford it, you don’t go.

+100

Ok, but what if your parents really want to see you, and you have no money? Staying apart makes more sense?

It varies. But my dad earns 10 times what we do, so if he wants Tom see us when tickets are expensive, he has to pay.

It would be stupid not to come for a visit when we all are free.