Agree the rules before you book
Nearly every falling-out over a shared holiday comes from money nobody talked about in advance. The fix is simple: before anyone pays a deposit, sit down together and agree three things.
- What's shared and what each family pays for itself.
- How the shared costs are split: per family, per person or per room.
- Who pays what up front, and when everyone settles up.
Write it down, even if it's just a message in your group chat. It feels formal, but it means nobody has to remember, or argue about, what was said three months ago.
Option 1: split it 50/50 per family
The simplest method is to split every shared cost in half, whatever the size of each family.
Works best when the families are a similar size, with similar budgets, and you care more about keeping it simple than about exact fairness.
Watch out for big differences. If one family is two adults and the other is two adults with three teenagers, a 50/50 split of the food bill will feel unfair to the smaller family by the end of the week.
Option 2: split by person
Here you add up the number of people and split shared costs by head. It's fairer when the families are different sizes, and it's the method most people end up with for food and activities.
The common question is what to do about children. A few ways groups handle it:
- Everyone counts as one, which is simple and works once children are teenagers.
- Children count as a half for food and drink, which is a fair compromise for younger children.
- Under-twos count as nothing, as they usually travel free and eat very little.
A worked example: a villa costs £3,000 for the week. Family A is two adults and two young children; Family B is two adults. Counting the children as halves, Family A is 3 shares and Family B is 2, so Family A pays £1,800 and Family B pays £1,200. Split 50/50, it would be £1,500 each.
Option 3: split by room
For a villa or a big rented house, splitting by bedroom often feels fairest. Each family pays for the rooms they use, so a family that takes three bedrooms pays more than one that takes one.
It gets fiddly when rooms are very different, for example a master suite with its own bathroom and pool view against a small twin room. Some groups give the best room a slightly bigger share, or take turns: one family gets the best room this year, the other gets it next time.
A good mix is to split accommodation by room and everything else by person.
Food, drink and eating out
Food is where costs drift most, so it helps to separate it into three types:
- The big shop and shared meals at the villa: split by person, using whatever rule you agreed.
- Meals out together: either split the bill using the same rule, or let each family pay its own share of what it ordered. Pick one and stick to it for the week.
- Drinks: this is the classic flashpoint when one family drinks a lot more wine than the other. Either keep alcohol separate, with each family buying its own, or agree a rough adjustment at the end.
A shared kitty works well for the day-to-day: each family puts in the same amount, or an amount based on its number of shares, at the start of the week, and you top it up when it runs low. Anything left over is split back at the end.
Cars, activities and the extras
- Hire cars: if you hire one big car together, split it by person or by family. If each family hires its own, they pay for their own, including fuel.
- Activities and day trips: each family pays for the things it chooses to do. Only split it if everyone goes.
- Flights and travel insurance: almost always paid separately by each family, even if you book together.
- Airport transfers: share it if you travel together; otherwise each family pays its own.
The one thing never worth splitting is anything optional that only one family uses, like a cot, a high chair or a kids' club. It's simpler, and fairer, for that family to cover it.
Handling deposits and the money
With a shared villa, one person usually has to pay the deposit and the balance. To make that fair:
- Transfer your share to the payer straight away, before the booking date, so one family isn't out of pocket for months.
- Agree what happens if someone drops out. Check the cancellation terms before you book, and agree whether a family that pulls out is still on the hook for its share if the booking can't be refunded.
- Use a shared expenses app, such as Splitwise or Tricount, to log every shared cost as you go. It works out who owes whom at the end, so nobody has to keep a spreadsheet on holiday.
- Settle up within a week of getting home, while everyone still remembers.
Start with where you're going
The easiest way to avoid money arguments is to choose somewhere that fits both families' budgets in the first place. A self-catering villa in Menorca, the Algarve or Crete usually works out cheaper per head for two families than two sets of hotel rooms, and gives everyone space. Places like Kotor and Saranda keep the daily costs low.
If the families can't agree on where to go, our guides to agreeing on a holiday as a family and fair ways to pick a holiday will help. Or put everyone's ideas on one somewhere.party list, give each person points to spend, and let the draw pick the winner, so nobody can say the other family chose.
