First post.
I’ve got a bit of a dilemma right now. So two of my friends and I went on a trip within our country for two nights. The most important fact here is that the state we visited does not observe daylight savings, whereas ours does. I’m always the person who does the organising and booking of hotels and flights and transport every single time. I feel like I set up a precedent where everyone relies on me to have the answer and the information even if I send everybody the details and the itinerary.
In this case I accidentally read the wrong time on the ticket and thought our flight was an hour later than it was. The ticket said 16:00 and then had 17:00 in brackets, causing me to mistakenly think the flight was at 17:00. We ended up at the airport just as boarding had closed. I was the one who went to the service desk as the booking was in my name and they managed to get us on a flight at 20:50 that night for an extra fee of $95 pp.
I apologised for my mistake multiple times and took full accountability, and they had both transferred me the money for the extra fee at the time since i paid the gross total on my card. Once we land back home it’s obviously late at night and one friend’s boyfriend offers to give us all a lift home so we don’t have to be in an uber that late.
I wake up the morning after to a text from the boyfriend saying I “owe both friends money for the ticket and an apology because it was my fuck up”. I do feel terrible cause it was my mistake and I understand where they’re coming from but also, it’s not solely my responsibility to make sure of everything. They can ask me for details but it’s also important to check for themselves. I know it’s just $95 but I also don’t want to have to front a $285 bill, especially since the request is coming from my friend’s boyfriend instead of my friend herself. I feel like she should be able to text me and confront me herself?
Anyways, I’m a bit stuck on what to do because I really don’t want to have this argument with my friends, over $95. WIBTA if I choose not to send them their money back?
NTA- if you leave organising everything in someone else’s hands you accept the risk that their mistakes will be your mistakes.
NTA because this is really none of the boyfriend’s business. Your friends chose to send you the money. Also, they all had tickets and could have checked themselves.
I don’t really think you’re an AH if you sent them all the info and they just neglected to look. In my friend group that would be seen as a collective group fuck up. If it was all under your name and they never had any details at any point, that would be different.
That said, I’d offer the $95 back and never take the lead in organizing again if they accepted. They can have their turns and accept liability, you served your tour of duty.
I agree with this a hundred percent.
To avoid harbored resentment, i’d bring up to both friends that friend’s bf reaching out suggesting friend should be refunded, and then offer to send both of them their money back but also note that Op would rather not be the one organizing things for everyone going forward because it’s not worth the liability taking those reins apparently creates. See how that conversation goes. Either they accept the money and OP doesn’t have to organize anymore, or they tell OP they appreciate their efforts and aren’t going to hold an honest mistake against them that they could have caught themselves if they hadn’t let themselves become so reliant on OP.
INFO: are these all adults who had access to the flight details themselves (flight #, date, time, that their own legal names were on the tickets accurately)?
ETA: NTA. It is basic adulting to confirm your own travel information. What if you’d misspelled a name? This is a lesson to them that letting someone else guide a trip without also doing the bare minimum of paying attention means that their mistakes are also on you. They gave up the right to complain by ignore the info you shared.
NTA – things happen. It’s $95, next time they can double check. I would never expect a friend to pay it over an honest mistake
And the problem isn’t her it’s her boyfriend, just let him know you’re handling it with your friends
INFO: Did your friends have access to the tickets to see when the flight was themselves, or is everything under your account and they couldn’t look for themselves?
Were you holding all the tickets, or did each person have their own? If you were holding them, then yeah, you are responsible for missing the flight and the extra cost. If they were holding their own tickets, then they could have checked the time as well as well and maybe seen the issue. But even then it kind of depends on how much of a mom you were being as far as directing them. A good lesson for them to not be so passive (and lazy!) about plans going forward and for you to let adults be adults and not try to take care of them like they are children.
If you booked and held all the tickets until boarding time, then it would be completely your fault and you would be obligated to offer to pay the extra $95 for each of your friends. If everyone had their own ticket before arriving at the airport and they just didn’t bother to look at the time, then it was a collective mistake and you’re not obligated to pay the extra fee. In any case, the boyfriend who was not even on the trip should mind his own business. If your friends want you to pay back the $95, they can ask you directly. NTA, assuming the first scenario isn’t what happened.
INFO – was everyone in possession of their own tickets?
First, the boyfriend had no business contacting you about the issue.
Second, if I understand the situation correctly, I’d tell your friends “As I said, I’m sorry I got the time messed up, but *you both had the same information I did.* Neither of you even bothered to check the time, so it’s a shared mistake. The fact that I tend to organize things doesn’t mean you don’t have to take *any* responsibility for what happens. If you had done that, none of us would owe anything.”
ESH – ya’ll should have all been equally paying attention.
You’re conflating a whole bunch of things here. Some of them are slightly asshole-ish and some are not.
Let’s unpick them.
Firstly, the boyfriend issue.
*I wake up the morning after to a text from the boyfriend saying I “owe both friends money for the ticket and an apology because it was my fuck up”… especially since the request is coming from my friend’s boyfriend instead of my friend herself. I feel like she should be able to text me and confront me herself?*
Yes, she should. You would be within your rights to say to Boyfriend “I’m not discussing this with you. It’s nothing to do with you. If Friend is unhappy with how this has been handled, ask her to call me.”
Secondly, it’s not clear why Boyfriend is asking for an apology to be included in whatever amends you make, given that you’ve already apologized. (You said “*I apologised for my mistake multiple times*”.) So if either of your two friends keeps pushing the apology angle, remind them of that.
Thirdly, you said “I took full accountability”. Um, no you didn’t, and it’s slightly asshole-ish to claim you did. So far, you’ve taken partial accountability. FULL accountability would be saying “I am completely to blame, and you two are blameless. Therefore I am returning the extra money to you.”
Note that this quibble over definitions doesn’t necessarily mean you SHOULD return the money. I’m merely saying: call it what it is, because you can’t have it both ways. Full doesn’t mean “I’m kinda to blame, but you have to share some of the blame too.” Full means full. If you firmly believe they should have checked the departure time and not left it entirely up to you (a position I agree with), and therefore they should wear some of the extra cost (a position I lean towards), then call it what it is: SHARED accountability.
Fourthly, you’re clearly resentful that the burden of organizing these trips always falls on you, and as you’ve now discovered, when there’s a mistake, the burden of fixing the mistake and wearing the financial cost of the mistake falls on you as well. You may have reason to feel disgruntled, but at the same time, if you’ve always done these tasks more or less cheerfully (or at least without complaining), and they’ve come to rely on you (they may even think you enjoy it!), I don’t think it’s fair to give the very first hint of your disgruntlement only after something goes wrong.
Why HAVE you taken on the job of travel coordinator for so long? You could have said, long before now, “It’s always me who has to organize the flights and accommodation. This next trip we’re taking, I’m not going to do it. I’m tired of it. One of you two can do it.”
The question of whether you should return the money is a tricky one. There are arguments for and against. The only certain thing is that you should shut down any further attempts by the boyfriend to relitigate it. (Block his number if you have to.) This is entirely between you and your two friends.
If your friends don’t ask for their $95 to be refunded, then your problem is solved. It may just be that they feel awkward asking, but it also could be that they feel they should share in the blame for not checking the flight times.
If one or both of them does ask, then personally, I WOULD return it, but I would also say this: “Friends, I have returned this money to you because you asked, but I remain resentful of the fact that **I have to wear the cost of an innocent mistake just because you both left the organizing entirely up to me and neither of you could be bothered checking.** I can’t risk that happening again. So I’m not organizing any more trips for the three of us. I’ve done my share for long enough. I resign from the job.”
If they get annoyed at this, and decide there will be no more trips, or even if it puts the whole friendship at risk – that’s a risk I’d be prepared to take.
I wrestled with an AITA judgment, especially on point #3 because it’s slightly asshole-ish to claim you took full accountability when you didn’t. But that’s a minor point, and I finally decided on NAH (except for Boyfriend, who should butt out). Your friends haven’t yet asked for the money, and if they do, I don’t think you’d be the asshole if you kept it.
But be clear about what “full accountability” means, be clear about what you are and are not prepared to do in future, and be clear about how responsibility will be shared or not shared in future when something goes wrong – because where travel is concerned, something almost inevitably will go wrong at some point.