Maintaining friendships can be difficult, since you have to deal with the other person’s flaws.

In this case, a woman shares how her friend bailed on a group trip, went on a trip with her boyfriend instead and now wants her contribution to their rental back.

Is she being unreasonable, or should she get her money back?

Let’s analyze the situation.

AITA for not refunding my friend $600 after she bailed on our group trip

My (19, F) friends and I all decided to go on a ski trip for 12 days over winter break.

We found a place to stay and all in all it was around $600 per person for the rental.

We decided it was just easiest to have one person (me) put all the money upfront and just everyone pay me back before the actual trip, which everyone did.

They had a well-organized plan.

In my friend group we have a girl, let’s call Sarah.

Sarah comes from a comfortable family and was even one of the people who suggested the trip and was one of the leading forces in finding the Air Bnb.

Literally in the weeks leading up to the trip, we were all fine, sending outfit ideas, restaurants to book etc.

Something suspicious started to happen.

The Tuesday before we left (Saturday) Sarah starts sending texts to the group chat like: “Guys, Jacob’s (boyfriend) family is going to xxxxx next week”.

Basically sending us a LOT of details about where his family is going for winter vacation that we didn’t really need to know.

There’s a last minute change of plans.

Then on Thursday (again we leave on Saturday) she texts the group chat saying how she couldn’t go because she had a family emergency.

She said her grandma had gotten admitted to the hospital.

We were obviously bummed but family comes first and I told her that I would send her the money back that she sent towards the rental.

She was being a good friend. But her friend wasn’t.

We go on the trip and everything is ok until one of my friends who has Sarah’s location on Life360 (roommates) sees that she’s in a beach town. and we put 2 and 2 together.

We spend that night mad and we call her out the next day, when she admits everything.

She had been last minute invited on her boyfriend’s vacation and decided that she wanted to go to that instead but didn’t know how to tell us.

Her lying wasn’t nice and they expressed how they felt about it.

We were all obviously hurt and upset that she would choose a boy over us but at the end of the day, she’s a 19-year-old girl, so I guess it’s just immaturity.

The part that I’m wondering if I’m in the wrong with is: after finding out that she voluntarily pulled out of the trip, I told her I wouldn’t be refunding her the $600 she had sent me for the rental.

She told her that she would before knowing that she lied, but now things had changed.

She pulled out so last minute that we couldn’t find anything cheaper and I said I was ok just wasting that money, because again, I thought she was having a family emergency.

After finding out that she wouldn’t be getting that back she went insane and started calling me a bad friend and everything.

My parents think I should send it back to her but I don’t see why I should, she pulled out because of her boyfriend and expected us to all just absorb the costs??

AITA?

It’s a complicated situation. I think her friend is definitely in the wrong for lying, but she did tell her she would give her the money back.

Let’s see if Reddit has any insight into this situation.

A commenter breaks it down.

This reader shares their opinion.

This person raises an interesting point.

Another reader chimes in.

Yup.

This person has a different take.

In the end, she made her decision and had to deal with the consequences.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a daughter who invited herself to her parents’ 40th anniversary vacation for all the wrong reasons.