Unpaid Vacation Debts Are Straining Friendships as Trip Costs Climb

Cassie Bennett and her best friend had been planning the Antarctica trip for over a year. They booked a balcony cabin, and Bennett put down the deposit with the understanding that each of them would pay her own balance when it came due. Then the deadline arrived, and her friend’s card wouldn’t go through. Facing the loss of the cabin, Bennett put the roughly $8,000 balance on her own credit card. “I got paid back, but slowly,” she said. The last of it cleared earlier this year — months after they’d come home. For a growing number of American travelers, the hardest part of a group trip is not the planning or taking the time off work; it’s what happens after everyone gets home and someone has to bring up the money. New national research from Zelle finds that among Gen Z consumers who have fronted money for a shared expense, 76% say they were not fully repaid. Nearly half of Gen Z respondents say they have gone into debt covering group costs for other people. Fifty-five percent say a repayment issue created tension in a friendship or hurt a relationship. Zelle has a name for it: the avoidance economy. One in five Gen Z respondents said they had canceled plans, or muted or ignored a gr...