But the joy of giving was quickly overshadowed by resentment and misunderstanding. What should have been a heartfelt gift became a battlefield of hurt feelings and accusations, as his sister-in-law saw his thoughtful use of points as cheapness, sparking a family rift that threatened to unravel the very magic the trip was meant to create.
I travel a lot for work so I have so many hotel and airline points it is crazy.
This summer I am taking my family to Disney World. We are going to stay at one of the resorts on the property.
My sister in law and her family had a hard time during the pandemic so I decided to do something nice and invite them along. My treat.
I said I would pay for their flights, hotel, and park tickets.
Everyone was excited until she started talking to my wife. Now she is upset that we are staying at one of the resorts and they have to stay in Disney Springs.
Apparently I’m being cheap by using points for their hotel instead of just paying for them to stay at the same resort as us.
My wife told her sister and brother-in-law to STFU and accept the gift but they didn’t. They told my in-laws that I was making their kids jealous by not letting them enjoy the same stuff as us.
To be clear the hotel I booked for them is very nice. It’s just not The Grand Floridian.
So I finally talked to them and gave the the choice of accepting my gift or not coming since I could still cancel their reservations.
They started yelling at me for being an asshole and taking something away from their children. I had talked to them like adults but when they started screaming their kids heard them and found out that they might not be going.
Now their kids are pissed at their parents for possibly fucking up their vacation. And I’m the bigger asshole for making them look bad in front of their kids. AITA?
Conclusion
The original poster (OP) extended a generous offer to cover all expenses for his sister-in-law’s family trip to Disney World, intending it as a significant act of kindness. However, this generosity soured when the sister-in-law and her husband rejected the accommodations provided, arguing that staying at a different hotel, even a nice one, constituted being cheap and created inequity for their children compared to the OP’s family.
Was the OP justified in issuing an ultimatum—accept the full, generous gift as offered or cancel the trip entirely—given the recipient’s demands, or did this action cross a line from generosity into punitive control? Should the sister-in-law’s family have accepted the substantial gift without imposing conditions on how the OP managed his own travel benefits?
Here’s how people reacted:
You got them a holiday – a free holiday – and they are upset because you did it using points? The means by which you paid for their FREE holiday is utterly irrelevant because the are going to disneyworld for free!!!
The only people who were jealous were your sister in law, but they are responsible for making their kids jealous. They chose to do that. Every choice they made has lead them to being in this situation – those entitles assholes absolutely do not deserve that holiday (but their kids do, obviously). How dare they expect you to **pay** for them to have the same holiday as you?
Feels like something straight out of /r/ChoosingBeggars to be honest.
You’re gifting them airline tickets, park tickets AND a nice hotel and they demand more?
Cancel their tickets. Immediately. For their benefit too so they drop this entitled idiocy forever. So the kids learn you get NOTHING if you’re being an ass. So they don’t try to walk all over you in the future.
NTA.
That’s would be them.
Poor kids…
Heck I’ll take this amazing gift with endless gratitude! Disney Springs got 4.85/5 stars.
I’LL BE SO HAPPY AND GRATEFUL IF ANYONE DID THIS FOR ME!
Guh..
This is like the parent who serve themselves steak and make their kids eat hotdogs, because “it’s all food, what’s the difference”
Maybe you don’t understand the feeling of shame, and being on the receiving end of charity, but it sucks.
Pay for one vacation dude, not the good one and the poor one.
Or if you have to split it, YOU stay at the lesser hotel.
“Your uncle _______ is just amazing and is offering us this unforgettable trip! We will be staying at a different location but doing all of the parks and activities together. This will give us chance to have some time with just us as a family too! Aren’t we lucky to have such generous people in our family?! We are really so blessed!”
But, alas, “WAH WAH WAH!! I WANT MORE MORE MORE!!”
Edit: YOWZA!! An award! Thanks so much!
I would be tempted to cancel their whole trip, because the negative vibes and how they have handled this do not bode well for the rest of the trip. Personally, the lack of gratefulness would ruin the gesture for me.
And their kids should be pissed at them, it’s a hard thing to learn but some parents are idiots. Their kids learned that lesson watching their parents be choosing beggars.
I find myself constantly just astonished by the level of audacity and entitlement people feel these days. What a bunch of ungrateful AH! Please leave them at home and ENJOY your vacation with your family. They will be a problem the entire time even if they decide to “slum it” in Disney Springs. Seriously screw them. Learn from this and don’t offer something like it again.
They should be grateful that you are gifting them something so substantial instead of demanding you give them even more. The nerve of those people.
NTA.
Nta at all. They just robbed their kids of a vacation. They’re bad parents