‘We’ve spent tens of thousands on holidays for our adult children – and regret nothing’

Travel companies call them ‘genervacations’: holidays, often luxurious ones, paid for by the bank of mum and dad (or indeed granny and grandad).

The category has grown explosively since the cost-of-living crisis began to bite, with a 2024 John Lewis Money survey of 2,000 Britons finding 51 per cent of respondents had taken a multigenerational holiday in the past few years (defined as three or more generations of a family travelling together). The survey reports that 58 per cent said they travelled this way to “create great memories”, 18 per cent to “share childcare”, and 19 per cent to cut costs.

However, Eliza Filby, the author of new book Inheritocracy: It’s Time to Talk About the Bank of Mum and Dad (Biteback, £20), has taken aim at these multi-gen jollies, noting that such holidays “economically infantilise” the adult children whose tab is picked up for by the over-60s who get to direct holiday destinations and activities.

For her book, Filby surveyed Britons who had taken “BoMaD” (Bank of Mum and Dad) getaways, asking the younger generations if they would take these trips if older generations were not stumping up the bill (most respondents said no), and older generations whether their adult children would have signed up for the holiday if they had to contribute to its costs (most innocently believed that, yes, they would).

Filby points out the gulf between these views: “There’s a real question there, in the number of parents who say: ‘we’re just great friends, we love hanging out together’ [about multigenerational holidays].” True in part, Filby says, “but it’s also [about] the free childcare… [and] a nice villa.”

So, are such holidays a generational bonding experience or a financial trap?

‘We’ve spent tens of thousands on holidays for our adult children’

Bill and Fiona Chambers, aged 78 and 77 and based in Liverpool, regularly pay for multi-generational holidays for their three 40-something children and their six grandkids, who range in age from six years old to 16. The grandparents’ main motive, says Fiona, is “to bring the family together, not just for Christmas but throughout the year” and to “spend quality time” with their children’s partners.

Their trips have included safaris in Botswana and beach holidays in South Africa and the Seychelles, and Bill estimates that their expenditure to date has been in the tens of thousands. “We can’t take it with us,” he says, noting that he’s keen for his kids to avoid paying inheritance tax. “We’d much rather spend our money on enjoying our family while we’re around,” Fiona adds.

Bill disagrees with Filby’s contention that the generation paying for the holiday gets to call the shots in terms of destinations and itineraries, too. For the Chambers, holiday-planning processes are a long-winded affair, with teens and midlifers pitching in with their preferences. “The next trip will probably be in Thailand, as the teenagers are getting their say and they prefer city trips to safaris,” Bill laughs.

The Chambers also advise factoring in time for the generations to do their own thing. “Think about accommodation, too,” says Bill. “For an early trip, we stayed in one large villa in Mallorca and one of the babies cried all night, so after that it was separate villas all the way!”

Holidays on the Bank of Mum and Dad are a ‘win-win’ for midlife parents

Travel industry professional Laura Marfell-Williams, 48, is a happy recipient of holidays funded by her dad. For her father’s 70th birthday, the family visited Ellmau, a ski resort in Austria that the family used to visit when Laura was a child, tagging along on her father’s school trips as head of PE at a grammar school.

“We had matching T-shirts made up for Dad’s 70th birthday to Ellmau, which was obviously mortifying for the teenager amongst us,” Marfell-Williams laughs.

For Marfell-Williams, such trips, for which her dad covered the costs of accommodation and meals for his three daughters and grandkids, are a “win-win” for midlife parents, with grandparents to share childcare, and activities to provide a focus for all age groups. “Even if that’s just sitting about and drinking glühwein,” she laughs.

Not all midlifers leap at the chance of having their holiday activities dictated by an older generation, though. On a Reddit discussion thread regarding the topic, some posters point out that, as with parent-funded wedding ceremonies of old, holidays on BoMaD come with strings attached.

“You’ll regret accepting that free vacation when you’re on a river cruise on the Danube with a bunch of oldies,” argues one 30-something who prefers “adventure holidays with the lads”.

“For some people, accepting any money from the Bank of Mum and Dad is like sticking your hand into a bear trap,” notes another commentator based in the UK.

‘I let Mum pay for our holiday – and we didn’t speak afterwards for three months’

One British 46-year-old woman, who accepted a multigenerational holiday to Cornwall funded by her 74-year-old mother, agrees with Filby’s sentiments on the shadow power dynamics at play in these breaks.

Gemma (not her real name), a teacher based in south Birmingham, told Telegraph Travel that a week-long break in a granite farmhouse near Land’s End, in 2023, paid for in full by her mother proved “intolerable” as her mum’s holiday ambitions clashed with her small grandkids’ needs for regular feeding and sleep.

“We were all dragged around craft shops and art galleries as my three-year-old bawled his eyes out, and [Mum] kept telling us not to ‘be uptight’ and ‘to just chill’ if we pointed out the need to go to the supermarket for breakfast supplies,” Gemma recalls.

She speculates that her mum, as the paying party, felt entitled to a holiday on her own care-free retiree terms. “We had to just go along with it all even if that meant the kids were late in bed and not fed,” she complains. Gemma and her mother didn’t speak for three months following the ill-fated trip. “Honestly, never again,” she adds.

‘It’s working people in their 40s who should be paying for their parents to go away’

Flipping the roles, 40-something jewellery brand founder Paulomi Debnath recently took her 70-something mother on holiday to Turkey on her own wallet: “Call it a holiday on the Bank of Daughter and Son-in-law”, she laughs, and conversely believes that “working people in their 40s” should, in fact, foot the bill for their elders rather than the other way around.

“My mother raised me to be an independent woman and I wouldn’t dream of asking her to pay for me,” she says, adding that she is unsurpised 40-somethings feel infantilised if their retired parents pay for their holidays. “How can you enjoy an experience at this age when you are dependent, and they’re not your choices?” she asks.

Meanwhile, skincare specialist Star Khechara, 48, told Travel that she also recoils from the idea of holidaying at her parents’ expense – “out of fear of murder, committed by me,” she jokes.

Lindsay Gregory, Managing Director of The Luxury Villa Collection, says luxury property companies increasingly target the mixed needs of BoMaD groups. The Luxury Villa’s Family Collection has properties such as Villa Tenang in Marbella designed for BoMaD holidaymakers. It’s a “house of two halves”, with a basement in each house given over to entertainment, a spacious cinema-disco area, a modern games room, cocktail corner and movie screen.

The Chambers, looking forward to their multi-generational Thailand getaway, said that many of their contemporaries also organise and pay for group holidays with their offspring. “The average number of family members on these holidays is 14,” Bill says of the trend. “It’s really become the norm,” Fiona adds.

With 1950s- and 1960s-born Britons holding an estimated 30 times more wealth than 30-somethings, there’s a financial basis, at least, for the BoMaD trend to stay.

Laura Marfell-Williams’ dad has now passed away and the family scattered his ashes next to the slope at Ellmau, a tribute to all their happy times together in the picturesque Tyrol town. The memories of their holidays are “utterly precious”, and she plans to continue the tradition with her own kids – though not through consensus. “Oh, yes, I will get final say on where we go, and how, if I’m paying,” she laughs.