Background: In laws stay out of the country, a 1h flight away. They are the type who insists that we visit them frequently. Their initial ask was monthly visits to them but we have tapered it to major holidays amounting to about 4x a year. Everytime we visit, we would also have to make arrangements for our cats (paying for cat boarding).
We didn't have a great history with husband's parents – they were unkind and unwelcome to me (30F) from the start (and for the past 6 years or so) and only recently started becoming 'neutral'-ish (but still generally distanced with unreasonable expectations imo) after I married my husband (30M).
Naturally, every trip to visit them has been not so much a 'holiday' but feel like more of an obligation, of which we have to take precious PTO for. We stay with them when we visit.
They do not visit us as they deem it as a hassle and inconvenience (given their age), and also they hold strongly to the belief that their children should be visiting their elders and not the other way round (typical asian family dynamics).
I have tried not accompanying my husband a couple times (because i had other commitments), but they have expressed their expectation that we should visit them as a couple (read: guilt tripping).
Husband and I have been each paying our own flights to visit his parents but now I am increasingly thinking whether its fair to ask him to pay for my air tickets to visit his parents since it mostly feels like an obligation on my part (+ i have to take PTO). The money i spend a year on visits to them add up to a flight ticket to an actual vacation destination. Also, I figured if he starts feeling the 'pinch' in having to pay for both of us, maybe he would think twice about whether these visits to his parents need to be so frequent. He too, has to push back on his parents' guilt tripping throughout the year. I would say that 1 long visit to them a year would be sufficient, or 2 shorter trips but his parents would not have that.
Edit: We do keep our finances quite separate as we find that easier, but contribute equally to joint expenses for the household. We do not need to spend on flights when visiting my family as they live nearby, but even then we do not have the expectation to visit them that often and they have always been welcoming to him.
Would appreciate hearing how other couples in similar situations deal with this.