Month: April 2009

With the recession tightening its stranglehold on the UK economy, here are some useful tips to save money on a ski holiday.

First of all, why not consider a self catered holiday? In this day and age, self catering doesn’t automatically mean tiny studio apartment s with fold down beds and people sleeping in the lounge. There is now a wide selection of excellent large self catered chalets available online, often with hot tubs and saunas. Self catered holidays tend to work out very reasonable on a per head basis, as long as all the beds in a property are filled.

Driving to your ski holiday is another excellent way of saving money. Cross channel ferries keep their prices low in order to compete with the budget airlines, and if you have four people in a car it will cost a lot less to drive than to fly – especially over the main holiday weeks.

Another advantage to driving is that you can stock the car up with food and drink for the week in the UK. This will stop you from losing money in resort because of a poor exchange rate. If the exchange rate recovers, having a car will still save you money because it will allow you to shop at the larger (and cheaper) out of town supermarkets rather than the smaller more expensive ones in the centre of the resort.

Once in resort, you should consider buying a local area lift pass rather than the full wider area one. Most people tend to buy the most expensive lift pass which covers the greatest area. In reality, for 6 days skiing, the local area is often enough. It is also good to get to know the local area really well, rather than just skiing every piste once in the wider area.

Another mistake that many people make is that of pre-booking their ski hire online. Nine times out of ten, the prices are no cheaper than if you walk into a shop off the street, and the quality of the equipment is often dubious. Furthermore, once you have handed over your credit card details online you are also tied to that one particular shop. A better option is to talk to your tour operator and see what sort of deals they have for you in resort. Chances are they work with a particular shop because of the good service, good equipment and excellent pricing on offer.

In order to carry out the aforementioned tips, it is vital that you get your destination right. There is no point in planning to economise and then booking a holiday in Courchevel! Resorts such as Chatel, in the Portes du Soleil will help you save money for the following reasons;

1) The resort, although a major ski resort in the world’s biggest ski area, is actually very reasonably priced since it is still predominantly visited by the French – it is a bit of an undiscovered gem.

2) The resort is located in the Northern French Alps so is one of the first ones you can get to when driving from Calais.

3) Because all the accommodation is chalet style, there is a huge selection of well priced high quality self catered accommodation.

4) Although part of the massive Portes du Soleil ski area, the local Chatel pass covers some of the best skiing in the domain (namely Linga & Pre La Joux).

5) If you do decide to ski the whole area, the lift pass for the whole Portes du Soleil is a lot cheaper than some of the other big domains, namely the Trois Vallees or Verbier.

However, all of this doesn’t mean that Chatel is some kind of second class resort. It is a beautiful alpine resort with a highly sophisticated skiing infrastructure in place.

In summary, just because money is tight doesn’t mean that you have to put your annual ski pilgrimage on hold. You just have to choose your ski resort well.