How do you get on a cheap ski holiday?
Many people associate ski holidays with being an expensive form of vacation, and there's no denying that in many cases it can be. If you have to go out and buy ski equipment for a family of 4, or for that matter just for yourself, it adds up quickly. That's why many people are looking for a cheaper way to go on ski holidays, there is money to be saved on the annual ski trip. However, it requires a little research, which we have done for you.
When looking for a cheap ski trip, make sure you book outside the peak ski season, maybe look towards smaller ski destinations and be willing to book last minute or super early. In this article we'll look at how to get the cheapest ski holidays.
How to find the cheapest ski holidays
- Travel in low season
- Book your ski holidays well in advance
- Find a cancellation ski trip
- Choose a cheap ski travel agency
- Sign up for the ski travel agency newsletter
- Choose a cheap ski area
- Self-cater or book with half board
- Choose a country that is cheap to stay in
- Make sure you choose the cheapest transportation
When is the low season for ski holidays?
You should make sure you check snow histories and look for destinations that have snow, or make sure the travel agency you book your ski trip with has a snow guarantee. You need to find ski holidays according to when there is the least demand. This also means that after a 2020/2021 season where no one went skiing, you can expect to be scrambling to get a ski holiday for the 2021/2022 season.
The cheapest weeks to go on ski holidays in:
- Before Christmas and after New Year.
- Weeks 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6
- Again after week 10, in addition to Easter
If you're booking your ski holidays before Christmas, make sure you check the snow history of the ski destination you want to visit.
Which weeks should you avoid booking your ski trip in order to get it cheap?
It goes without saying that the holiday weeks when schools are on winter break and families with children are off. These are the weeks when prices are at the high end, we're talking ski weeks 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 when prices peak. More and more people are starting to go skiing during the Christmas holidays and celebrate New Year on ski vacations. Easter also has a lot of days off, which means that prices here also go up a bit, but you can still get them at reasonable prices. Therefore, as far as possible, make sure not to book your ski holidays during these weeks.
Book your ski holidays well in advance
In many cases, it makes sense to book this year's ski holidays well in advance, you have more options to choose which destination and hotel you want to go to. When we say book well in advance, you should book no later than early September, preferably July or August to find the best prices.
Ski travel agencies give these discounts of up to £1,000 per person at the beginning of the season to sell a lot of ski trips before the season starts. This allows them to reserve seats on planes and buses and sell even more ski holidays.
If you book this year's ski holidays well in advance, many of the travel agencies will also ask you to cancel your trip by a certain date if you are prevented from going. Therefore, it's a good idea to book early, and you don't have the same risk as with a cancellation.
Find a ski holiday
In relation to the above-mentioned point about booking well in advance, it can sometimes be worth waiting until the very last second to book your ski trip. Of course, this means that you can't make any big demands on where the ski holidays will take you, which hotel you'll be staying at and what method of transportation you'll be using. Since travel agents will be left with the trips if no one books them, they'd rather make some money than none.
Therefore, it's a good idea to call the ski travel agencies to see what options they have to get the absolute cheapest ski trip. If they don't have anything to offer you, we recommend checking Snowtrex, Sunweb or Airbnb. All of which are companies that sell ski trips to people all over the world.
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The best way for ski travel agencies to sell their cheap deals and remaining places is to their existing customers, who they know are likely to take action on a good offer for a ski holiday. They usually don't have many places left, so it's important to be quick to book.
Black Friday at ski travel agencies, we are in the last weekend of November where many ski travel companies have also gotten a nose for the black friday or black week concept. This means that you can get super sharp prices during the opening weekend for several of the ski destinations in the Alps.
Ski newsletters you can sign up for
Danski, Højmark skirejser, Onlineski.dk, Vinterly skirejser, SNE & SNÖ, Slopetrotter and all the others that you can find on our list of all ski travel agencies.
Book a cheap ski apartment or ski chalet
When you're looking for a cheap ski trip and want to keep costs down, the best option for you is to cook for yourself and rent a ski chalet or ski apartment. You'll have your own kitchen and not just a hotel room where you have to pay for almost every meal.
If you're lucky, the apartment's kitchen may have a freezer where you can store food, so you can make pizza rolls, sausage rolls, tartlet filling, lasagna etc. from home and therefore not have to buy lunch on the slopes.
We've used this method several times ourselves, where we've rented a private ski apartment/cabin. We've done a lot of preparation at home before we left, and thus saved a lot of money. However, many places do not have a microwave, oven and toaster if you choose a small ski apartment in the Alps, so make sure you know what contents the apartment has.
Cheap ski holidays with half board
Half board, which includes breakfast and dinner, is also an option. Make sure you eat well in the morning and evening, take a sandwich with you on the slopes and shop for biscuits, chocolate, sweets in the local supermarket at the ski resort.
It's obviously the easy way to do it, rather than having to cook when you get home from the slopes or find breakfast every morning. But you lock yourself into eating what the ski hotel makes.
Cheap ski holidays for families with children
When going on a ski trip as a family with small children, it's not so important that the area is huge. It doesn't make sense to go to places like Wagrain, Val Thorens, Tignes, Canazei, Hemsedal, Trysil or Sälen. These are some of the top destinations and therefore these destinations just cost a lot more than many other good ski destinations for kids.
Therefore, you should look for places that are a little smaller, you should stay close to the slopes - preferably ski in/ski out or very close to the slopes for the children, there doesn't have to be big discos in the ski town.