Save Money in The Alps

First Snow in the Alps - Cutting ski holiday costs

2010-10-29T06:02:00.000-07:00

First Snow - But can you save money once in resort

The first snow has fallen in the Alps and everyone is getting quite excited.

It's looking good for the December holiday period and some great deals can be found for the first few week available. Most skiers and boarders put their time and efforts into getting the best price holiday at their favourite resort. Now is the time to start looking. Prices are quite low for the period up until Christmas so an early season trip away can be quite advantageous.

But there are lots of other ways to save this winter in the top French resorts.

Nearly everyone considers the holiday price as the only thing they have any control over, but over the last couple of seasons, things have changed. With the introduction of the SnowBall Pass in many of the top French Resorts, it's possible to save around 33% of your resort cost and still drink and eat at the top venues. You can also take advantage of pre paid Euro cards, that help you save around 7% of any payment made in resort, including your Ski Pass.

All the specific info can be found on the SnowBall Pass site, but don't forget to take a really good look around the web before you choose your destination and accommodation.

P and V holidays offer you the chance to make some great savings this season. You can book flights at the times you want, organise a transfer to resort with one of the many transfer companies now available and pay a much lower cost for your accommodation with P and V.

If you have found any great saving tips for this winter ski season, please email me at enquiries@snowballpass.com, so we can include these on our site and inform everyone out there.

Over the next few weeks, before the season really kicks off we will post all of the money saving tips we can find on this blog, so bookmark us and keep popping back. Register for our newsletter too. It's really easy, just pop over to the SnowBall Pass site and click the sign up button on the top left of the home page. We will send you regular updates about tips everywhere and new offers available with the SnowBall Pass.

Here's to a Snowy Winter. To see what you can save check out these links below:

MERIBEL, COURCHEVEL, VAL THORENS, TIGNES, VAL D'ISERE, ALPE D'HUEZ, LES DEUX ALPES, LES ARCS, LA PLAGNE, CHAMONIX, AVORIAZ

UK Skiers and Boarders not up to standard

2010-02-18T16:12:00.000-08:00

So where are the UK Olympic Stars?

So the Olympics have finally arrived and If like me, you have been up all night waiting for a glimps of a UK star in the making....

Oh, ok, so you have been watching on the red button the next day....oh, I see.

Well maybe that's the problem. 2 million of you go skiing or boarding every winter, yet maybe 1% of you could name a UK skier or boarder.

Does anyone really care? Does the 42 year old skiers from Kingston really care if anyone from the UK wins a medal. Well, you all should do.

Recently SnowSports GB went into administration due to lack of funds.Who bailed them out? No one. They were just left to rot.

In every resort I've been to there are a whole host of kids from the UK in the bars at night using up there bragging rights to get free beer. Stories of 720 grabs and how they just pulled of the new Shaun White move. Unfortunately, most of these stories relate to their most recent afternoon on the Nintendo Wii. It must be, cause to be quite honest, and with no disrespect to those in the Team GB squad, falling on both your sets in the half pipe or getting excited about 8th is no big deal. At least Chemmy Alcott actually wants to win and believes she can. She recently said she is only competing because she thinks she can win and I really like that attitude. Did the boarders think they cold actually win? I don't think so.

So the question still stands. Where are all the UK skiers and boarders? Why are we not winning in Vancouver?

It's 'simples' - The companies that take your hard earned cash so you can go skiing every year, put nothing back. Nothing into the sports at all. They don't sponsor or help the guys who spend their entire winter in the alps getting good at the sport. Well, that's not quite true. They employ lots of them, to cook food, serve drinks.......and you know that arse who just took you ski guiding.....well . . . . . .

That's why SnowBall Pass is looking for a youngster who skis and one who boards. For every SnowBall Pass they sell, they are putting a little bit towards the future of Great British Winter Sports. The mission is to get a Gold in the near future. If you know anyone who would like to be the benefactor of this program, just send a video to them on the hill to iwantagold@snowballpass.com and let them see your stuff. It doesn't matter what age you are, just get those clips of you on the hill emailed off and lets see if we can get some skiing or snowboarding gold at the next Olympics.

If the government won't help and the big ski companies of the UK won't help, lets see what SnowBall Pass can do.

If you want to help too, pop over to the SnowBall Pass website and get hold of one of there own drops of gold. The SnowBall Pass saves you money in the Top French Ski Resorts.

If you have a subject to do with Winter Sports you would like for us to discuss, just give us a shout.....

Save Money in The Alps

2010-02-12T07:48:00.000-08:00

That time of year has arrived when many of you are thinking about the March snow conditions and deciding whether it's a good idea to take that trip.

March conditions can be very up and down and many of you will be able to comment of this. Sometimes the snow can be amazing and quite often it can be a bit sparse at the bottom.

This season it looks good.

The depth range on many mountain areas in Europe is looking too good to disappear by April and the general rumours in the resorts are that the conditions will be skiable until the end of the season without a problem.

There are many other factors to take into account. Firstly being the exchange rate to the Euro.

The Euro is having a bad time at the moment, but this is all good news for the UK based skier and boarder. The exchange rate is up to 1.15 for a pound and this is much better than at the start of the season. However your bank will only give you about 1.09 to the pound on the best day. If you are using your UK based credit card or debit card to make purchases in the resort (ski pass, ski school, drinks, meals etc) you are going to get fees added for every purchase too. You will probably end up with 1.05 or 1.06 for every pound you spend.

The simply solution is to check out probably the best way to get as close to the 1.15 per pound mark with no fees. There are ways of doing it - take a look at this option

Holiday Prices
Our best advice is to book late, as the holiday companies are looking to fill those bed spaces at whatever cost. They have already paid for the places and simply have to fill the capacity to cover costs. They have all pretty much accepted that this is not the season to be making money and are simply trying to cover the costs. YOU can take advantage of this by booking late and taking your pick. Do not be fooled by the sales people who try to make you book 'right now' as there will still be spaces left last minute in your chosen resort.

In Resort savings
The best place to make savings this season is in resort. Beer at 6€ a pint is no laughing matter. 20€ lunches are also not funny. So why have the top resorts decided to drive people away by keeping these prices high?

Many resort businesses spoke to the lift pass offices this season and spoke about reducing prices to help the resort. But this was only an option if the resort itself reduced or froze the ski pass price. Nobody wanted to do this, so the deal was off.

So can you get your drinks and meals cheaper in a Ski Resort? The simple answer is yes. Take a look at this site to see how - Click Here

Make sure you bookmark our blog as we are going to be adding all the latest news and reviews on ski resorts and ski websites to see what you can do so make your trip cheaper and more fun this season.

I would love to hear YOUR feedback on saving money in the Alps to feel free to email me at damian@snowballpass.com

We are happy to add your tips and advice.