Super budget skiing ideas

A snowHead

Did some research on BA avios points, it looks like following:
- you need to have 8500 avios to get a free reward flight
- reward flights are Gatwick/Heathrow, and number of places are limited
- avios and nectar (Sainsbury) now linked. the conversion rate is 1:2, so you get 1000 avios from 2000 nectar, there is an offer right now, +250avios when first 2000 converted. Which means need to collect 17000 nectar points for a free flight. Thats a lot of points tbh, but there are lots of offers with nectar, but looks like Sainsbury stopped nectar offers.

A snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

You need to Login to know who's really who.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

French Pyrenees gives good value, esp in peak dates as Toulouse flights no where near as popular as GVA and main gateways

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@ed48,

These folks have some super-cheap all-in deals. Especially if you are prepared to have 4 people in a studio flat!

https://www.sunweb.co.uk/

Often accommodation, flights, transfers and ski-pass are all included; and you can add cheap ski-hire etc. You can pop your date in, and then sort by price.

But do check the accommodation reviews on Trustpilot, as some of them are a bit ropey. snowHead

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

Quite some years ago, I once hitch hiked to Chamonix (One lift from the M25 to the Mont Blanc Tunnel entrance Cool

) and booked into the youth hostel for a couple of nights to check out whether there was any decent skiing nearby Confused

Having established there was (funnily enough rolling eyes

), I tried to book in for a week, only to find they were full.
I went out for the evening and met a guy from Leeds who offered me a bed in his shoebox apart, with 3 others for 100 Francs. It was available for a week while one of the occupants went home.
Having access to various letters 'proving' we were based/living/working in CMX, we got our lift passes at child rates.
Crossing the Channel was done on a day return in each direction as they were cheaper than singles, weirdly.

I had my own boots although I did have to hire skis - I skied about 6 or 7 days out of the 10 that I was in town and I think I was down about £200 all-in by the time I got home snowHead

...sorry, I realise there's probably not much about that model that extrapolates to today's market (or to grown-ups.) but just wanted to boast about one of my skiing-on-a-shoestring experiences Embarassed

Thanks for flagging the bashes, guys... I'd say, the PSB and the EoSB a pretty equally matched value-wise and IMO hard to beat.

I am aware that it is possible to do things a little cheaper but any alternatives I've seen seem to, at best, lose a lot of value for a small cost saving eg. 4 people sharing a self-catered studio saving 50€ ea, compared to twin rooms, ski in/out, spa facilities and having your dinner made.

After all it is free

My first ski trip was by bus (around 1990) £149 for adults & £49 for kids - but 1st kid goes free. Stayed in a lovely pension in Soll. Laughing

Hi @ed48,
The cheapest Ski holiday I ever had was many years ago when the was about 9DM to the £ and we wore bell bottom jeans.
We had 3 glorious weeks up a hill above Damuls in an old farmhouse called Bömert Haus.
There was no hot water unless you heated it on the stove and there were a bunch of smelly cows on the ground floor.
There were 28 of us from some German youth Club. (If you know what I mean)
We did not buy a lift pass, someone had a “Punkt Card” and we borrowed some skis that had the steel edges screwed in sections along the skis except where they had broken off under the foot part.
We had leather boots and bindings which were called “safety binding” .
Anyway we loved it .. 28 teenagers sleeping 10 or so to a room in sleeping bags on the floor.
Total cost for 3 weeks for myself and my girlfriend was £105.
We hitch hiked from Royston roundabout to Darmstadt and were put up by my friend's parents for about a week before Christmas.
It was magical.

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

Hi @admin,
Hitch Hiking is the best way to travel .. that M25 must be that new road around London?

I did hitch hike down to Damuls again a couple of years later, I left boxing day evening from Royston roundabout again.
Hitched to Harwich port and started Hitching again from Hoek van Holland.
I think I got to Ulm with my first lift and then managed to get a rendezvous at a cafe in Damuuls by 2pm the next afternoon.
I had sent a telegram to my chums saying that I would be there at that time, but they could not believe that I was there before them.
I only stayed 3 days and had to get back to work.
I got one lift from down in the valley to Bonn and another to Den Hague but it was about 11pm at night and I had to walk most of the way to the Hook.

I've been to Damuls a couple of times since its just beautiful .. like so many places in Austria.
That first time we went (in the post above) there was not too much snow, we were able to walk up from the village.
A few of the crew got there before us by car and had carried a reel to reel tape deck and a pair of big speakers up the hill to the house.
As we arrived up through the woods to the "piste" below the house the valley was filled with the sound of "Lucky Man" (Emerson Lake & Palmer) echoing off the mountains on the other side.
Those were the days.

Help!!

Super budget skiing ideas

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