Is this a good deal and has anyone used this company??

A snowHead

Trying to arrange a trip for a mixed ability group early March, narrowed it down to a trip on Weski to les Arcs in a catered chalet with flights (BA), private transfers and lift pass all included, first week of March for about £1250 for the week. Sounds expensive to me but seems to be the going rate for that time of year and one company sorting everything out, plus the chalet does look plush.

My questions are, has anyone used Weski before? I normally organise the individual bits of my trips myself but in this case I want things to be as easy and hassle free as possible as there are some nervous/novice skiers in the group so need it all to go smoothly. Also, is £1250 over the odds for that trip? I’m used to going with mates and getting SC apartment so this is all new to me!

Any help appreciated.

Andrew.

A snowHead

How many people is that for?

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

It’s for 10 of us in a 15 person chalet so we won’t have the place to ourselves unfortunately.

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Ask for it all to yourselves at no extra cost. It's been done.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

I spoke to Weski at the recent ski show at Battersea. They seemed a decent bunch.

Lift pass is always the same as walk up price (so you're not getting any discount there), so you can compare that what's on the Les Arcs website. Without looking it's probably around £250 for a 6 days pass, which means you're paying £1000 for catered chalet + flights + private transfer.

Now tinker with your booking regarding the private transfer. Remove it and see what the new price is. That'll give you an idea of how much your private transfer is worth. Ask yourself whether a private transfer is essential, and see how much you can get a shared one for by looking yourself.

When I spoke to them, they said you only need to book (a minimum of) 2 elements of the skiing holiday directly with them. So it can be a semi DIY holiday.

From memory those elements were

1. Travel.
2. Accommodation.
3. Lift pass.
4. Transfers.

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

@LDP816, first week of March is not outside school holidays.

After all it is free

@LDP816, Smaller Tour Operators rent their chalets from the owners so usually only break even on the accommodation charges. Season rentals for a chalet that size would be in the region of £1500pw. So take £100 off your pp price. Profits come from the other services particularly food/wine. So hypothetically Weski probably have staff overheads and other costs in the region of £250 -300 pppw. So to complete the maths, make sure you get eat and drink £300-350 of food and drink each Very Happy

Did the same sums on an "All Inclusive" Caribbean Holiday once. Mrs P and I gave ourselves £100 of cocktails per day to get our monies worth.

As has been said, first week of March is French school holidays. We were in La Plagne that week a couple of years back. It was busy on the main lifts/runs at the key morning/lunch times, but we found plenty of quiet slopes (and some really lovely tree runs) towards the periphery of the area. Paradiski is big enough to find lots of corners to explore for a bit of peace and quiet.

I'm no expert on chalets, but the price seems reasonable to me.

I don't know if it's improved in the past 2 years, but be prepared for a long transfer. There are lots of popular ski destinations in the area and the roads were gridlocked on the way in and out for us.

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

@LDP816, Why not jump on the train? Les Arcs is well placed for direct trains St Pancras to Bourg St Maurice and then super quick transfer times....

https://www.crystalski.co.uk/ski-resorts/france-ski-holidays/les-arcs/

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@LDP816, my understanding of them is that they are essentially a company/website that organise your DIY holiday for you. Could be wrong, but I don't get the impression that they have staff in resort, or even at the airport.

I think where they are different to other TO's (if you can even call them that), is that they allow you to custom build your holiday. ie, totally flexible on duration of stay, and add/subtract the need for transfers. They'll sort your lift passes out too, but that's no different to any other TO.

snow reports

Thanks for all the replies, really helpful! I am tempted to change for the week after then, this may be better from a busyness perspective!

Travel wise we live in the depths of the southwest so travel to St Pancreas is a hassle for us, flying makes more sense.

I just want to make sure they are a reputable outlet before I hand over my hard earned. Would love to know if anyone has actually used them!?

Maybe I should change the name of this this thread to “has anyone ever used Weski??!?” Laughing

You know it makes sense.

@LDP816, I’ve never heard of them, and always book and travel indipendently, I’d have thought with a group you could do same and get cheaper to Les arcs

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

Not entirely clear to me who the contract is/would be with, so what level of protection you would get.

According to Companies House, "WeSki Ltd" is/was a dormant UK company, with assets of £1 at 31 December 2018. It could have started trading during 2019, but clearly won't have had many/any customers yet.

Alternatively "WeTrip WeSki Ltd" is a UK branch of an Israeli company, but it doesn't have any UK accounts filed (and may not have to). WeTrip appears to be primarily a computer software company, rather than a specialist travel agent.

The T&Cs of sale give a contract address for cancellation that they moved from in January 2018. Could just be sloppy, but could be dubious. The current UK address looks to be just an accommodation address; if you have any need to contact them it is possible that the UK contact would just pass a message to someone in Israel.

I tried to check the ATOL number on the CAA site; it failed, but to be fair I couldn't verify any other company either, so I think the CAA site is faulty.

A snowHead

A snowHead

@LDP816, if they're asking for all the money upfront then just book things yourself diy mate otherwise whats the point? If they're taking a £100 dep pp and payment due later then maybe worth the risk. Me personally I wouldn't touch it. It does seem expensive to me unless the chalet really is plush otherwise you can go to better resorts for that sort of money.

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

@Gainz, +1

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Thanks for all the responses guys, I completely forgot that one of my good friends is a solicitor specialising in travel law!!!! He had a look and it’s all registered and above board so we are covered by ABTA etc. So we are going to go with it, they only want a small deposit now which also helps.

I broke all the costs down and they are making £60 per person on the booking, which I can live with for the ease of not having to get money off everyone and having to bug about with booking everything separately, they have a clever site where everyone manages their own slice of the booking.

Obviously we haven’t been on the trip yet but I’ll report back once we’ve been!

All I now need to get my partner to the snowdome or somewhere to start her off, she’s never ski’d before and is quite nervous unfortunately! Oh and I’ve promised to buy her a new outfit rolling eyes

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

As mentioned last week, I spoke to them at length at the ski show and they are definitely legit.

One quite handy tool they have is that they allow each member of the group to pay their own part of the trip, which means that it won't be left to the group leader to sort out all the finances.

Each member will be able to pay off their own trip at their own leisure.

Help!!

Is this a good deal and has anyone used this company??

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