Ski à la Carte - Has anyone used this?

A snowHead

Hello,

I came across this - https://www.skialacarte.fr/gb/ whilst looking for ski passes for upcoming trips.

It looks like I could potentially save on passes, with a €29 upfront payment.

Just wondering if anyone has used it before and has any experience of it..?

Does it require the cheaper individual day passes for every day, or can it be booked as a 6 day block?

Thanks.

A snowHead

My partner uses it as she likes to avoid the worst weather, and isn't keen on buying a week-long pass and not using it every day. It works on a day-by-day basis, so you can't book it as a 6-day block. If you use it for six days in a row it's probably going to be more expensive that a typical 6-day lift pass. But if you don't ski every day, and if you want the convenience of being able to visit other resorts in the Ski à la Carte without pre-booking then it's a good option.

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

@rob@rar, Ok great.

I was considering using it for the 3 vallees, and then in Flaine for another trip. Looks like it could be a €70 saving roughly by using it on the days I'm after.

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Only costs us €15 per season (both over 65) and the older we get the more fair weather skiers we become so it suits us perfectly. Our home resort is La Plagne but no hassles if we visit elsewhere.

I’ve never understood why it doesn’t appear to be more popular

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

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It's not more expensive for a 6 day pass is it? On A La Carte it's 67.50 per day Sunday - Friday plus the 29 euros for the subs works out as 434 Euros. The 6 day pass is 450. The only drawback is you don't get the swimming pool access and for kids it's the same price as an adult. I think the Carre Neige insurance is cheaper for the A La Carte as well - it's only 19 euros on the A La Carte for the winter (assume that means regardless of the number of days) whereas with the normal ski pass you pay per day at a rate of 3:30 per day.

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After all it is free

Yeah I guess that makes sense. Always down to someone's circumstances.

It makes no sense for me to use it over NYE as coming with the family and doing the deal (300 off) and the pool access will probably get used - whereas in Jan with the lads on holiday will be doing the A La Carte as it is pretty much the same cost but allows some saving if we can't ski for any of the days due to bad weather or illness.

In the past I've used ski a la carte. The one big bonus was flexibility. Mrs does not ski if there's a sniff of poor visibility, so going day by day saved money over a 6 day pass, and avoided the faff of doing a single day pass every time.

Now that the season pass prices have come down relatively, that's what is cheapest for us now.

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I've used it - if you ski more than a week in different resorts and get the 9th (and then 14th, etc) day for 1 euro it can work out quite a reasonable deal, and it's convenient.

For 6 or 7 days in the 3 valleys ski a la carte is going to be more expensive than a regular pass; if you take 1 day off it's probably similar. The 3 valleys has their own similar offering now, which seemingly has the bonus that if on one day you only ski one valley you only get charged the local pass rate for that day - in a bad weather week that could be appealing.

As @nerdgas describes, Tignes-Val d'Isere is actually cheaper for exactly 6 days with ski a la carte (their pricing structure is a bit unusual though in having a 6-day pass be 6x1 day passes, then giving a 7th day 'free').

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We tend to base ourselves in Ste Foy and ski there with days out to Tignes/Val d'Isere, Villaroger for Les Arcs/La Plagne and occasionally drive round to Meribel for 3V so it's been great - no need to buy tickets by the day, you get a discount on the day rate and in Ste Foy and La Rosiere, which don't take the Ski A La Carte pass, you get 15% off the day rate (and in Valmorel as I recall, when we had 3 days there). The flexibility and hassle free skiing makes it totally worthwhile plus if you need to have a day off due to weather or injury, you don't feel as if you've missed out or paid for something you're not using. In some of the resorts you get a cheap day on e.g. Saturday (Les Arcs did this). That being said, if you're based in one area, the weekly pass is probably a better option but do your sums. The one thing that irked me was that in Val Thorens we got charged for the full 3V pass every day, even on the day when we didn't leave Val T (should have checked the T&C).

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I've used it a couple of winters in the past, it's easy to work out whether or not you'd benefit from it if you know your ski plans in advance (or at least roughly your plans).

I'm giving it a try this year as I'm planning a 7-day week in Serre Chevalier followed by a 6-day week in Les Arcs later in the season, so I should get a free day and perhaps 2 if I ski on arrival or departure days.

I also had access to a discount for the subscription (9€ instead of 29€), so if all goes well it should save me a fair amount, I'll make sure to report back.

You know it makes sense.

@balso, Just remember they will automatically bill you the full amount for subscription the following year, so remember to cancel, and then sign up at a discount with a different email address

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

Just a quick update, I got an email stating that discounted subscriptions (obtained through work, in my case) do not auto-renew, which is a nice touch!
And I received the card at home on 1 December - it wasn't necessary, but for an extra 3€ it somehow felt better than dealing with in-resort collection.

A snowHead

Does anyone have any promo codes for this? I've read some people get the initial €29 cost cheaper. Thanks

A snowHead

It worked well for my group in Les Arcs last year. Nice to have the option to upgrade from a local pass to one that covers La Plagne simply by scanning the pass on the transfer gondola. It worked out cheaper for us, because we skipped one day of bad weather.

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

I have one;

Arguably made a mistake on this due to autorenewal and plans for this year not having as much in areas it covers.

On the other hand, for the SoPiB having a pass that covers several days without having to go buy tickets is probably worth it from a convenience perspective; Probably not noticably cheaper (SerreChez area pass vs only needing monetier area), but meant less hassle (Between SoPiB travelling elsewhere and then having a ski touring week where we moved around and couldn't guarantee lifts would be used every day...)

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We used SALC a number of times when we stayed at Champagny-en-Vanoise. It's very handy if you don't want to ski every day. It's clever too: it takes account of the lifts you use and charges for the smallest area that covers your travels. However, it disregards your age so, if you're young or old, it can be cheaper just to keep buying day passes.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

It used to be that they invoiced monthly so I got a bit of a shock this morning to receive an email saying that our first day skiing yesterday had been invoiced and paid for overnight. Can’t remember being told of the change but it is starting to look like less of a good deal now.

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@rdsweb, I think they changed that for us last winter. Still costs the same in the end.

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@Hells Bells, thanks for that. I must have missed it because we didn’t ski last year. I’m sure it works out the same but it hasn’t half ruined the cash flow planning for this holiday Sad

After all it is free

@rdsweb, yep. I know what you mean, it took me by surprise last year.

We used it last year - we did a week in Les Arcs and then later in the season we did a week in La Plagne while our friend went to Val Thorens

So we all got the advantage of the 9th day discount and we travelled midweek so we also had the bigger weekend discounts

This year we will probably use again as we worked out the first week was marginally cheaper than the 6 day pass but the second week we were quids in

We are thinking of being in France for 3 weeks - the first two we might only ski a few days each week then we’ll meet up with our kids (adults) and probably ski every day - knowing if we do decide to take a day off we won’t be paying us a real draw for me

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I used SALC (with Carre Neige) in Tignes in January 2025, which worked well as we went for a fortnight and I didn't ski every day. Now we're on our way to Tignes again today and my subscription is due to renew on the 12th Jan. Does anyone know if I can just use my card for the lift straight away, or do I need to visi the skipass office first to re-activate it?

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Thank you for the confirmation. Much appreciated.

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Ski à la Carte - Has anyone used this?

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