Ski Esprit Late booking surcharges

A snowHead

Thinking of booking a late deal with Ski Esprit who are advertising some good deals but at the bottom of the offers page is this paragraph:

A snowHead

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

alex_heney, thanks. But 18 days! That shouldn't present them with any additional admin costs to a normal booking. I agree about the other charge too. I just wonder if I ring them towards the end of a week to book one of their holidays for that weekend and say I will book but I am not paying these surcharges whether they'd go for it because they want to shift their holidays or they'll stick to their guns.

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sarah, It's always worth trying to negotiate the best you can once it is down to that short a time. As you say, they may be in the situation of better to sell at no profit than not sell at all.

But 18 days will certainly mean that you will be collecting the tickets at the airport. Some operators force that if the booking is 21 days or less from departure.

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sarah, it's always a worth a try, but I guess you'd have to mean it! Make them an offer, and be prepared to walk away. There are plenty of other operators out there. Ultimately, whilst they do want to sell the holiday, there is a clear marginal cost for them in taking you to the Alps and feeding you. Unless their marginal revenue will cover that marginal cost, they'd be daft to sell you the holiday. Many operators are clearly cutting fixed costs (closing whole chalets, cancelling flights, bringing staff home early) where they can't sell holidays at a high enough price.

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alex_heney, thanks Alex, I will certainly give it go! snowHead

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sarah,

After all it is free

sarah, your call to make them an offer. Their call to accept it or not. That's business.

sarah, I quite agree but Ski Esprit are far from being alone in doing this (or similar).
U see a headline price on a late deals page and then they add extra because its erm... a late deal Confused

Then they add more to take account of currency fluctuations since they set the price way back, erm... earlier today Confused

In cases like this, because none of extras are optional in any way and so the every item they sell will have these same surcharges added, the headline price is simply a lie

These methods diminish my view of any operator that engages in them and IMV the commonplace use of these practices, cheapens the public perception of the travel industry as a whole.

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admin, look forward to seeing your offer on the MSB, then. Toofy Grin

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achilles, £2.56 (+surcharges) NehNeh

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admin, Bearing in mind your view on surcharges, I'm in

Thanks guys for your advice.

You know it makes sense.

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

Actually sarah, I was chatting to someone at Neilson just now who reminded me that the law changed last year and the headline price should include any compulsory surcharges.
What you and snowlamb have described doesn't actually sound legal - although the devil is bound to be in the detail. But then the law was supposed to flush such details out.

A snowHead

They can try this trick and you can try and deal.... depends on who blinks first..

The closer it gets to D-day, the more hard-ball you can play...of course, the choice might be smaller as this is a bumper snow year and booking aren't down, they say.....

I'd say deal hard but prepared to be reasonable if you get the hol you want...

A snowHead

Thanks all, we're going to wait until after the french hols finish so are looking at the week of the 8th or 15th. I will of course try and negotiate but at the end of the day it's their 'really kiddie friendly' product that we want this time and so I will go with a reasonable deal. Just very frustrating that they don't factor these charges into their headline prices. Will let you know how I get on in due course.

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

Just thought I would give you an update on this...

I had a further conversation with Ski Esprit with a view to booking a late deal they were advertising to Belle Plagne. They would let me off the £20pp late charge as I was within the 18 day period if I booked it then! But the other surcharges on top of their headline price were £16.50pp currency surcharge, £1pp APD (as previously mentioned), then a room supplement of £49.35 ('is there a room available which doesn't have a supplement?' - 'No'), a Manchester flight supplement of ...wait for it, a whopping £57pp Shocked

. Now that is shocking, they are normally £25 or £30. So I asked 'what about a flight which doesn't carry a supplement?' and was told the only one was LGW to GVA and that is 'not suitable for the resort of Belle Plagne' rolling eyes

.

The final nail in the coffin for me with them was that they could not accommodate my 4 year old in their 'exclusive' ski classes, why? because he can ski Evil or Very Mad

At his age, with them, he would be expected to go in the snow garden, but he is past that, so they would move him up to the class of beginners age 5+ but not any further e.g. to their improvers because he is only 4. They could offer no solution to this and I was surprised because it's not unusual, many snowHead

s have kids of that age who are not complete beginners. As 'the No.1 for Family Skiing' I thought they would have done better on this.

I had had enough.

I rang Snowbizz. I spoke to Wendy the owner. A 4 year old who can ski? no problem, he can go with the juniors age 5 +, if he can't manage the full 2 hours because he is still little then no problem he can finish early and we can meet him or one of their staff will bring him back down. If it really doesn't work with the numbers/ages/abilities of kids they have that week they will give him a 1 hour private lesson instead for which we will pay the extra. Wendy said that they treat each child as an individual and don't put them in a box based on their age/ability, they look at the whole picture and find the right solution for that child. And they can do that because they own and operate their own ski school.

I booked Very Happy

and guess what? The very reasonable headline price included everything! EVEN ski carriage Very Happy

No ridiculous surcharges. Result! And if the holiday is even half as good as this pre-booking customer service then it will be amazing. I was very impressed.

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sarah, please let us know how the Snowbizz holiday goes, it's always good to here stories of both good and bad service wink

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We had to pay £15 each for late booking, then again... we got a week in Tigneswith over 100 off the usual price. Swings and roundabouts rolling eyes

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sarah, If you had looked at Esprit late deals earlier in the season the £16.50 was for a fuel supplement, now it is a currency charge. We had two good holidays with them the last two years but this year trying a smaller operator as we can get two rooms (one for me and the other half and one for the kids) rather than being cramped in one room together and not being charged a fortune. Hope you have a great holiday

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We booked a Ski Esprit 'deal' the first time we took the kids. I think the headline rate was about £1000 - but in the end we paid £1200 because of flight, fuel and mainly room supplements - we booked through Andes travel (who used to have a branch in MK but now only have one in St Albans I think) anyway - they gave us a discount (as they have in the past for Mark Warner).

I hated the travelling with Ski Esprit (too many kids LOL!) and hated the fact that they advertised a holiday they couldn't actually sell - because there wasn't a room available that didn't have some sort of bathroom/balcony supplement.

We didn't book their ski hire or lessons as they were expensive compared to ESF - and unlike most of the 'Esprit' parents we met we did actually want to ski with our kids. ESF were great (contrary to the opinions of the other people in our chalet). So really we didn't do the 'Ski Esprit' package we just used their travel, transfers and chalet.

We had a good holiday, and the chalet was great as the kids in it were all around the same age (because we booked a week before we knew the ages before we booked), but the website is possibly the most misleading holiday website I have ever come across.

After all it is free

reading this with interest we usually go with esprit, and usually have no issues

this time around we were on the phone trying to book this and the price kept going up due to the demand

more info on the "headline prices must include supplements " would be useful

as we will be booking a late deal with them, and I have lots of issues

with something that is advertised, but then cannot be booked at the price offered because
of additional supplements that need to be added.

does anyone have a link to the code of practise - would Love to throw that one in !!!

Sarah - had this last year with Esprit and it really hacked me off - so much so that I nearly didn't bother but actually it was a good deal at the final price in a resort we wanted to go to so it seemed daft to cut of the nose...etc. They advertised a family price but then once you'd added on the "ticket on departure" that bumped it up (but as other say - lots of TO's do this) - the thing that really hacked me off were the room supps - for a bathroom (but they don't actually do a room without a bathroom!!!!!) etc, etc, etc. Transparent pricing really boosts credibility in my view - have gone with Rocketski this year and whilst the accommodation was basic, they were upfront about this and didn't pretend otherwise and actually we booked a family room (with a discount) for 4 and got what amounted to a family suite - 2 adjoining rooms in a little suite with a bathroom. They will certainly get repeat business more quickly than Esprit whose reps soon lost interest when you didn't go for the childcare/trips/recommendations for meals on the chalet hosts night off! I am not sure I would hold out much hope for haggling down the surcharges as we booked about 4 days before departure and they weren't budging on them (even the Iglu rep seemed a bit P'd off with them)

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Thanks all! Glad I am not the only one to get hacked off with their neverending surcharging and their attitude! Shame though because I am sure they do actually provide a good product. Going with Snowbizz the 15th March, will feedback on our return.

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We too tried to book a late deal (for 2 weeks) with esprit based on their advertised price of £330 per week. After an hour on the phone the price went up to £2000!!! (compulsory supplements) and it took them 36 hours to confirm. I complained to the chap who was helping me that their website was/is misleading but nothing changed. They did not get my custom as i have no patience with time thieves. Instead we went with a small company called Snowfox (paradiski) who gave us a good late deal without the esprit bulls**t.

I have just booked a late deal with Ski Esprit to la Rosiere to go on Sunday ... however I booked through Igluski.com and it was approx £150 cheaper than I had been quoted 30mins previously by Esprit direct .... exactly same holiday, same chalet .... even same room !!!! received email confirmation within 10mins .... so far so good ! Also the great things is the price IGLUSKI.com advertised on their website included all supplements ... much easier ..

You know it makes sense.

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

xelon, if it's any comfort Esprit have chartered their own flight and it's not scheduled one you're on, when you get to T1 at Manchester you need to be on the ground floor for Jet2 checkin, don't go up in the lift and then back down a ramp to get to it like I did in January at 5pm in the morning I was a little cheesed for the lack of signage Shocked

A snowHead

Thanks for that stevew, my flight @ 7:30am so I'll be chekin in around 5:00am, hope we get breakfast for £228 supplement!

A snowHead

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

Yes, there was a hot breakfast on the flight and a meal on the return one, nothing exciting normal airline fayre. Which chalet are you stopping in (forgive me if it's somewhere up the thread)?[/quote]

Chalet Landelieres, nearly on the piste next to a drag lift, just below Chalet Braconnier I believe, Do you know it?

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I sell a lot of esprit holidays as an appointed agent and I fully understand your frustration. I dont mind room supplements as there is a choice of rooms and the supplement differentiates the facilities in each room. Of course the chilcare is going to be extra. Their basic price is based on one of their STN-GVA flights (all others carry a supplement except LGW-INN) but they also offer two STN flights. The late booking fee is for the volume of work that goes into the mass organisation of close to departure holidays. It's an intricate pricing process and can be confusing given the number of variable options and elements available.

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I didn't try esprit but I found a trip to h/b obergurgl this year as a late booking with Neilson which came up at 608 each with all the additions on. Took them all off and got it down to 2.3k. Went to my local co-op travel agent and told them I got it down to 2k...quick smile, no problem, they do a price match, booked and paid for and off in 3 weeks. Packages are fast winning me back.

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Heres a list of my supplements.

1 Credit Card Handling Fee @ 60. 36
1 Under-Occupancy Supplement @ 273. 00
2 Travel Supplements @ 57. 00 114. 00
1 1st Child Travel Supplement @ 57. 00 57. 00
1 2nd Child Travel Supplement @ 57. 00 57. 00
4 Currency Supplement @ 16. 50 66. 00
4 Air Passenger Levy @ 1. 00 4. 00

Wished I'd not read this thread, quite depressed myself now!

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After all it is free

xelon, we were in Arnica which is where some of the childcare is halfway up the drag, skiied with some people who stopped in Landelieres and they seemed to be happy, it was a short walk from the bottom of the drag in a scenic position. Don't know what the views were like.

xelon, me too, £57 pp is outrageous, Hope the hot breakfast is worth it. Snowbizz' advertised late deal price included the M'cr supplement.
Nickster, great! even a TA agrees they are underhand about these charges! You confirmed what I thought about the late booking fee, how can charge this when they issue an Eticket?!

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The thing about the room supplements is not that they are charged, or that they differ between rooms - but that I would have thought the advertised price should at least show what the cheapest room available will cost.

When we booked the holiday advertised was for a family of 4 in two rooms - there were no other rooms in the chalet available - so a family of 4 would have to pay the supplements to get that holiday. In fact, when we got there we saw the brochure (hadn't seen one before) and EVERY room had some sort of supplement.

Now, had there been 4 rooms available, two without supplements, then I would be OK about it being added when you choose the rooms - because you are choosing to upgrade.

Same if two rooms were £1ppn and the others £2.50pn then the advertised price could be based on the £1 rate and that wouldn't feel like a scam.

In the end our overall price was OK - but it was galling to pay for a balcony and then find the access to the balcony was both from our room and the living area, and the other people in the chalet would sit outside our bedroom window on 'our' balcony - meaning we had to shut our curtains and block out the view or our room was in full view (which felt quite uncomfortable)

Help!!

Ski Esprit Late booking surcharges

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