Tour operators who is good who isn't

A snowHead

We’ve been going through the brochures trying to work out who gives the best deals etc and wondered what snowheads thought

We’ve had real hassle with Crystals on the trip this year, varying from them messing up the bookings, trying to overcharge us £300 to getting bad advice on the ski pass needed, and it goes on Evil or Very Mad

Thomsons last year weren’t too bad

What are peoples views of Neilson or Panorama ?
Thanks

A snowHead

where were you planning to go?

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

Silver Ski & Ski Olympic were both very good for us (large parties)

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

Travelled with Inghams a couple of times - brilliant on both occasions. Have used Crystal and Thompson (ten years ago) and they were also good. Travelled with Ski Esprit last year (specialists in family ski holidays), again, really good considering we were a party of 8 grown ups out for a party. The Inghams staff in Livigno were great when I ended up in casuality - very helpful, and also offered to try to get me checked in quickly on the return flight.

Used First Choice this year, and although the travel was fine (quick check-ins, hardly any waiting at the airport), but we didn't really see any of the reps. during the time we were in the resort. Our hotel was off the beaten track, but we still only saw her twice. She did send me a text message with some info. though, as promised, but we were left without ski school tickets on the first day. Apparently that's not unusual and wasn't a problem but we didn't know that. On a day trip to Chamonix she did arrange for the bus to collect us, rather than have us leave our hotel at about 7:45 so that we could be in the centre of Courmayeur for the pick up.

So far I've never had any real problems with the tour operator, may be because I don't expect anything from them other than the lift to and from the airport.

Our in-laws use Equity almost exclusively for their skiing, and highly recommend them. Their packages are all inclusive, but the price is reduced if you don't need kit hire, ski school, and so on. I haven't tried them yet as their resort choice is quite limited at the moment.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Sorry forgot to say where we were thinking of.
Probably going to be Andorra again as we are a mix bunch of some that have been once or twice before and others that are just starting out.

You'll need to Register first of course.

In the past we have used Inghams and found nothing wrong with them. I would generally say they are all the same anyway..

Have you looked at doing it yourself instead of going with a tour operator ?

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

rob and sharon, I work for TUI who own both Thomson and Crystal. They're effectively the same company.

My favourite of the large companies is Inghams. However, I expect you'll get some horror stories about all of them.

Neilson have been OK when I've used them but it's been a few years. The only one that I'd try and avoid would be First Choice, but that's for slightly irrational reasons.

After all it is free

I used Skiworld last year without any problems.

This year I used Ski Olympic and concur with Frosty the Snowman that they were good.

I have used Mark Warner a number of times, they are very good but expensive. Look for a last minute deal with them and you could get a real bargain.

CP

Have used Nielson.....was very impressed by them. All the staff seemed happy to be working for them.

Used Crystal years ago and weren't too impressed with the accomodation - but we did only pay £99 for 1 week 1/2 board and flight!!

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

I've found Inghams and Crystal to be OK so far as the deal offered was concerned, but incompetent (Crystal worse than Inghams); no disasters, but a lot of hassle before going. Neilsons were fine.

For European trips, consider DIY. It seems to be cheaper, and the fewer people involved in the chain (you to hotel, you to airline/train/ferry), the better; all the extra ones can do is cock it up, and they do.

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

Airtours - used them once, desperately poor reps & poor chalet location description (30m from lift actually meant that the lift went over the top of the chalet!)

First Choice - always cr@p, but cheap & did give us an £80 refund last year for no reason what so ever

Inghams - used them 3 times, never had any hassle.

Thomson - should have used them at Xmas but had to cancel. Didn't have to argue too much to get a full refund. Quite amenable really.

Crystal - no personal experience but my Aunt & Uncle are having mega hassles with them at the minute.

Neilson - travelling with them for the first time on Saturday, so I'll let you know!

It is totally down to chance IMO, none of the major players are any better than the others. They only compete on price, not service. I only use TOs when I can get a cheaper deal with them than going DIY. Generally I find having as little to do with the rep as possible is the best way forward..........

snow reports

IME whatever the company horrors will happen. The real test is how they cope. This largely depends on the person in the resort and the level of authority they do (or don't) have.

Generally speaking, those in smaller companies tend to be on more direct terms with the owners, so if something happens they've no problem on ringing the top boss and getting it sorted.

But in larger companies, the people on the ground tend to have to go via the resort manager, who might have to go via a country manager, and so on: so decisions are slow and chinese whispers mean that the people who *can* make the decisions don't get the full story.

People we've used in the past who've been very good include Skivolution, Ski Olympic, Frontier Ski - all quite small outfits.

Equity was mentioned earlier - we use them as a club and they are very good to us (they should be considering they get at least £25,000 out of us each year), and individuals/families I've been with seem quite happy too. Some of the Italian resorts they go to are quite small, but you have the places to yourself during the week!

Inghams and Neilson both seem OK having used them a couple of times.

Ski world have always given us good service (apart from one rep who was a total dork). Knowledgeable staff, accurate brochure and good service.

Have just booked a late deal to Austria with Crystal. I have some totally irrational reservations about Crystal based on no facts at all,(apart from those I've seen here) so will let you know!

You know it makes sense.

I beleive it's more down to the attitude of the individual rep rather than the company.

I went to Saalbach with Panorama last year. Laura, the rep, was brilliant. Nothing was too much trouble. She spent large parts of her off duty playing with her passengers kids in the hotel bar to give the parents a relaxing time. I could not commend her enough.

By contrast, I went to courchevel 1650 when my OH had a bad injury. The rep was continually drunk, and couldn't care about beanie's ruptured ACL but insisted upon talking about the bar steward of an ex boyfriend who owed her 100 euros. I had to deal with all the medicals, flight arrangements for the trip home etc.. because she was unavailable. She confessed later in her drunken state that she'd been in her apartment drinking a bottle of vodka watching "Will and Grace" dvds. She was a waste of space, but was just finishing her 5th season in the resort.

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

Have just returned from St Anton having used Ski World, booked through Iglu. I can't say that Iglu gave us much info beforehand but we got there.
Once in the hands of Ski World they were great. The rep simply could not do enough for us and it's the first time I've had a rep who has willingly appeared twice a day at the chalet.
Would quite happily use them again.

A snowHead

Vary rarely use tour ops - but on the rare occasions we do then the best of the medium/large ones have been Ski Independence, and Frontier Ski. Rather suspect that looking after individual customers will be more of a priority with just about any of the small/specialist/owner operated ones, but from personal experience SkiVolution have always been good.

A snowHead

From personal experience the following are on my "never again" list....Thomson, Crystal, Skiworld....it's not what went wrong it's how they dealt with it that got them on the list! Things go wrong...that's a given....but rubbish responses when they do really gets up my nose!

First Choice will get one more chance....

Neilson were fab and all the smaller companies we've travelled with have been too, I think they have to try harder to keep their custom away from the mega operators.

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

Would not use Panorama ... we travelled with them to Andorra ... and had huge problems with accommodation (and the apres events were appallingly bad), and rep couldn't/wouldn't do anything to help. When I complained in writing got a letter thanking me for travelling with them, and enclosing their following seasons brochure !!!

They may be cheap ... but you get what you pay for !!

Crystal and Inghams have always worked out fine for us (although there are plenty of Crystal horror stories doing the rounds !!)

Haven't travelled with Neilsons .. but have only heard good things about them ... so would rank as

1. Inghams (and Neilson from what I have heard about them)
2. Crystal/Thomson
3. Panorama/Airtours
4. Last Choice

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

Inghams consistantly better than the others.

First Choice marginally cheapest.

Had disappointments or problems with everyone else.

Id rather privateer anyway, but need a cheap week (via aeroplane) early in Jan for friends/relations, and a package usually works out cheaper, so Inghams it always is.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Mark Warner are very good, Scott Dunn are even better. As was mentioned earlier on, they're both at the top end of the market when it comes to prices. Generally I will wait for their late deals, but I have payed full price on occassion. For the overall quality of the holiday experience the other TOs that I have used don't even come close, but I guess that you get what you pay for.

Otherwise I tend to use Skiworld, I always go last minute with them, and find them to be generally accpetable. I've had two really good holidays with them, one that was fine, and one that was not so great, but no real complaints. Obviously as they cost about 1/4 of the price of the others, the level of service that you get isn't always going to be the same.

You'll need to Register first of course.

I really rate Neilsens and found their resort staff at Kitzbuhel to be A1. I think generally speaking the industry puts them and Inghams at the top. Had a very good deal from Total last year and liked their laid-back style. Let's remember these people are often low-paid youngsters with little experience, doing their best. They are also subject to "mushroom management" like many of us (you know, kept in the dark and with poo-poo piled on them). I heard about some reps left with an impossible situation getting some clients back at night through a tunnel that wasn't open. It wasn't their idea!

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

Best one I've found is Ski Total (or is it Total Ski??)
Anyway sister company to Ski Esprit - who do families, but Ski Total is aimed more at people without kids.

Fantastic.... although as has been said in this post - down to the people and also didn't get to see how they cope in a crisis as nothing went wrong that really needed them to intervene...

Going with Thomson on Saturday - wish me luck!

After all it is free

[quote="Peter B"]

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

[quote="richmond"]

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

First Choice Reps are the worst I have experienced. Panorama were poor aswell.

Good experiences with Inghams and Thomson.

I agree with the poster who said that bad things will happen with all tour operators it's what is done about the problem that matters. For that reason, back in 98 one of our group fractured/chipped a vertabrae after an incident. I have to say the responsibility that Thomson took and they way they responded was par excellence.

snow reports

Skibeat and Snowline very good and we now travel with Skibeat every year. (Snowline is pretty expensive). Ski Peak also good. Not impressed with Family Ski company.

Crystal were Ok when we used them to go to Canada but we did not see the reps, had our own gear and nothing went wrong and the hotel looked after us very well.

Panarama were OK on our first trip to andorra but that was over ten years ago.

Definitley bettere to go with the smaller tour operators.

From my own & friends' experiences I think you get generally get better service from the small indies. Which is why I avoid the big players nowadays. Of the indies I've used:

Ski France: rabbit hutch chalet in VDI, with v dodgy hot water. Saw rep once I think.
Ski World: used several times, are okay, but no better. Accom of variable quality.
You get what you pay for, and they are cheap. Chalet staff seem alright, reps less reliable.
Momentum: tailor-made specialist, so no reps as such, but everything went okay.
Ski Miquel: pretty damn good. Comparatively small selection of destinations tho.

I wouldn't touch Airtours/MyTravel with a bargepole. Not sure I would risk First (Last?) Choice either. Inghams & Neilson ought to be better given their prices!

You know it makes sense.

Neilson have been excellent to us for most of the time.

Only one problem, and that was when they dumped us at the wrong block of apartments in La Plagne - and left, without waiting for us all to be checked in (this is not normally a problem of course)
Luckily the reception staff were extremely helpful and rang round the other apartments and eventually found where we were supposed to be, and gave us directions. It was about a 10min walk in a place we didnt know - so it took us about 20min with heavy luggage & Skis! Looking back on it though, it was pretty funny!

I talk to the reps for a bit every time, and apart from being a little bit desperate to make jokes, they all have seemed very happy with their jobs and sorted out any problems of queries promptly.

Don't bother going to any of their organised socials though! I am willing to bet I could organise more fun with a tin of paint and half a paint brush..

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

Ski Total are wonderful - in a different class to anyone else I have been with. Higher quality chalets, wonderful staff - haven't a single negative thing to say about them.
Ski World - Awful accomodation, useless chalet staff but helpful reps.
First Choice - not bad for a big company, but only because we had an excellent rep that went out of his way to look after us (a group of 20)
Silver Ski - Excellent - helpful, friendly staff, best ever food & comfy chalets.

I'm off to Tignes on Sunday with Ski Olympic - have never tried them before - reassured by all the above posts though!

A snowHead

Looking at it from the other end of the spectrum, the smaller companies are generally better as the bosses have more direct contact with the staff, and they have more to lose if a client is dissatisfied. The "big boys" don't seem to give a sh*t whether you return or not, and the staff can vary appallingly. I have absolutely no time for reps now as they all seem to be solely interested in getting as drunk as possible as often as possible, and to hell with the poor customers!

All reps and chalet staff are badly paid and get all the gyp when things go wrong - the bosses never hear about it I don't think.

Today a TOPS rep told my clients that La Grave was closed (see snow reports), so they missed the trip. Suppose they never get another chance for the rest of their lives???? Thoughts unprintable. Twisted Evil

A snowHead

I've used Inghams, First Choice, Crystal and Thompson in the past. They all have their idiosyncracies.

Inghams have the merit of offering more destinations than most other operators.

However, I found this to be of doubtful benefit when they subsequently sent me a letter telling me that they weren't going to take us to the place we wanted to go, because not enough people had booked that destination with them.

Since that was my second bad experience with Inghams (the previous time, they arranged a resort-to-resort transfer to fit in with their airport collection schedule: so instead of a painless 2hr transfer, they got us up a 5 am for a 4 hour trip to the airport, a 2 hour wait at the airport, and a 2 hour trip to our ultimate destination), I've since decided enough is enough, and will NEVER use them again.

First Choice I've never found to be as bad as other people make out. The only glitch I've experienced was not getting tickets sent to me (I telephoned and they sent them next day by express mail). I've also had a couple of pretty good deals with them, either in the form of early-booking discounts, or on another occasion, a free pair of skis for mrs A.

Last year I went with Thompson, and - unaware that they and Crystal were the same thing - spent half an hour wandering round the airport arrivals lounge, while the Thompson rep (disguised in Crystal kit) wandered round looking for me. Apart from that, no problems.

This year (next week) we're going with Ski Independence: so far so good. In fact I've been very impressed with their service to date. We'll see.......

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

Most recent package deals were with Inghams and I was happy with all except transfer reps who cannot communicate with the coach driver. Also had good experiences with Nielsons and Crystal. Best ever (but a long time ago) was Ski Peak to Vaujany.

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

In my experience all the big TOs (Inghams, Neilson, First Choice, Crystal etc.) are rubbish, and this is probably because they don't have a tough enough recruitment and selection policy - it seems that they'll take on any drunken layabout as a rep just because they can ski a bit. Of course that doesn't mean that all their reps are like that, and in fact I have had some good ones, but I've also had some truly attrocious ones - an Inghams resort manager in Soldeu a couple of years ago springs to mind, and was the most unprofessional, rude, incompetent, sexist, drunken idiot I've ever come across on a ski holiday.

I'll now only ever go with smaller indie operators, and have had no bad experiences with Ski World, Total Ski or Le Ski. I've also heard very good things about Ski Olympic and Ski Miquel. In fact Le Ski are quite superb - all their resort staff, both ski guides and chalet hosts, seem incredibly professional and mature, and you can tell that the company is rigorous in its selection procedure, only recruiting the best. It really does make a difference to your holiday.

The only exception I'll make to the "all big TOs are crap" mantra is Club Med. They are absolutely superb. Despite their being French (or maybe becasue of it) customer service is integral to everything they do, from the resort managers down to the waiters. I reckon that this is because their staff are professional service industry personnel, and not just youngsters wanting to get drunk in the mountains for a couple of years before going to work in the city. I've been with them a couple of times now and will definitely be going again (they are also exceptionally good value).

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

IMHO any tour op, or indeed, anyone you are paying for a service, can screw things up. The smaller ones tend to be better, 'cos they have fewer systems, people etc.

On the other hand, it's quite fun, when the 20 yr old rep/chalet person says 'How long have you been coming to Tignes (or wherever) ?', and you reply '20 years'....maybe I'm getting old. Laughing

You'll need to Register first of course.

I've been with Ski miquel, and should have gone with Ski Olympic a couple of weeks ago - we had to cancel due to illness. Can recommedn either of them, with the proviso that ski miquel are reluctant to (read "won't") book more than 6 people from Manchester for Baqueira Beret - maybe for other destinations too, but that's where we had problems. They only told us once we'd paid deposits for 8 people, so Mrs NBT and I had to arrange our own flights. Luckily we were able to do so with little hassle and it arrived close enough that we could use the same transfer

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

After all it is free

I recommend the Princesa Parc in Arinsal with panorama- they were ace when we went with them the first time- and the hotel is amazing!

Went with Ski Olympic in February and couldn't fault them for the price, very good. Also can recommend Ski Total/Esprit, wouldn't recommend Esprit if you are travelling without kids, but their "no kids" company is Total, also Mark Warner are to be recommended, go on a late deal if you can though as they are expensive!

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

ski,

Help!!

Tour operators who is good who isn't

snowHeads Forum Index >>> The Piste