 Poster: A snowHead
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Went off today to book something for Chrimbo, starting around 20,21 December. I hate paying to go somewhere there is poor snow, so we thought Val Thorens should negate that problem. T/O price was just shy of 4k for 4 of us from 22nd December until 2nd January. I always work on the basis that there is room to negotiate (my wife hates that in Tesco,) so I offered them a stupidly low amount to see if they would come down. Flights, transfers, SC accommodation and ski passes....... I told them I would pay £1800.00 now for the package, hoping they might drop to 3k. They agreed to £1800....... 
I was a bit alarmed, as it is always good to get your first offer laughed out of the game. I should have started lower.
Anyway - how much must they be making of the mugs who pay the asking price if they can come down by just over 50%
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Christmas week and New Year week for £450pp? Can I come?
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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You know when something just sounds wrong, it normally is.
I hope it all works out OK for you, but I would be cautious and check the paperwork "very" carefully.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| Thornyhill wrote: |
| I told them I would pay £1800.00 now for the package, hoping they might drop to 3k. They agreed to £1800....... |
Great, £1800 now, the remaining £2200 8 weeks before departure as per Ts & Cs
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Thornyhill, My immediate reaction based upon what you wrote is exactly the same as nbt, . Depends what was actually said by the way. However if you said what you have written it is easily interpreted as you want to pay an £1800 deposit now. If that isnt what they understood .. well done!
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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Thornyhill, I'd check your invoice very carefully.
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YGWYPF
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LTBB
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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TGTBT
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Bode Swiller, CHIP
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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WTFDATAM?
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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If it is a straight up deal and not a mistake or misunderstanding I'd be concerned about longer term solvency of the TO if they are so desperate for short term cashflow that they'd give away a peak fortnight.
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Boredsurfing, ah you got me there.
boardiac, WIOFY
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You know it makes sense.
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DLAGHITM?
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Poster: A snowHead
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Boredsurfing, Oh no, not again.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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That is a lot of a discount - around 55%.
The margins are around 8% on lift passes, 10% on ski hire (AKA ski packs) and perhaps 10-15% on hotels but again this has become more competitive with the Interweb.
The bigger margins are on Chalets and Club Hotels, less on appartments like ClubMed and Maeva (again around 15% in the later case).
Flights and Transfers also have bigger margins, but not as good as they once were as there is a lot of competition in this area. It maybe costs 35 quid to fly someone to the mountians and a fiver to transfer them and this will be priced to the guest at double that figure or more. I remember a five quid transfer would be sold for 25 quid at the airport, a nice little earner.
In general it is a fairly low profit margin business and they only generally offer big discounts to fill up flights, chalets, hotels where they have to pay whether empty or full. TOs may even offer holidays at below cost in these circumstances with the idea of upselling later. In general it is the early birds who subsidise the late chancers.
I can't see any motivation for offering 55% in June though... maybe they need some cash flow for certain contracts ? Without knowing more - type of holiday, accomodation etc I would share Fatbob's views.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| davidof wrote: |
| It maybe costs 35 quid to fly someone to the mountians and a fiver to transfer them |
No it doesn't. Nothing like that - it's MUCH more
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| Wayne wrote: |
| davidof wrote: |
| It maybe costs 35 quid to fly someone to the mountians and a fiver to transfer them |
No it doesn't. Nothing like that - it's MUCH more |
nah.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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davidof, Not your specialist subject this is it
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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| Quote: |
In general it is a fairly low profit margin business
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And worse by crikey... The boss of one of the big four TOs openly told me that they'd lost £1m on ski holidays last season. Making a loss though is seen as being better than not operating the program at all as that would cost more (HQ overhead, own aircraft etc). Income from in-resort sales no longer covers rep costs. Basically Costa Del Bucket 'n Spade customers subsidise skiers... and so they bl**dy well should.
20 week season and only 4 or 5 sell-out weeks at full margin. So, in the case of a smaller ski only operator, it might mean a year-round overhead basically supported by just 1/12 of the year.
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| Bode Swiller wrote: |
| The boss of one of the big four TOs openly told me that they'd lost £1m on ski holidays last season. |
I think the way forward to protect the (extremely hard working) TO industry would be to lobby your local MP to introduce a new tax on DIY’er’s sandwiches and gaffer tape.
In the same manner as Car Tax is now governed by the sized of the engine, the curlier the corners of the butties or the more tape is applied to any well-past-their-reasonable-use-date, the more tax is levied. The income generated would be distributed in a brown paper bags (like an MP’s claim form) to anyone holding an ATOL.
Problem solved.
Of course this would mean the introduction of a curly-o-meter as each entry point that DIY'er use to sneak into the country concerned. Am sure My Dyson could come up with something.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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davidof,
I'll take 3,000 seat off you for 2012 then @ £25 pp for flights to Verona/Milan/Venice
Oh and the same number of coach seats @£5
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Bode Swiller, or are the big TO's simply losing revenue because the punter is more savvy these days?
Back in the day when Goldsmith was teaching snowsports and I used a TO
everything was bought off the page in the brochure from ski hire through to insurance. Nowadays more than ever people have their own ski's and an annual travel insurance policy.
The margins on all those extras, (especially the insurance), not sold direct probably equate to more than the £million loss.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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As the guys at the top said, if it looks like it is too good to be true......... So I did a load more checking. I can do a self build trip for the same apartment block, same dates, bit of a drive for £1300 plus ski passes. I can't get a price for the passes but I am guessing that I won't get 11 days for four of us for anything like 500 quid. T/O price didn't include skis/boots, but as we all have our own boots the skis shouldn't hurt too much. As agreed with T/O we paid £1795 in cash and £5.00 using a credit card (with 3% surcharge). Now if the T/O goes bust the card company have liability, but I still get the feeling that we might be sleeping in one of these
http://www.extremeartofsports.com/Our%20Camp/4_bud_tent_in_snow.JPG
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| Thornyhill wrote: |
| As agreed with T/O we paid £1795 in cash and £5.00 using a credit card (with 3% surcharge). Now if the T/O goes bust the card company have liability, |
Does that actually work I thought credit card companies were only liable for such things if a majority of the cost was paid for on the credit card?
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You know it makes sense.
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stevew, I thought so too.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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I thought the amount had to be over £100 -
although years ago I had a flight booked back from Ireland for my daughter with some airline whose name escapes me now, but which went bust - and ticket was somewhere around £60 so I thought I would have lost my money - but after some time I did get recompensed by the credit card company.
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Poster: A snowHead
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number 4 on the £100 limit there - and I was under the impression that they are only liable for the part of the bill you pay on the card, so if you pay £100 of a £4000 bill, you only get £100 back. Might well be wrong, if so then happy to find out
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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If am not a lawyer but based on the what we do in taking deposits and other payments for ski holidays this is my understanding – which may be total rubbish or not
If you pay for goods and or services using a credit card this transaction is covered by Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act. If you have a claim against the supplier of the good and/or services will normally have an equal claim against your card issuer. It would be normal to pursue a claim against your card issuer if, for example, the supplier has gone out of business.
For Section 75 to apply the price paid (on the credit card) must be more than £100 and less than £30,000. Oh and debit cards or any other card that you are required to pay the full amount in full each month, are not covered by Section 75, nor are Credit Card Cheques (as these can be made out to someone not appointed by the credit card company and so the card company has no liability for this type of payment.
Many card companies will inform their customers that they must first get a court order or judgment before you may claim a refund from then. This is not true.
As bit more on topic (for a ski forum)
Flights – if you buy a ticket from a travel agent you are NOT covered as the travel agent is only contract (by you) to supply a ticket, not the flight itself and you have not made the credit card payment to the airline. But, if you pay for the travel agent’s own package (which includes flights) then you are covered.
If you pay for a flight directly to the airline you are covered by Section 75, assuming that you’re flight cost is more than £100 – that is the total cost, so anyone booking a RyanAir ticket for £2.50 and then paying the extras that bring the total up to £100.01 is still covered.
Section 75 on its own does NOT give you grounds to claim against a company or TO. For Section 75 to be applicable there MUST be grounds for a claim against your supplier (sale of goods act, theft, misrepresentation) and, in this case you would have a claim again BOTH the supplier AND the credit card company (whatever they tell you) for the FULL amount of the claim. This means that you can claim for the FULL amount (of the claim) against BOTH the supplier and the credit card company. So if you are claiming for (for example) damages, consequential losses, etc against a supplier then you can also claim for the same/equal amount (of damages, losses, etc) against the card company. They won’t like me telling you this BTW. Credit card companies will often tell you that you can‘t claim the same amount from 2 people (eg. them and the supplier), this is not correct, of course you can “claim” but you can only receive payment (recovery) from one. Stick em both in court and let the judge decide.
OK then – right back on topic. Did you pay, using a UK issued credit card to a foreign company or person. If it all goes pear shaped, then you MAY be able to claim depending on which card you used. Some cards companies allow claims of this type and some don’t. A number of banks are in court at the moment trying to get a judge to decide this issue. Not a clue if they will win or the office of fair trading. We’ll have to wait and see who’ll win.
so Thornyhill it all depends on who you paid, where they are based and what you used to pay with.
Hope this helps
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| Thornyhill wrote: |
| I can do a self build trip for the same apartment block, same dates, bit of a drive for £1300 plus ski passes. |
The TO must be having a giraffe then. If you take one of the big TOs it would be hard to do a DIY for anything like that much under the brochure price. Who did you book with?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Wayne is fairly much spot on with the exception of the £100.00 bit. If I book a self build and pay at least £100.00 for any part of the holiday then I am covered for consequential loss subsequent to a failure to provide service for any part of the holiday, regardless of the cost of that portion. However, if I paid a fiver I would only be covered for costs of that portion of the holiday and consequential loss wouldn't be covered (It isn't technically a fiver..... if you pay anything using a CC then you are covered for that portion, but most companies will only accept a fiver as a minimum payment.) But.... if I pay any portion of a contract to provide service to a TO, then the entire holiday becomes a single portion, so the CC company are liable for the entire amount if the TO goes bust. In my case the TO is based in Dublin, but they have an office in Belfast and pay company tax to the UK revenue, so as far as the CC company are concerned, they are a UK company and I am completely covered if they go tits up. In Wayne's defence, if I did a Ryanair self build with flights for a quid, and paid the quid using a CC, I would only be covered for the quid if they decided to cancel and the rest would be lost.
Davidof - I think a big part of it comes from being a Wednesday to Sunday (week) thing. Based on a standard Saturday changeover in VT they are looking at booking for three weeks, plus non standard transfers and flights, leading to the extortionate initial price. As Chrimbo and New Year fall on Saturday this year they are going to struggle to get Saturday changeovers, and my self build did include a drive from Paris instead of a bus from Chambery, so there is probably justification for the initial price, but if you get a savvy person in the TO who can fit a few non Saturday changeovers together and negate the days they would normally lose in these circumstance, then I can probably understand why they dropped the price so much. I don't think they would entertain it any other year, but who really wants to leave or arrive on Christmas day????
p.s. As a financial advisor I spend about 50% of my time guiding clients through inheritance tax planning and 1% advising on consumer credit issues, but strangely, about 1% of training is about IHT and 50% about the consumer credit act. I hope I haven't got the wrong end of the stick with the fiver thing, 'cos if I have there are a lot more training courses on the horizon
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| Thornyhill wrote: |
| Wayne is fairly much spot on with the exception of the £100.00 bit. |
| Thornyhill wrote: |
| I hope I haven't got the wrong end of the stick with the fiver thing, 'cos if I have there are a lot more training courses on the horizon |
See OFT guidlines regarding CCA, s75 (£100 - £30,000)
http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/business_leaflets/consumer_credit/oft303.pdf
1st page bottom right para.
The specific point to note is that the £100-£30k comes into effect when the supplier is not credit granter.
So if I lend you £5 to to book one of our holidays then you are covered but if a credit card company lends you £5 then you're not.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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| Thornyhill wrote: |
| Wayne is fairly much spot on with the exception of the £100.00 bit. |
| Thornyhill wrote: |
| I hope I haven't got the wrong end of the stick with the fiver thing, 'cos if I have there are a lot more training courses on the horizon |
See OFT guidlines regarding CCA, s75 (£100 - £30,000)
http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/business_leaflets/consumer_credit/oft303.pdf
1st page bottom right para.
The specific point to note is that the £100-£30k comes into effect when the supplier is not credit granter.
So if I lend you £5 to to book one of our holidays then you are covered but if a credit card company lends you £5 then you're not, but you would be if it was more than £100.
Either way - I still think that the drop in price that Thornyhill mentioned just seems a little strange. I hope it's all as they think it is but I would read the T&C's and wording of the reciept, invoice, etc very carefully
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to be fair he hasn't told us yet whether he's sleeping in a broom cupboard
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| Boredsurfing wrote: |
Bode Swiller, or are the big TO's simply losing revenue because the punter is more savvy these days?
Back in the day when Goldsmith was teaching snowsports and I used a TO
everything was bought off the page in the brochure from ski hire through to insurance. Nowadays more than ever people have their own ski's and an annual travel insurance policy.
The margins on all those extras, (especially the insurance), not sold direct probably equate to more than the £million loss. |
Personally I see that as the fault of the operator for not moving with the times.
It is also because they don't do a decent job of selling the in-resort options, nights out, activities after skiing, you name it, the options are endless and often they have great activities out there but their people have no idea how to promote such a thing.
When we went away in January we virtually had to pester them to take our money on the way to resort, and nobody after that even bothered to come and see us - no wonder we didn't sign up for any of the high margin extras...
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Thornyhill,
I don't think many people mentioned TO's going to the wall as a serious possibility. The point that most people were making was that you should read the T&C's carefully. It always seems strange to me that people will enter into a binding contract, sometimes for many thousands of pounds, without actually reading the contract. The one thing you can guarantee is that, even if you have not read the T&C's, the TO will have.
| Thornyhill wrote: |
| Wayne - the £1795 was a deposit - the fiver was a final payment, paid in a separate (a day later, I'm not that daft) transaction, which I believe would be considered technically to be loaned to me by the TO, so the TO (supplier) becomes the credit granter........ sorted........ I hope. |
I think you have this back to front - you don't want the supplier to the be the credit granter as this will mean you are not covered by Section 75 even if you paid them a zillion pounds. But it doesn't matter anyway as long as the UK registered TO has a valid ATOL then you're covered for all payments regardless of how they ere made. So relax.
If the holiday you have booked is operated by a section of the Crystal Ski group of TOs I honestly think everything will be OK. Well done for getting such a big discount. Oh and yes there are some right ****'s on this forum but thats the nature of the interwebnet, .
PS - I will be working in our Belfast office on Thursday and down in the Mournes all this weekend so can you arrange for sunshine over there in your neck of the woods  Last time I was on the Donard wall it just pi**ed down all day, so, can I have some sun this weekend please.
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FAQ
and the 'model' is different for each and every one.
