London Luton Airport is offering a selection of flights this winter for the benefit of all ski lovers out there. Working closely with its airline partners there are flights to a multitude of skiing gateways serving literally hundreds of resorts and thousands of kilometres of piste, including the hair-raising ‘Men’s Olympic downhill’ in Val d’Isere and the infamous black runs in Chamonix.

Flights to the following ski destination airports are now available to book from the respective airline websites:

Geneva, Grenoble, Turin – easyJet
Gerona – Ryanair
Sofia – Wizz Air
Salzburg – Thomson Flights

Simon Harley, the Airport’s Business Development Manager commented:
‘There are a number of ski destinations available between November and March from London Luton Airport, providing passengers with an extensive choice of winter sports holiday options at convenient flight times. Our commitment is to offer more choice to our passengers and with a varied selection of ski packages, we aim to cater to the snow sports enthusiast.’

In the winter there there are two options for train travel to the Austrian Alps. Firstly get on a Eurostar from London St Pancras to Paris, then you can take either a day train to Austria usually via Munich to Innsbruck. You can leave in the morning and arrive in resort in the evening after a relaxing day on the train. Some day services may require you to spend a night in a German / Swiss city, it may be worth considering the night train below, unless you fancy a night in a city.

However perhaps the most stressfree option is to get an overnight train to Austria from Paris.  Leave St Pancras on the Eurostar about 4pm in the evening and get on an overnighter from Paris that will deposit you in the Austrian mountains the following morning. There are usually two options for an overnight train, seats and couchettes. Unless you’re on a really strict budget then couchettes are a must, you get a bed and hopefully a good nights sleep in that case. In the Winter there is a direct overnight train from Paris to Innsbruck, stopping at Munich and this is perhaps the easiest way to travel to any of the following ski areas. The overnight train will also enable you to get an extra two days skiing by skiing the day you arrive and skiing the day you leave giving you up to 8 days skiing.

Below is a quick list of the main ski resorts in Austria and the train station you need to alight at. Visit Rail Europe to check the actual journey that you need to take on your required dates.

Ski resorts in Austria and their nearest train station if train travel is an option.

Innsbruck train station – for the Stubai Glacier and other areas

Get off at Woergl for Ski Welt areas Soll, Ellmau, Westendorf, Brixen im Thale,  Scheffau, Going, Hopfgarten and Alpbach.

Change at Woergl for Zell am See train station, Saalbach (alight at Zell am See, then taxi), Kitzbuhel train station (although a taxi will only take half an hour if the connections don’t work).

Seefield in Tirol has it’s own train station

St Anton train station (St Anton am Arlberg) – changing at Innsbruck usually

Lech – alight at St Anton Am Arlberg train station, take a 30 minute taxi or the free resort buses

Bad Hofgastein – change at Munich and alight at Bad Hofgastein train station

Schladming train station – change at Munich usually

There will be twice weekly departures from London, one day ski train leaving on a Saturday morning and the overnight ski train leaving on Friday evenings. The overnight Eurostar ski train service arriving around 7am in the morning will give you 8 days on the piste, just make sure that you can check in at your accommodation early or leave your baggage somewhere in resort.

The snow train that Rail Europe used to run / sell several years ago is still not available -see here http://ski-concierge.com/blog/snow-train-cancelled-this-season/. The Snow Train was the overnight sleeper (with couchettes) from Paris that was on the same route as the Eurostar ski train, stopping at Moutiers and Bourg St Maurice. This does mean that unless you are happy to book the French TGV from Paris independently (in my opinion the best method of travel – more in later posts), the Eurostar ski train is the only option for travelling to French ski resorts by train.

Resort Destinations with the Eurostar Ski Train:

Get off the ski train at Moutiers for the following ski resorts (transfer times in brackets).

Courchevel (30 minutes), Les Menuires (40 mins), Meribel (20 mins), Valmorel (40 mins) and Val Thorens (35 mins).

Get off the ski train at Aime La Plagne for La Plagne ski resort (30 minutes). Note the Eurostar train does not stop at Aime La Plagne train station on the way back, you will need to get to Bourg St Maurice by your own means.

Get off the ski train at Bourg St Maurice for the following ski resorts:

Les Arcs (35 minutes), La Rosiere (40 mins), Tignes (25 mins) Val d’Isere (25 mins).

Les Arcs provides perhaps the easiest transfer with a short funicular ride from Bourg St Maurice station up to Les Arcs 1600. All other resorts are accessible via public transport links, or taxi.

Eurostar ski train tickets go on sale now from £149 return, it really does offer a valid alternative to flying.

You can book your Eurostar Ski train tickets at www.eurostar.com.

Accorhotels has a fantastic promotion starting now. Up to 50% off 2 000 hotels across Europe! 10-day supersale, don’t miss it! Personally I always use Accor Hotels when en route to ski trips. There are Accor hotels all over Europe and plenty on all the main driving routes to ski resorts.

There are different levels of hotels as follows:

Formula 1 – basic triple room, no ensuite bathroom (though plentiful extremely clean facilities seconds from the rooms) TIP: Great for those very quick over night stops where you just put your head down for a few hours, tend to be just off the motorways. Price around 25 – 35euros a night

Etap – basic triple room with an ensuite bathroom TIP: Great for slightly longer overnight stops, mix of motorway and more central options. Price around 35 – 50 euros a night.

Ibis – comfort double room (or twin) with ensuite bathroom. TIP: Tend to be more central, so if you want a look around try this option! Around 50euros + a night.

There’s also the Novotel, and Mercure hotel chains, which again offer an even more luxurious stay. These cost more than 50 euros a night.

Unfortunately it’s not that clear on the site how you get the discount, the website suggest the discounts are automatically applied but Accor suggest you need to add the code “SUPERS” at the beginning of the purchase process, I think this would go in the Preferential Code box as shown.

Offer details

Booking dates: from 13th to 22nd March 2010
Staying period: from 22nd March until 2nd May, 2010
Destinations: around 2 000 hotels in Europe (All Accor hotels brands, except Sofitel)

Visit Accorhotels.com and book now!
p.s. I’d just like to say typically I booked my next lot of Accor Hotels for skiing in a couple of weeks on Friday a day before the sale was launched! Why does that always happen!

In the Eurostar Bar

As Lastminute.com put it it’s “One day, one train, one hell of a good time with Eurostar straight to the Alps”.  Basically you head to St Pancras after work on Friday evening (assuming you work near London) to get on the overnight Eurostar to Bourg St Maurice (leaves at 20:31).Remember that the seats on the Eurostar are the normal upright seats, there’s a bar on the train to ease you to sleep though! You’ll arrive in Bourg St Maurice at 06:30 on Saturday morning.

On our trip we then took the funicular straight from Bourg St Maurice station to Arc 1600, this is perhaps the easiest resort to get to, but you could also try Val d’Isere or Tignes or alight earlier at Moutiers and pay a visit to the Three Valleys. The funicular is included in your Les Arcs day lift pass which you can buy online in advance here for 41.50euros, they’ll post it to you so you don’t need to worry about sorting it out when you arrive.

When you get to Arc 1600, turn right out of the funicular station, there is a pub that opens for breakfast and can store your bags for a day for a small fee. There is also a ski hire shop next door to there, Sport 2000 I think, so you can sort everything you’ll need easily when you get up to Arc 1600.

Then you’re just left to ski the whole day. Les Arcs is a great ski area, you can find out more about Les Arcs on our resort review. The day we were there was the most glorious January day with clear blue skies. We had lunch back down at Arc 1600 and then skiied until last lifts in the afternoon. Obviously skiing only one day the you’re at the mercy of the weather even more than usual, and all you can do is hope you get lucky!

Restaurant La Tartiflette, Bourg St Maurice

You then have time for a few drinks back at Arc 1600 to relive your day and then head back down on the funicular to Bourg St Maurice. The train leaves at 22:15 giving you time for dinner in Bourg. Don’t go anywhere other than restaurant La Tartiflette on Avenue de la Gare opposite the station, it’s really the best restaurant in Bourg and is usually rammed which is a good sign.

After another night on the Eurostar you’ll arrive into St Pancras at 07:12 on Sunday morning, giving you a bit of time for some R&R before going back to work on Monday with that sense of elation after having really maximised your weekend!

Lastminute.com are running this trip and they currently have availability on Friday 5th March and Friday 19th March. And best of all it only costs £129 per person! Go on give it a go, you only live once!

Flyng is often thought of as being the only option for a ski weekend, but in reality most cheap airlines fly to the airports that are a longer transfer time to many French Alpine resorts (i.e. Lyon or Geneva), the transfer time can often be as much as 5 hours. So this time we decided to give the train a go for our ski weekend.

We arrived at St Pancras on Wednesday night and caught the 17:55 Eurostar to Paris. With the usual Eurostar efficiency we arrived in Paris at 21:20 local time. Originally we had planned to then catch the overnight train to Bourg St Maurice which would be a really good option as all you would need to do is get the Metro or taxi to Gare d’Austerlitz and then get the overnighter at around 11pm. This would get you into resort around 8am in the morning in time for your day’s skiing.

On the local train from Chambery to Aime

However we decided to stay in Paris for the evening and catch the morning fast train. We stayed at Hotel de France in Paris which was about 5 minutes walk to Gare du Lyon. This was a basic hotel, but clean and good value. We got the train from Gare du Lyon at 6.5oam, this took us to Chambery in about 3 hours. We then took a local train to Aime La Plagne. With a pre-arranged taxi to take us up the mountain we were in La Plagne centre by 12.30.

The total cost of the train journey was less than £150 return. We stayed in the UCPA in La Plagne centre and before we knew it we’d checked in, picked up our skis and were on the piste. This was helped by the fact that the UCPA is literally on the piste in La Plagne centre. The UCPA deal is all inclusive so you don’t have to run around when you get into resort picking up lift passes and skis. The lift pass is given to you when you check in and the skis can be picked up downstairs. The total cost for 3 nights stay, 4 days skiing was £250, including all meals, lift pass and ski / snowboard hire, you really couldn’t find cheaper than that! More about the UCPA in later posts.

Photo’s © Arthur Bullard

P&O Ferries are offering 100,000 tickets to France from just £20. Customers must book by Tuesday 2nd February and will be able to travel up to 31st December 2010. This offer is valid for car bookings only. Visit the P&O website to book, no doubt they’ll go fast!

Eurolines are yet again offering all customers a 10% discount on all ski travel bookings. The discount is valid on bookings made from now until 9th April 2010, for travel up to 9th April 2010 (excluding travel between 12th Feb 2010 to 19th Feb 2010).

Get 10% off single or return journeys from London to…….

Cluses
Chamonix
Moutiers
Aime
Bourg-St-Maurice
Tignes-Le Lac
Tignes-Val Claret

Visit the Eurolines website and enter code: SKITEN

And a mere six hours after leaving home he was sitting at the top of the 1655 chair lift looking out on this view of the Dome de Miage and Aig. de tre-la-tete Mountains leading towards Mont Blanc.

For more details of the Fly Baboo route from London Oxford airport to Geneva just go to the Fly Baboo website.

If you have any tips or photos that you’d like to share then just email them to me at em@ski-concierge.com

Their latest statement reads: ‘ONLY CUSTOMERS WHO HOLD A TICKET THAT WAS ORIGINALLY FOR TRAVEL ON SATURDAY 19 OR SUNDAY 20 DECEMBER WILL BE ELIGIBLE FOR TRAVEL ON TUESDAY 22 DECEMBER. Seats will not be bookable in advance.

Customers holding tickets for Monday 21 and Tuesday 22 December will be eligible for travel on Wednesday 23 December. Customers holding tickets for Wednesday 23 or Thursday 24 December will be eligible for travel on Thursday 24 December.’