With the pound riding high against a basket of ski currencies, and the number of parts of your ski holiday you can purchase in advance, the question facing many budget-conscious skiers and boarders these days is should you wait for winter, to see if the pound gets stronger still and buys you even more, or cash in now ?
Of course if you are booking with a tour operator, you may just tick the boxes to add your lift pass, rentals and tuition to your package where offered, but if travelling independently, or even if on a package but wanting to buy the extras separately, you have the choice of just when to tap in your card details and click “Buy”.
In many cases your tour operator will have negotiated preferential rates months ago, but as currency rates fluctuate and resorts and in-resort retailers post deals and special offers for those who buy direct on their websites and social media channels, it can be worth shopping around for deals on lift passes, rentals and sometimes even ski school if you have the time, patience and nerve.
At the time of writing, the pound was up more than 5% against the Canadian dollar and a whopping 14% against the euro as well as being up against the Norwegian krone and many other ski nation currencies. Only the Swiss franc and the US dollar were outperforming us, with the pound worth 8.5% less than it was in summer 2014 against the American currency.
The truth is, though, that no one really knows if the pound will be stronger or weaker than it is now, come Christmas. Even though indicators may suggest it getting better, or worse, the truth is that chaos theory overrides all, so who knows ?
But the consensus from the travel agency seems to be “buy now”. You may think, “they would say that!” … but there’s some reasonable reasoning besides the desire for sales.
“I would say that the most important aspect of booking your ski holiday is knowing what your cost is going to be, so we always recommend booking in advance so that you are able to budget,” said Jane Bolton, MD of tour operator Erna Low. “We are looking to introduce early-booking discounts for ski hire, making it even more inviting to book early, and some of the resorts we work with also have good early-booking discounts for ski passes (La Rosière and Chamonix for example), so we are all for booking early.”
“I’d suggest skiers and boarders look out for some of the early-book offers available through specialist ski tour operators, as more often than not these will surpass any benefit one might get by waiting and booking direct,” agrees Craig Burton, MD of specialist ski travel agency Ski Solutions.
“For example, we had buy-one-get-one-free lift passes in many European resorts if you’d booked back before 31 July, and you will only get these by booking in advance (usually just with a low deposit upfront), and savings are far more significant than anything you would find nearer the time.”
“No one really knows where the euro is going. It could be weaker or it could be stronger by the time winter comes around. So I’d let the tour operators worry about currency movements and bag a deal now!” concludes Craig.
