J2Ski group holiday to Tignes January 13th 2013

OldAndy wrote:I do think that this thread is wandering off topic.....
:roll:

Sorry Andy, I will endeavour to bring it back on course :lol:

Actually, though, I think it's nice that people like Bandit and Ian W can post helpful comments on this thread even though they're not coming with us. I mean, they both know a great deal about airports, for example (far more than me!).

To recap - I began by doing an update on the cost of flights from London to Geneva, so that people could get an idea of the current total cost of this holiday.

The EasyJet flights from Gatwick (timed to fit in with the chalet transfer) have gone up by about £15 as compared with the price last time I looked, which is why I looked at the Luton flights and discovered they were much cheaper.

I also looked at the cost of flights to Geneva with Swiss timed to suit this holiday, from Heathrow and London city. There's a flight with Swiss departing at 08-55 from Heathrow and arriving at Geneva at 11-35, and coming back it departs from Geneva a 11-55 and arrives back in London City at 12-35. The total cost of the return flight is £141, which is more than the EasyJet flights but it does include carriage of snowsports equipment as well as the usual luggage.

For the final bit of today's pricing information on this holiday, I also looked at ski lift pass prices purchased using the Tignes loyalty card.

The card costs 10 euros to buy and enables adults to obtain a 5% discount, and teenagers and children a 10% discount on the Espace Killy lift pass. As an adult, if you go on more than one holiday to the Tignes area it's definitely worth it, but otherwise not. However, for children and teenagers I'd say it's worth purchasing even just for one holiday (you can buy it at the same time as the lift pass). For a teenager (aged 14 to 17 inclusive) the normal Espace Killy 6 day lift pass costs 235 euros, but only 211-50 with the pass, which makes a saving of 13.5 euros after allowing 10 euros for the cost of the card.

And for families as far as I know they are still allowing the family discount whereby for 2 adults and 2 children in the same family the second child gets their lift pass half price.

Seniors (aged 65 and over) get a reduced lift pass price, but I think they have to produce proof of age (like a passport) when they purchase the lift pass so presumably this has to be done in resort. Anyway, the price for seniors is 188 euros (reduced from 235) for the 6 day Espace Killy lift pass.

As someone who has regular experience of the airports, both dropping off and using them myself, I have no idea why bandit would suggest Luton is horrible. It's a reasonably small organised airport. However it does suffer more than most in bad weather, particularly cold weather and fog. Be warned. Getting to the terminal from the roads can also be very annoying early in the morning. But personally I'd fly from Luton over gatwick.

Having said that, gatwick has been refurbed and is actually now a reasonably pleasant experience to fly out of. Unfortunately there's a hell of a lot of walking to do when you land back in the uk. It takes longer to get out from landing at gatwick than any other uk airport, fact.

Heathrow works like clockwork and can handle the bad weather better than most airports. You also get national airlines which means higher quality service, better aircraft usually, food, allocated seats, and a distinct lack of delays in comparison due to the fees thy pay. t5 with BA is a good experience but Swiss are a great airline to fly with.

Stansted would be a good choice, very easy to get to and organised and efficient. Coming back in can sometimes be slow as they tend to under staff passport control. I believe a few airlines fly out of stansted for ski airports including a lot of charters - Thomson, Austrian, to name a couple.

From the midlands you've got 2 brilliant airports. East Mids near derby is brilliant, tiny with no crowds, and Birmingham which is just off the m42 and is another that operats very well. Swiss fly out of here.

Don't discount London city either, superbly efficient and fast from landing to getting in the car: usually 20 mins max. BA and Swiss use this airport.

Manchester and Leeds have regular ski flights with jet2.com and other charters and some major airines from Manchester. Leeds tends to suffer badly in poor weather and never expect a smooth landing as its windy as hell. Manchester is like a chilled out Heathrow and I enjoyed flying from here several times.



I hope this info is useful.

Thanks Tony for that very useful information on airports :D

Over the years, I've found that Jobsworth staff at Luton take the Genre to a whole new dimesion. Add in the access issues, overpriced parking, the penny pinching like the charge to drop folks off, the lack of seating in the check in area and the dirty facilities, and I'd much rather go from LHR or Gatwick.

Thanks Bandit, for explaining why you don't think much of Luton airport :D

The offical Tignes tourist board website, Tignes.com now has the page up explaining about the family discount lift passes for the coming season. It's horribly complicated, but apart from the discounts for other family configurations it does say that for a family with 2 adults and 2 children or teens the youngest member gets a half price lift pass (paying only 94 euros for a child for 6 days, or 117.5 euros for a teenager aged 14-17).

But they are very strict about who they will give it to. It says that documentary evidence is compulsory (to prove that you really are a family), and the lift passes must be purchased simultaneously, be of the same duration, and for the same ski area for all members of the family.

http://www.skipass-tignes.com/content%5Cpages%5CTignes/TPFamille1213.fr-CH.pdf

And here's the link for the loyalty discount pass:
http://www.skipass-tignes.com/content%5Cpages%5CTignes/TPPassTignesHiver1213.fr-CH.pdf

bandit wrote:Over the years, I've found that Jobsworth staff at Luton take the Genre to a whole new dimesion. Add in the access issues, overpriced parking, the penny pinching like the charge to drop folks off, the lack of seating in the check in area and the dirty facilities, and I'd much rather go from LHR or Gatwick.

I'd rather use lhr any day of the week. But parking there is more expensive than Luton. And take into account that Luton is £1 to drop Andy£1 to pick up, and Heathrow will now not allow any pick up as from this weekend unless you use the area inside the short term which coss a MINIMUM of £2.80 so costs can't be an issue with Luton any longer.

bandit wrote:Add in the access issues, overpriced parking, [u]

I have booked parking at Luton airport Feb half term week for £26 - Lutons own official mid term parking 5 min from airport - buses run every 10min - Doesn't seem overpriced to me - although I admit that it is an early booking offer - ok if you can use this- no good for late booking.

Tony_H wrote:Leeds tends to suffer badly .........

with Northerners