Accommodation, arrival, discounts
These tips will save you a lot of money on your skiing holidays
The Swiss love skiing holidays. However, these often leave a deep hole in your wallet. But there is also a cheaper way, as these tips show.
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Eat, stay overnight, ski passes: Ski holidays tear a deep hole in the wallet of many people.
Martin SchmidtEditor Economics
Skiing is quite expensive: the Bosshard family of seven from Päffikon ZH paid almost 9,000 francs for their ten-day ski holiday in Davos GR. The biggest cost factors are the ski subscription, food and hotel rooms. Many people in Switzerland cannot afford such vacations. But there is also a cheaper way. If you are flexible and willing to make compromises when booking, you can have your skiing pleasure for significantly less. Blick has the most important savings tips for you.
January hole for the holey wallet
For families with school-age children, the timing of the ski holidays cannot be postponed: the youngsters can only hit the slopes during the Christmas or sports holidays in February – just when the prices are at their highest. Everyone else, however, can move their holidays to the doldrums, for example to the January lull. Then hotels and many mountain railways lure with significant price reductions.
Larger groups can save more easily
A single room in the hotel is quite a bargain in terms of price. The easiest way for single travelers to save money is to stay in a shared room in a hostel. Holiday apartments are also available for larger groups. With an apartment for 3,000 francs per week, a group of four has to pay 750 francs per person for the bed. If anyone else sleeps on the sofa bed, it’s 600 per person.
Early booking discounts and family tickets
In times of dynamic price models, many ski areas offer discounts of up to 30 percent on a day pass if guests buy it online well in advance. If you don’t mind turning down the slopes even when the sky is cloudy, you can also save a lot on days with bad weather forecasts. Many ski areas also offer inexpensive network subscriptions. For example, adults pay CHF 399 and children CHF 249 for the Magic Pass, which is valid in 52 ski areas. For families, larger mountain railways often have inexpensive family subscriptions on offer. In addition, many railways have generous children’s discounts, with children up to 9 years old traveling free and up to 15 years old with a 50 percent discount.
Arriving by car or train?
There are nicer things than carrying a large suitcase full of winter clothes, skis and ski boots to the station and onto the train. Nevertheless, traveling by public transport is cheaper in most cases – especially for those who have a half-fare card. The return trip from Zurich to Davos GR costs 56 francs. If you travel by car, you have to reckon with return costs of 220 francs – TCS-compliant 75 centimes per kilometer. There are also 45 francs of parking fees for one week. Makes 265 francs in total. It is only cheaper to drive by car if there are five adults or more. Without the Half-Fare travelcard, however, traveling by car has the advantage for three or more people.
Look out for discounts
If you travel with SBB and pay attention to “Snow ‘n’ Rail” offers, you can get a discount of up to 20 percent on the ski pass. In addition, banks and health insurance companies also offer temporary discounts of up to 30 percent on ski passes.
«Everything has to work»: This is how the Bosshard family prepares for their skiing holidays(02:20)