2021-22 Season terms and conditions

[abricotine]

Interested to get an idea how others are finding post-covid T&C if/when they are considering booking for next season.

I’ve spoken to a couple of agents who are saying as far as they are concerned it’s back to business as usual for 2022 and no special clauses apply any more on flexibility or cancellation. When some feedback was mixed from skiers’ 2020 experience, it’s not that tempting to put down a non refundable 25% by July.

I have looked at booking independently and in some cases that works but equally some kind of ABTA protection would be good. Interested to know what others have gone for (and also on experiences rolling over previous bookings etc).

I'm booking independently. Got badly burnt last year when our group decided not to fly to France on 12th March as the writing on the wall was there. Clearly part of companies Ts&Cs but a refund of the lift pass cost would have been a nice gesture.

I've got flights booked for next year, we'll get accommodation through booking.com cancellable and transfers separately as well.

Having said that I thought Crystal was offering covid protection for next year.

We've booked independently as we feel that our money is better protected.

Our accommodation is fully refundable until the week before. The flights aren't refundable, but we are happy to take a credit note as we know we'll use them at some point. Both are paid for in full.
The ski school we use currently has a note on their website advertising free cancellation until the day before, but we won't book equipment and lessons until the summer anyway. The only thing that we don't know about is lift passes. We won't book them until the summer either so we're hoping to find out more before then.
We also need to book transfers, but aren't rushing to do that at the moment.

I noticed a change in terms and conditions too on some packages and I think it's way too early to decide it's all going to be 100% over I agree I would be wary.

As the others have said you can get a credit for flights and lots of booking.com accommodation gives option to cancel. Having said that some of the prices for places next year on Booking.com are definitely reflecting a loss of revenue this year! I think maky package prices may be the same too.

Thanks everyone for the reponses. We also had a rather unpleasant parting of the ways with one tour operator who tried to impose new and sizeable admin/rebooking fees in order to carry over our deposit put down for this year's season, so I'm cautious.
Definitely makes sense to book flights directly given the flexibility offered by airlines right now. I have also looked at booking.com but they don't have good reviews either should there be an issue with the accommodation - although some friends have had fair experiences dealing with the hotels directly in the past.
Having read elsewhere the huge surge in rollovers/bookings and limited availability already (perhaps I am allowing myself to be rushed unduly!) I am keen to secure options. I have also had brilliant service from some of the ski specialist bespoke agents; sometimes they come up with great options that I wouldn't have considered so I'm not always in a hurry to cut them out of the loop - but I will reluctantly if it makes our money safer.

@abricotine I've found booking.com to be fine providing I book cancellable and don't put any deposit down. Or you can identify likely candidates through the website then book directly, but often I find that there are more favourable T&Cs on the central site.

I decided to have a wee look and see if any hotels apartments available for next years long weekend skiing in France. Surprisingly there was - French resorts usually only release rooms from about September of the year before - and a number with no deposit/free cancellation which is a bit of a change from French standard position. They're obviously keen to get some bookings in.

We managed to get our accommodation (self contained apartment) over Christmas for the same price as term time through the VRBO app.

We didn't think he'd accept the booking and expected a message back explaining that he hadn't put the school holiday prices in yet (and we were prepared to pay what we thought he'd charge for holidays) but it was accepted without question.

As it's a privately owned apartment and he will have lost out on the end of last season plus this season, we wondered if it was accepted as he just wanted to have some income from it. A bird in the hand and all that. We booked in September when it was still uncertain if the 20/21 season would happen.

Thanks for the replies. I think I need to be a bit more flexible on hotel as now I’ve widened the net a bit a few more free cancellation options are showing! I shall continue to monitor but sadly for the agents I think direct booking makes most sense backed up with insurance within the non-cancellation Period (sometimes it’s a few weeks). I am hopeful for the coming season; it could also be busy though!

We got burned with our independent booking and lost quite a lot of money this year. I'm still holding off but keeping an eye on booking.com for cancellable hotels. I think it's still too early for a lot of the Italian hotels.

We're waiting to see if the ski train will be running next winter. If so, we'll book in August, when they release the tickets. We have some Eurostar travel vouchers that we can maybe trade in. Accommodation we usually book directly. Of course, it all depends what the jungle drums are saying in August about the likelihood of a normal ski season next winter!

@massistar and @zafferana agreed. I am also finding the same with Austria and to an extent France. But those that have opened their books early and offering a good cancellation policy have very little availability some weekends already so it’s making me jumpy

@abricotine I understand. During those key five weeks when the ski season and the school holidays combine good deals are always hard to find and if we can go skiing next winter demand is going to be even greater than normal, with most skiers having lost one winter and some two, if they were due to go last Easter.

I'm getting twitchy for sure!

I had a look at ski prices and think they have massively increased since 2 years ago!!

Clubmed holidays that were around £1000-1400 are now about £5000!