The top 10 mistakes to avoid when planning your dream ski holiday

Booking a ski holiday can be one of the most confusing and complicated decisions of the travelling year.

How do you find good snow, a decent ski area, accommodation and travel, all at a reasonable price?

And when, exactly, should you book? As the northern winter draws nearer, here are the key mistakes to avoid.

1. Not booking early — or late — enough

There are three dates for which it is essential to book several months in advance: Christmas, New Year and the February (UK and France) holidays. Leave it late and you will be sifting through the last scraps of availability and probably paying through the nose for it. Easter is slightly different, so demand is likely to be lower and you don’t need to panic just yet.

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At other times of year, you can also be more relaxed. Indeed, for the quietest weeks in early January and mid-March, you may well get the best value and the biggest discounts by booking within a couple of weeks of departure — you will also be able to choose the destination with the best snow.

2. Underestimating booking costs

The temptation to book ski holidays independently is strong — especially if you bag cheap flights (is there such a thing?) and a bargain apartment through a resort website.

But beware of the extra expenses involved in a ski holiday, especially the cost of transfers between the airport and resort. Geneva to Val d’Isère could easily cost you $1000 or more for return private transfer; a hire car could be the same, after fuel and parking costs. There are lower-cost alternatives, but nothing is likely to be as cheap and convenient as a bus meeting your flight and organised by a tour operator.

Lift passes, equipment hire and lessons are all other factors to consider and can often be arranged for you, at discounted rates, by an operator or agent. Overall, package holidays offer skiers by far the best combination of efficiency, value and financial protection.

3. Misjudging local costs

Differences in prices for lift passes, equipment hire, ski school and eating out can make a huge difference to your budget. According to the latest Post Office Travel Money ski resort report, this winter costs in Wengen and Zermatt (both in Switzerland) are more than $2000 more expensive than in the cheapest, which is Bardonecchia in Italy for the second year running — the country continues to offer the best value overall.

4. Staying too low

Given the impact of climate change on the Alps, unless you are booking relatively late and can be sure that conditions are good, you should book as snow-sure a resort as possible.

It is not necessarily the height of the resort centre that makes a difference however. A resort may be low, but have access to a much higher domain or have slopes with a favourable orientation that hold snow. That said, anywhere where the main ski area is much below 1800m is vulnerable to poor coverage and the risk of slushy pistes. Head high and give yourself the best chance of decent conditions, whatever the time of year.

5. Not cross-checking dates

You may enjoy a resort when it is full of youngsters partying. If on the other hand, you are looking for a quiet week, you might regret not checking when and where the key student ski weeks are happening. For example, this year about 3000 undergraduates will descend on Tignes from December 6 to 13 for the Varsity ski week.

Also, consider that Paris schools are on holiday for an additional week, from the mid to end of February. German winter holidays are much more spaced out, according to different regions, and in North America social holidays rarely clash with ours.

6. Not booking lessons

If travelling during any of the peak weeks and wanting to learn to ski for the first time or advance your existing skills, it is essential to book guides or places in ski school as far ahead as you can. Learning from a family member or friend isn’t advisable. As well as traditional resort-based ski schools, online platforms such as Maison Sport provide a portal for finding independent instructors for hire.

7. Failing the fitness test

Skiing is an intense activity, especially at high altitude — something your body, particularly with age, needs time to prepare for. If your aim is to ski hard every day of your trip, be sure you are in a condition to make the most of your hard-earned break. Specific training is important because winter sports use different muscles to exercise than running or cycling, and many people don’t know how to work them.

8. Skimping on insurance

The first rule is to buy insurance at the same time as you book your holiday. Even more importantly, remember that not all ski travel insurance policies are alike. Check the activities that are covered and what conditions are attached, off-piste skiing is one obvious example. But think about other things that you might find tempting — like parascending, tobogganing, or snow-mobiling — but are often excluded from basic-level snow-sports policies. You may need to pay extra to cover these.

9. Believing the snow reports

Snow reports, as published by ski resorts, vary in their consistency and very often present a somewhat rosy picture of depths and piste conditions. So, if you are using them as a way of choosing the best resort for a last-minute holiday, rather than looking at just the bare numbers for the depth, consider the columns which tell you how many recent snowfalls there have been, and how much has fallen each time. It’s those more recent top ups which can make as much of a difference to the conditions on the pistes as the snow base.

10. Not booking restaurants

It might sound overly cautious to book lunchtime (and some evening) restaurants before you even leave Australia. But if you want to be sure of getting a table at some of the better places on the slopes, I would start planning at least a week in advance.