subject: Best Times Of The Year To Find Ski Discounts [print this page] It is not hard to locate excellent skiing deals and packages if you know when and where to look. There are two times in the year when you can find really great ski deals.
The first time that you should begin to look for discounted skiing packages is before the season has even begun. Resort and chalet owners are looking forward to the new season, contacting prior visitors, and generally trying to pre-book as many of their facilities as they can before the season starts. For them, this is the most uncertain time of any season.
And, at any rate until they meet their minimum amounts of pre-sold rooms for the season, they will normally be very accommodating to give deep discounts on rooms, ski packages, and the like. Firmly based on the principle that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, if a resort could pre-book 90% of its rooms, even if it had to do so at a lower rate, it would.
The second best time to find good skiing packages is as the skiing season is coming to a close. This is the when the snow has shown signs of starting to melt from the slopes. And as the ski season nears its end and occupancy rates begin to fall, ski resort managers will again offer great discounts for anyone willing to book rooms.
They figure correctly, that if they can just break even or maybe even lose a tad on the room rental rate, they will still be able to make it up on ancillary hotel or room charges, meals and drink, and of course ski tickets. The key thing in both of these times of the year are that you have to be willing to ask for a discount.
An additional method of locating great skiing packages is to be on the lookout for villas and resorts that are a bit off the beaten path. For instance, the top and most well known ski resorts in any area are going to almost always charge the top prices. But, usually, within a snowballs throw of these large resorts, are smaller ones which are as nice, or nearly as nice, as the well known resorts.
But, the most important thing from your standpoint, is that these less well known and established skiing resorts are most likely going to offer you better deals. The main reason is that the most effective way that they can compete is on price - so that's what they do. So where do you find these smaller resorts?
Fortunately, in today's marketing environment, almost all resorts have one or more web sites. If you spend an afternoon surfing the net for the ski area that you are thinking of visiting, you will encounter many good ski resorts in that area that are off of the main path. And, a real advantage in many of these smaller resorts is that there will be much less crowding and often a more personal touch from the staff.
