Where is everyone going on spring break?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Skiing in the French Alps. Booked tix for the family using Chase points a year ago. Booked a great apartment overlooking the slopes and valley six months ago when the FX rate was higher, all day ski school is 70 euros a day for the kids, a French meal delivery service is providing 7 days of meals for 240 euros & we don’t have to cook, fresh bread & pastries delivered every morning to our door, etc. The whole trip - flights, car rental, a week of skiing and lessons for the kids, meals - is like 3500 euros. Best deal I’ve ever scored.

-A Nervous Fed

How did you know how to do all this?

I knew our spring break was late in the year (3rd week of April), so I began researching Alps ski resorts with the latest ski seasons. This means you need to look at high altitude villages with glacier skiing which dramatically narrows down your options. Our flights were only 30K points each RT because I got a good deal on Air France into GVA, so my choice of ski resort was driven first by time of year and the airport choice.

We settled on Avoriaz (1800m), only a 90 min drive from GVA

Initially I thought we should do an all-inclusive like ClubMed. But that would've been around 7000 euros (excluding airfare) and we would have to pay for 7 nights (whereas our flights have us on the ground for six nights). The highest ClubMed is in Tignes and I think that drive would be miserable for my younger kids after a transcon overnight flights (plus slogging drive back to GVA).

Avoriaz is the highest village closest to GVA. Another benefit is that its in the Portes du Soleil interconnected domaine which gets a ton of sun in the spring. It's also in France along the Swiss border, which means its a lot cheaper but you can easily take interconnected lift system into Switzerland.

With the location nailed down, I started doing lots of research into accommodations, ski school, meals, etc. A lot of Google Map use to see the locations of everything within the sizeable village and reading reviews. We found a great vacation apartment building run by a company called Pierre et Vacances - they seem to be a popular rental company in European resort towns. Through the concierge at the property, I can order meal kit delivery, reserve lift tix/ski rental at a substantial discount, book spa treatments, etc. They gave me information about booking ski lessons through ESF, the French national ski school located in all French ski resorts and also runs daycares in most ski villages so the parents can have a break.

I did a metric crap-ton of research to plan this vacation. And it started about a year ago all due to Air France having a bonus transfer deal with Chase points lol

Agreeing on being impressed! Just checking that you have researched the weird nuances of the French/Swiss sides of GVA airport? If arriving on Air France, you will be on the French side of the airport, and I assume if you got a good rental car deal, also on the French side of the airport. But you will have to drive through Geneva to get to Avoriaz, unless you take a roundabout way that adds 30 minutes. If you get on the freeway in Geneva (which is the way Google Maps will send you), you will need to have a Swiss Vignette for the rental car, since almost all cars on the French side won't have one. The other alternative is to map out a non-freeway route through Geneva and pick up the freeway on the French side- adds maybe 15 minutes.

Thankfully you can now buy the vignette online once you have the license plate of the car.

Just mentioning it because we navigated all this a few years ago and saved $500 on a rental car by renting on the French side of the airport, so had to figure all this out- easily worth the savings!