Lufthansa adds UK ski flights, including to Austria

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• jj says:

  23 Jul23 July 09:17

  The obvious and cheapest solution to silly ski-season prices to the Alps is to ski in Italy. Prices to Milan and Venice are usually far below those to Salzburg, Geneva and Chambery, and Italy has some fabulous resort and is a wonderful country to visit. In-resort prices tend to be a lot lower than the French and Swiss Alps, too.

  The less obvious solution is to ski in Canada. Especially at half term, air fares to Calgary, Kelowna and Kamloops (albeit in Economy) are often lower than to the Alps, and, unlike the USA, in-resort prices are comparable to the Alps. I deliberately didn’t mention Vancouver, though: whilst flights are often reasonably priced, Whistler most certainly is not.

  • Londonsteve says:

    23 Jul23 July 21:21

    But Austria is more reasonably priced than Italy, so there’s merit in flying there at higher cost and enjoying significantly lower expenses when you get there. Not to mention flying to Austria versus Italy is like flying to the first world versus the developing world. Sorry to any Italy fans reading this, but Italy these days is vying with Romania for tidiness and infrastructure.

    • jj says:

      23 Jul23 July 23:15

      I’ve been to the Dolomites twice in the past year – once skiing and once cycling – so I’ve seen it in both seasons.

      If the Dolomites are the developing world, London is an undiscovered village hidden in an inaccessible valley. First rate infrastructure, first rate hotels, first rate restaurants, first rate skiing, first rate cycling sportive.

      Don’t confuse the Dolomites with southern Italy. Up in the mountains things work with Austrian precision.

      • Rob says:

        23 Jul23 July 23:53

        Ortisei is stunning in summer – never been in winter.

      • Londonsteve says:

        25 Jul25 July 09:24

        I will agree that Sud Tyrol is a different story entirely. It’s effectively a province of Austria under Italian control and there’s a Teutonic approach to how it’s run. Better to approach the region from Innsbruck than ‘spoil’ the experience arriving in Verona, Bergamo or Venice.

        The Italian Alps are a tale of two halves, things are very different when you leave Alto Adige, it becomes much more like the rest of northern Italy.

• Colin MacKinnon says:

  23 Jul23 July 10:33

  The good thing about IHG points is that you can book what you need, when you need – and then rebook and cancel when the rates fall. So I may buy.

  Which then makes me ask: is this – and the BA avios deals etc – yet another sign that post-Covid demand is now beginning to fall?

  Rob says that the hotels only get the full room rate on points redemptions if they are 95% booked, and a token sum otherwise.

  So is this a way of IHG getting loads of cash, since their modelling suggests that the hotels these points will be used on will now typically be less than 95% full?

  • Peter K says:

    23 Jul23 July 10:57

    IHG have been doing 100% bonus sales for years.

• Jon says:

  23 Jul23 July 11:06

  IHG points – skip the 10k and 23-25k options… 😉

  • Blair Waldorf Salad says:

    23 Jul23 July 11:24

    What are you getting at here? If a lucrative quirk, suggest keeping it to yourself. These web-based articles are too public

    • Jon says:

      23 Jul23 July 12:01

      Nothing nefarious lol. It’s just the thresholds where the price-per-point changes, making 11k and 26k cheaper than the preceding band(s). But easy to miss if not paying close attention to the numbers on the drop-down 😉

• ADS says:

  23 Jul23 July 11:27

  Friedrichshafen seems like a strange choice – it doesn’t have the volumes of skiers that most Alps airports have, and it looks like there aren’t any trains stopping at the airport at weekends – so you have to get a local bus into the town’s main train station.

  There are only two flights a week from FDH to the UK – an Easyjet flight to Gatwick on Saturday lunchtime, and this new LH flight on Saturday evening.

  • jj says:

    23 Jul23 July 11:52

    Only 2 hours drive to the Arlberg resorts in Austria, or to Klosters and Davos in Switzerland. Much easier than Geneva to the big French resorts and considerably less chaotic on a winter Saturday, so it’s quite a smart choice.

    • ADS says:

      23 Jul23 July 14:38

      I used FDH back in 2007 when Ryanair used to fly from Stansted … and walked across to the station (more of a “halt” than a station) to catch a train to St Anton

      I guess it’s fine if you’re doing private transfers, but if you’re using public transport / shuttle buses, it just doesn’t have the facilities that other airports have

• Kevin C says:

  23 Jul23 July 12:01

  I remembered the Wilderness auction yesterday. I couldn’t find all the lots but the hot tub and cabin weekend went for 265,000 IHG points so there are obviously still people with healthy balances.

• Hamish says:

  23 Jul23 July 12:17

  Would you still get offered upgrades if booking a points redemption at IHG if a diamond member.

  • Rob says:

    23 Jul23 July 13:12

    Yes, in theory no different to a cash booking for priority.

  • Rizz says:

    23 Jul23 July 15:05

    You get normal status benefits, including upgrades subject to availability, but you can’t use the Suite Upgrade Reward on points bookings.

  • will says:

    23 Jul23 July 23:19

    I’m in the Regent Montenegro right now as a diamond amb, the room I booked on points was advertised last week at £599 per night and they allocated us an upgraded £1100 80sqm suite (in the app a week in advance actually without making a song and dance of it)

    • Rob says:

      23 Jul23 July 23:50

      Do NOT go the Chinese restaurant in the same building, on the residences side (to the left if you face the hotel from the water). Easily the worst Chinese I have ever visited.

      DO go in the submarine at the naval museum about five minutes walk away. It’s really cool. The tours are timed.

      Not sure how many speedboat trips you’ve done on the trip but there is a waterside restaurant across the bay from the Regent which will send a free speedboat to pick you up if you dine there (and they bring you back). Food pricing was reasonable too.

      Go to Perast and the little church on the island in front of it.

      Go to the One&Only for a poke around to see what you think vs the Regent.

      • Will says:

        24 Jul24 July 10:16

        Thanks Rob, have a week here so will certainly take note of that.

        Was hoping to spend half of the trip at the nee Hyatt but it was blocked for booking on the days we had yet to allocate.

        • Rob says:

          24 Jul24 July 15:30

          Try the new Rixos in Perast. Was still being worked on when I was there but now open.

• Nick says:

  23 Jul23 July 19:26

  BA’s move into the shorthaul leisure market from Heathrow came because they realised they had loads of Saturday operations for business-type flights that made no money because the weekday customers weren’t there, so they started using the slots for holiday routes instead. Doesn’t surprise me in the slightest if these new ones are LH (rather than OS or EW) – the same principle applies there too. LH have the slot and aircraft availability, hence it’s a good use for them.

• Chris says:

  25 Jul25 July 10:10

  Trying to work out if it is worth buying IHG points for a fraction below 0.4p per point is difficult, as you have already said.
  Your article about the new pricing strategy was excellent, but I couldn’t help wondering how the unweighted price compares to the weighted price??? Surely, the weighted price is what we should be comparing it to! Can you include that too? Or at least some indication on the % difference. I was ready to leap in and buy the maximum points as the hotel I was looking at seemed to have 0.48p value, but is that all blown away by the weighting?

  • Rob says:

    25 Jul25 July 11:06

    What do you mean by weighted / unweighted?

    • Chris says:

      25 Jul25 July 11:28

      In your article part 2 you stated: Unweighted average of best value 33% – 0.49p per point
      I am not certain what unweighted means, but “think” it might mean the value discarding the direct (from IHG) and indirect points (from credit card spend),and anything else earned when paying cash that you do not earn when paying with points???

      • Rob says:

        25 Jul25 July 13:50

        Oh that article! Those numbers are obviously old now so wouldn’t trust them.

        Unweighted means I took the average of top third (so the best value 4 redemptions out of 12, or whatever) and did a mean of those four, without adjusting for the cost of the room.

        If Room A costs 100,000 points for a £500 room and room B is 50,000 points for a £300 room, the unweighted average is 0.55p per point. The weighted average would be lower because Room A costs more points and is poorer value.

        • Chris says:

          25 Jul25 July 16:16

          Thanks for clarifying this.
          However, the issue is still valid, I think. The cost comparison showing cost in points plus the lost points which would be earned if paying cash compared with the cash cost of the room is a more relevant, if more difficult calculation when working out value.
          This often makes a difference when paying for a flight using Avios and sometimes pushes me one way or the other. I think it also makes a small difference when paying for a hotel using points. For example, the Intercontinental O2 cash price for a room on 3rd Aug is £217, or $279 and would earn 2790 IHG points if paying cash. At a cost of 47,000 points the value of a point is 0.46p not counting the points earned, or 0.43p when taking them into account.
          So buying points will save me £32, reduced to £18.80 when considering points earned for a cash booking. (And also a few pounds of Avios if booking through an AmEx card.)
          £32 savings (per night) over several nights would definitely be worth the effort of buying points. But £18.80 for one or two nights might not be; especially as you say, the points needed now can change from one day to the next.
          Can you at least think about showing the value with, and the value without taking earned points into consideration?

        • Rob says:

          25 Jul25 July 16:45

          No 🙂

          Partly because it varies with status and with any bonus promotions, and partly because (frankly) complexity is the enemy of clarity.

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