Catered Ski Chalets

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CateredSkiChalets.com advertises a catered chalet week from 490 per person, and we cannot tell you in what currency. The price appears on its own pages as a bare number — the markup is literally 490 followed by “p.p.p.w.” with no symbol and no code. Every fee elsewhere on the site is in euros, so euros is the likely answer, but a UK skier comparing prices should not have to guess and we are not going to guess on their behalf.

The bigger thing to know before you book is the protection. This is a Dutch tour operator, Skichalets.nl, Chamber of Commerce number 78683297. It holds no ATOL and no ABTA bonding. Its cover is a Dutch scheme called SGR, membership number 3494.

And on every page, including the payment page, the footer says “Financial protection by The Trust Associaton”. There is no body of that name. The UK body it resembles is the Travel Trust Association — which this operator is not a member of, and names only as a comparison.

The protection position, carefully

This section matters more than the price, so here is exactly what the operator says and exactly what it means.

The operator’s own words: it holds “a fully-bonded membership in The Netherlands of the financial travel protection authority SGR, comparable with The Travel Trust Association, ATOL and ABTOT in the United Kingdom”. SGR is Stichting Garantiefonds Reisgelden, a real and long-established Dutch guarantee fund. The membership number given is 3494, and the operator notes the warranty certificate is available “only in Dutch”.

It claims the cover reaches UK customers: “not only our Dutch guests, but also all other international guests of ours are fully insured for a guaranteed refund of all your payments made to us, in the unlikely event of insolvency”, and “you won’t receive just a partial refund, but the full 100%”. There is a €10 mandatory consumer contribution per booking — per booking, the site is careful to say, not per person.

What it is not. It holds no ATOL licence; ATOL appears on the site only as a comparator. It is not an ABTA member — ABTA is not mentioned anywhere on the site at all. It is not ABTOT bonded and not a Travel Trust Association member. There is no client trust account; the protection is a bond, which is a different thing.

Why that may not matter much here, and where it does. No flights are sold. The word “flight” does not appear anywhere on the site; it sells chalet weeks plus optional transfers, lift passes, hire and lessons. ATOL covers flight-inclusive packages, so for an accommodation-only booking the ATOL question largely falls away. Where it bites is enforcement: if you book your own flights and the operator fails, your money sits behind a Dutch bond enforced in the Netherlands, with a certificate you cannot read, rather than behind a UK scheme. That is a workable position for some people and an unacceptable one for others, and it should be a conscious choice.

The naming is the real problem. “Financial protection by The Trust Associaton” in the footer of every page, with that spelling, is not a description of SGR. A UK reader seeing it on the payment screen could reasonably conclude they are covered by the Travel Trust Association. They are not.

What you actually get for the money

The catered package is well specified, which is to the operator’s credit. Per week it includes:

• 7 nights’ accommodation
• Daily breakfast — described as “a hearty continental breakfast” of fresh baguettes, eggs, cereals, fruit and hot drinks, prepared and cleared by staff
• Afternoon tea on your return — “a sweet and salty afternoon tea” with homemade snacks, plus mulled wine, vin chaud or hot chocolate
• A three-course dinner on six days, with free unlimited red and white wine served during the meal
• Beer, soft drinks, juices, coffee and tea free and unlimited all day from the chalet fridge. Spirits are not included
• Bed linen, towels, cleaning, and English-speaking Dutch chalet staff who cook, clean, shop and make beds. Towels changed midweek

Note the six days, not seven. The staff take one day off during your stay: “They still serve breakfast that day, but you make your own tea and coffee and usually eat out.” Budget for one restaurant dinner per person per week, and for drinks that evening, which are not covered.

Special dietary requirements “may carry a supplement”, with no figure published.

Five chalets, four resorts, and a country that is not there

The whole estate is five chalets, which the operator owns and runs rather than brokering — “the chalets are our exlusive properties so we can completely tailor the arrangement to your wishes”, in its own words and its own spelling. Trading since 1993.

Three countries: Austria, France and Italy. The About page claims “our top resorts in the Austrian, French, Swiss and Italian Alps” — and no Swiss chalet is listed among the five.

The offers page is worth a look because it undermines the “from” prices. Blanchot appears as “Was 1550, Now 1150” per person per week, and Selva Panorama as “Was 1390, Now 1090”. Both discounted prices are higher than the “from” figures on the main listing — 1150 against 850, and 1090 against 590 — with no dates on any of the four numbers to explain the gap. The “from” price is presumably a quiet week in a shoulder season, but nothing on the site says which.

The booking terms, which are strict

To book: 25% of the total holiday cost, plus a €35 booking charge, plus the tourist tax, plus the €10 SGR contribution. Due seven days after the confirmation invoice is emailed. Book within six weeks of arrival and the full amount is due one day after the invoice.

Balance: at least six weeks before arrival.

Cancellation, calculated from the date written notice is received, and applied to the holiday cost plus the booking charge, the tourist tax and the SGR contribution:

That middle band is the one to notice. Cancel fifteen weeks before your holiday — nearly four months out — and you forfeit 90%. Most operators scale cancellation charges gradually; this goes from 25% to 90% at a single step, and the step is a long way from departure. If you book this, insure it the same day.

There is no snow guarantee. The booking conditions “exclude compensation for snowfall, avalanche danger, and weather conditions” and exclude liability for closed ski lifts. A poor season is entirely your risk.

The extras, and how they add up

The headline price is not the price. On top:

• Tourist tax — “different per town between €1,50 and €5 p.p.p.n.”. For two people over seven nights that is between €21 and €70. Children under 12 are mostly free.
• €35 booking charge and €10 SGR contribution per booking.
• €25 per partial invoice if you split the payment on a whole-chalet booking.
• Card fees of 4.5% on both Mastercard and Visa. On a €2,000 booking that is €90. iDEAL Wero costs €0.39, Bancontact €0.49 and Apple Pay is free. There is also a €2,500 cap per credit card transaction, so a larger booking has to be split — and splitting may trigger the €25 invoice fee.

In your favour: no caution deposit. Booking a whole chalet gets 30% off per adult above the chalet’s lower capacity figure, and €100 off per unoccupied bed. Children under 1 are free, 1 to 3 year olds pay €250, and 4 to 10 year olds get 30% off — which makes this materially better value for a family than the headline suggests.

One wrinkle on whole-chalet pricing: where a chalet shows two capacity figures, the lower is “ideal comfortable occupancy” and the higher is total beds, and the discount works off the lower one. The per-chalet figures themselves are not published, so you cannot do the arithmetic before you enquire.

Where it falls short

No currency on any price. Five chalet prices, two offer prices, and not one carries a symbol or a code.

No dates on any price either, which makes the “from” figures close to meaningless when the discounted offer prices are double them.

The protection is branded as something it is not. “The Trust Associaton” on every page, including at the point of payment.

90% cancellation from sixteen weeks out is among the harshest terms we have seen on an accommodation booking.

4.5% to pay by card, with a €2,500 transaction cap that forces larger bookings into instalments that may cost €25 each.

A Swiss claim with no Swiss chalet.

Two phone numbers and two email addresses for the same company, and booking conditions that refer to the entity as both “Skichalets.nl Ltd” and “Skichalets.nl B.V.” against a single registration number.

And no UK recourse at all. Not a UK company, no Companies House registration, no UK address, no UK licence. Your contract is with a Dutch company under Dutch arrangements.

Who it is right for

Strip away the presentation and there is a real product here. A fully catered chalet week with a cook, breakfast, afternoon tea, six dinners and unlimited wine, beer and soft drinks, in St Anton or the Three Valleys, from a company that has run its own properties since 1993. For a family it is better value than it looks, because under-ones go free, one-to-threes pay €250 and four-to-tens get 30% off. For a group taking a whole chalet, 30% off per adult plus €100 per empty bed is a serious discount.

It is right for someone who is comfortable contracting with a Dutch operator, who will insure the trip against the cancellation terms, and who understands that a bad snow year is their own loss. It is wrong for anyone who wants ATOL or ABTA behind their money, anyone who needs to know the price in pounds before committing, and anyone whose plans might change inside four months of departure.

Figures were taken from each provider's own published terms on 8 October 2026. Variable rates can change at any time — confirm the current rate with the provider before applying.