Lyon & Hiring a Car

Flying

We used Easyjet flying out of Stansted into Lyon. Other (less budget) options include BA and Air France out of Heathrow and BA out of Birmingham and Manchester.

Easyjet's Saturday flight times for Winter 2005 were conducive to skiing on 8 days in Les Arcs. The early flight into Lyon landed at about 10:30am and the latest flight home was at 10:15pm. The three hour transfer time giving good time to ski on both transfer days.


Tips for booking with easyjet

Register with their mailing service to be told when the winter schedules will be released. The best prices go to those tickets booked as early as possible.

If you have more than one ticket to book, Easyjet will price all tickets at the price applying to the most expensive "band" you go into. Therefore the trick to getting the best price is to enter the total number of seats you need but don't book the seats - just note the price quoted.

Then go back to the start and request one seat on the same flights. If the price per seat is the same then you are in one price band and you can just book the total number of seats you require. If the price per seat is different then your booking spans two price bands and you need to increase the seats you are booking by one until you find the seat that tips you into the next price. Then book one less ticket and they will be at the lower price band and then book the remaining tickets.

One word of caution - if you are booking early then they should be no availability problem but if you are not there is the possible chance that somebody could snaffle the last seats while you try to save a few quid - no liability accepted if half your party has no tickets!!

Hiring a Car

For both our trips, we hired through Holiday Autos who act as an agency booking with the usual suspects such as Europcar, Budget, Hertz etc etc

There are plenty of other similar car hire web sites but we have found the service from Holiday Autos pretty good. Their web site is here but if you access their site by clicking on the Holiday Autos logo on this website you should find the prices 10% or so cheaper than going directly to Holiday Autos - give it a go first though by getting quotes by going through both links.


Car Hire Tips

• All the car hire offices at Lyon are about two miles from the arrivals building and you need to catch a free shuttle bus from the terminal building. Therefore it's not worth one of your party trying to get the car and coming back to the terminal building for the others. Its far easier to collect your luggage, get on the bus and drive off the airport straight from the car hire office.
• Always check the condition of the car before you take it away and make sure any damage is noted on the vehicle condition form and agreed with the company before you leave.
• Make sure the car is checked in when you return and that you get written confirmation of there being no further damage to the car and that the tank is full (see below)
• Fill up the car at a supermarket away from the airport (much cheaper). The Super U in Bourg or the Super U off Exit 32 on the N90 are both a good price) and then you'll just need to top up the tank at the higher prices charged by the garage next to the car hire offices. Always return the tank full as one company we used charges fuel at €1.69 per litre for diesel (Super U price is about €1.01 per litre).
• If you are hiring snow chains rather than buying them en route, lay both chains out in the office of the hire company and make sure all the links to the main cable are intact and that there are no pieces of plastic tubing missing from the main cable (they keep the links to the main cable in the correct place). Finally, make sure the sizes given on the box match those of your tyres! (and yes, we had a bad experience with faulty chains once)

The Route to 1950

The route to 1950 is really very straight forward. Exit the airport following the signs for the A43 to Chambery and Grenoble and then follow these instructions:

               Lyon St Exupery To Les Arcs

               Les Arcs To Lyon St Exupery

Any More Information?

It would be good to build up a library of pages with travel advice to 1950 so if you have experience and useful information to share please drop me a line. Possible ideas for additional pages are:

• Expanding this page to include bus and private transfer options and perhaps the train journey from Lyon to BSM?
• Similar pages as this covering travel into Geneva and Grenoble and onto 1950.
• Options for getting from BSM to 1950 - taxis, the funicular and shuttle bus? Do you need to book beforehand or not?
• Anything else people think would be good to share with other owners!!