What €15k, €30k, €60k and €120k a Week Actually Buys in Courchevel

Nobody publishes this. Search for what a week in Courchevel costs and you will find a great deal of language about exclusivity and very few numbers.

We think that is a mistake. People planning a significant holiday want to know whether their budget is realistic before they spend an evening looking at properties they can't book — and being straight about it is a faster route to a good conversation than being coy.

So here is the honest version, with one important caveat that we will come back to: in Courchevel, the week you choose changes the price more than almost anything about the property itself.

First, the thing that moves the number most

The same chalet, the same beds, the same view, can cost two or three times more at New Year than in mid-January.

Courchevel's pricing follows demand in a small number of concentrated peaks: Christmas, New Year, the February half-term weeks across the French, British and Dutch school calendars, and the last week of the season if the snow has held. Outside those, the resort is materially cheaper and — this is the part people find hard to believe — often better, because the lift queues are shorter and the restaurants can actually seat you.

If your dates are flexible, that flexibility is worth more than any negotiation. Moving a week either side of half term routinely does more for a budget than dropping a village or losing two bedrooms.

Everything below therefore describes what a budget buys in a normal week. In peak weeks, shift each tier down one.

Around €15,000 a week

The entry point to Courchevel proper, and a level at which you can have a very good holiday if you are realistic about format.

At this budget you are generally looking at a well-appointed apartment for four to six, most likely in Moriond or Village, in a modern residence — often with a shared spa or pool, secure parking and a proper ski room. Alternatively, a smaller self-catered chalet in one of the lower villages.

What you get: a genuinely good building, a good village, the same lift pass and the same mountain as everyone else in the Three Valleys.

What you don't get: staff living in, a chef, or a 1850 address. Catering, drivers and childcare are available and are added as you want them rather than bundled in.

This budget works best if: you are four to six people, you are comfortable in an apartment, and you would rather spend on the skiing and the restaurants than the property.

Around €30,000 a week

The level at which the classic Courchevel week becomes available, and the tier where the choice genuinely opens up.

Here you can be looking at a catered chalet for eight to ten in Moriond or Village, with a chef, a host and daily housekeeping — or a substantial self-catered chalet in 1850 with service added where you want it. Both are good weeks. They are just different weeks.

What you get: staffing, a property that belongs to your group alone, meaningful ski access, and enough space that a multi-family group is not living on top of each other.

What you don't get: consistently, the very best addresses in 1850. At this level in 1850 you are usually choosing between location and specification rather than having both.

This budget works best if: you are eight or more, and you want the group to be together in one building with someone else doing the cooking.

Around €60,000 a week

The tier at which Courchevel does what only Courchevel does.

Serious private chalets in 1850 — Nogentil, Jardin Alpin, the Bellecôte — with full staffing, a pool or spa, a driver at your disposal, and true ski access. Or the equivalent in the very best of Moriond's newest properties with considerably more space for the money.

What you get: the address, the staffing, the ski-in and ski-out that the phrase is supposed to mean, and a level of service where the week is arranged around your group rather than the other way around.

What you don't get: automatically, the right property. This is the tier where the differences between individual chalets matter most and where the wrong choice is most expensive. Two chalets at this level, at the same price, can produce completely different weeks.

This budget works best if: the group is large, the occasion matters, and the property is part of the point rather than somewhere to sleep.

Around €120,000 a week and above

The tier at which the question changes completely. Below this, you are choosing from a market. Here, you are choosing from a list — and the list is short.

Courchevel has a small number of genuinely exceptional properties: substantial private chalets in 1850's best addresses, with indoor pools, full spas, cinema rooms, staff quarters and the kind of build quality that takes three years and a specialist architect. Staffing is a brigade rather than a couple — chef and sous chef, house manager, housekeepers, dedicated drivers, and a nanny if you need one. Ski guides and instructors are held for your group for the week rather than booked by the session.

What you get, beyond the property, is that the resort opens up. Tables that are otherwise impossible. Helicopter and altiport arrivals arranged around your schedule rather than the operator's. A week where the answer to almost any request is simply yes.

What you don't get, automatically, is availability. This is the honest constraint at this level and the one nobody mentions. There are perhaps a dozen properties in Courchevel in this bracket, and for peak weeks they are largely taken by returning guests twelve to eighteen months ahead. At €120,000 the limiting factor is not your budget. It is the calendar.

This budget works best if: the occasion is significant, the group is large, and you are planning far enough ahead to have a real choice rather than what's left.

What isn't in the headline number

Worth budgeting for separately, whichever tier you are in:

• Lift passes — a meaningful cost for a family across a week, and worth deciding early whether you want the Courchevel-only or the full Three Valleys pass

• Transfers — Geneva, Lyon, Chambéry and Milan all differ, and Saturday transfer traffic is its own consideration

• Ski hire and lessons — private instruction in peak weeks needs booking months ahead, not weeks

• Restaurants — a serious part of the Courchevel budget if you intend to use them, and the tables worth having need booking well in advance

• Taxe de séjour — small, but charged per person per night

• Staff gratuity — customary in catered chalets

None of these are hidden in the sense of being concealed. They are simply not in the weekly rate, and it is better to see them now than in March.

Where the money goes furthest

Three things, in order of impact.

Move your dates. The single largest lever, by a wide margin.

Consider Moriond or Village. Newer stock, more space per euro, same mountain.

Buy service selectively rather than in a bundle. A self-catered chalet with a chef on four nights often costs less and suits more groups than a fully catered one — particularly if you want to eat out.

One more thing, at every tier

Lead time behaves like a budget of its own. A booking made twelve months out and a booking made three months out are not shopping in the same market, whatever the number attached to them — and the gap widens the higher up you go. If your dates are known, the earliest useful thing you can do is tell someone.

How we approach this

Tell us your budget and your dates and we will tell you what they will actually buy, including when the honest answer is that the two don't reconcile and one of them needs to move.

That conversation takes about ten minutes and saves a great deal of time on both sides.