Eurostar Snow pricing - one week on

In the late 1980s, Ben Elton on Saturday Night Live was the comedian to watch.

I remember a routine he did about TV advertising. Because there were only four TV channels, all these adverts were familiar to everyone. We were exposed to the same ones again and again.

One of these adverts was for a brand of cat food. In the advert, Elton said, a supposedly real cat owner, interviewed, says of her cat: "I know she likes it, cos she eats it all up!"

"Of course she eats it all up!" thunders Elton. "She'd give Maggie Thatcher a blow job if she was hungry enough!"

Elton was poking fun at the false logic of the advert. The cat doesn't necessarily like the food, but it needs it.

So what's the parallel with Eurostar Snow? 

The Eurostar Snow service went on sale on July 9th.

Even though it isn't direct, it's the most direct train service from the UK to the Alps, with just a platform change at Lille.  There are only 347 seats on it for skiers, each week.

And yet one week on, it's only sold out on two dates so far.

Skiers are hungry for rail-travel options, and the fact that you can book travel further in advance with Eurostar Snow than you can with indirect options should mean that skiers would be snapping it up.

But, apart from the two peak dates, clearly they aren't. Eurostar have 347 seats to sell for each other week and they haven't yet.

Probably the key reason for this is the fact that the outbound is on a Saturday and the inbound on a Sunday, which means that if your accommodation is Sat - Sat, you have to find an extra night's accommodation for the final Saturday night. Some tour operators have solved this problem, but for anyone staying in a favourite independent chalet, that won't work.

The table the fares one week on ffrom them going on sale. 

What's useful to note is that unlike normal Eurostar services (to Paris, Lille, Brussels and Amsterdam) the prices seem to be fixed, not increasing incrementally. Because all the prices that haven't sold out are priced exactly the same as when they went on sale last week.