‘UberSki:’ The mistakes to avoid when booking a ski holiday transfer

Once the preserve of city-dwellers in the world’s metropolitan centres, Uber is now migrating to the mountains. Last week, the on-demand taxi company announced the rollout of its “UberSki” resort transfer service across the Alps, and beyond.

Skiers will be able to arrive at airports including Chambéry, Innsbruck, Salzburg and Munich, open up the familiar app and summon an UberXL-sized van specially equipped with winter tyres and a ski rack.

The service has been available in United States resorts for several years, and has previously been trialled temporarily in France. But that trial, in 2019, was only at specific resorts close to Grenoble, and only during busy French half-term weeks. This is the first time it’s been offered more widely across Europe. UberSki vans are now available in Austria, Germany, France, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.

The decision to roll out the service across Europe was inspired by data, which showed that tourists were already searching for Ubers while they were on ski holidays. “In 2024 almost half a million international travellers opened the Uber app across popular European alpine destinations – with British, American and German tourists accounting for the majority of travellers,” according to the company’s announcement. “Data showed demand more than doubled in resorts like Courchevel in France and Gstaad in Switzerland.”

Whether or not the arrival of the San Francisco-based tech giant will disrupt the existing resort transfer market remains to be seen. “I wouldn’t see it as a massive threat,” says Jan Hewitt of Ski-Lifts, who offer transfer bookings across Europe and beyond, “because it’s a very competitive market, and it’s already fairly saturated,” Hewitt confirms that the indicative prices Uber has published – €200 for up to five people from Chambéry airport to Méribel and Courchevel, or €220-€250 from Grenoble Airport to Les Deux Alpes or Alpe d’Huez – are roughly similar to what guests would pay if they booked through Ski-Lifts’ platform.

The fact that Uber is offering pre-bookings “from 30 minutes to 45 days in advance,” also means they are catering to a slightly different market to conventional transfer drivers, according to Dan Barnett of Whiterides, an independent company based in France. With 12 vans serving all the major resorts around their headquarters in the Tarentaise Valley – including Les Arcs, La Plagne, the Three Valleys, Val d’Isère and Tignes – Whiterides run over a thousand transfers each winter. “But our customers will book a long way in advance,” Barnett says.

“If Uber is going to offer something that’s available last-minute, I can see some people might want that,” Barnett says. But he points out that the taxi company has not always been welcome when has previously launched into notoriously protective French markets.

Earlier this winter, the usually sleepy Tarentaise town of Moutiers witnessed what locals described as a “Mafia-style” showdown between Uber drivers and local cabbies. Accounts of who was to blame differ, with allegations of dangerous driving and death threats on both sides. But reporting and videos published by Le Dauphiné Libéré, the local newspaper, suggest a long-simmering feud about pick-up privileges at Moutiers station spiralled out of control on the evening of January 22 – resulting in one driver threatening his rivals with a shotgun.

Barnett, who has lived and worked in the area valley for almost two decades, explains that “once you get to know them, the local taxi drivers are great.” But he understands their reluctance to tolerate recent arrivals who don’t always have the correct licenses and permits.

It’s a phenomenon that’s not exclusively limited to France. Paul “Ted” Fieldhouse, runs a one-man operation called Ted’s Transfers, which offers airport runs to Austrian resorts from Innsbruck, Munich, Memmingen and elsewhere. “I’m pretty much the only English taxi driver in the area,” he explains, “I think partly because opening a business here is quite a complicated process.” Recently, however, he says he’s come across companies that seem to be ignoring that process – or playing fast and loose with licensing laws.

Uber’s new UberSki service will offer transfers to several of the resorts Fieldhouse covers, including Mayrhofen and Hintertux in the Zillertal, and St Anton in the Ski Arlberg area. But like Hewitt and Barnett, Fieldhouse doesn’t necessarily view the company’s arrival as a bad thing, because under Austrian law, Uber’s drivers need the same taxi driver’s license as everyone else. “For a long time, the government was working hard to keep Uber out,” he says, referring to a process which saw Uber withdraw, temporarily, from cities like Vienna in 2018, when it faced injunctions. “But then they passed the law about licensing and it seems to be working fine.”

Whether they opt for the new UberSki service or a conventional transfer, the main thing skiers should watch out for, at least according to Fieldhouse, is any company offering prices that seem too good to be true – because they may not be legal.

Five tips for booking a hassle-free ski resort transfer

1. Avoid travelling on Saturday

“It’s always the busiest day of the week,” says Dan Barnett from Whiterides. “Especially here in the Tarentaise, where we have Route National 90 [which runs from Albertville to Moutiers and into the valley]. That’s one single road that services several major resorts.”

Sunday to Sunday ski holidays will make for easier transfers, but if you really want to beat the traffic, travel mid-week. “The best value transfers are definitely midweek,” says Jan Hewitt, of Ski-Lifts.

2. Book in advance

“If you’re booking weekends, book six months in advance,” recommends Dan Barnett of Whiterides. “If it’s peak periods, like Christmas or New Year, we get lots of people booking up to a year in advance.”

Not everywhere is as busy as the Tarentaise, but Jan Hewitt of Ski-Lifts recommends booking “three to four months” in advance wherever you’re going – particularly in peak periods.

3. Consider sharing a transfer bus with other groups

“If you want good value, you could consider shared transfers,” says Jan Hewitt of Ski-Lifts. “There are some really good deals, and we do door-to-door shared transfers, so the only difference is you might have to wait for another flight – but we guarantee you’ll never wait more than an hour.”

4. Book with local companies

“Look for local taxi companies because they know the traffic situation best,” recommends Ted Fieldhouse of Ted’s Transfers. “They also know the roads best, and how to drive them when they’re snowy – which isn’t just a time issue, it’s a safety issue.”

Dan Barnett of Whiterides agrees. “There’s only really a handful of companies in our area. We all know each other and we work closely together. If there’s any information about routes that are blocked, it gets around pretty quickly.” He cites the example of a rockfall on February 1, which blocked one lane of Route National 90 for the whole weekend. “It was taking people seven hours to get from Albertville to Moutiers, which is normally a 30 minute drive,” he says. But because they knew about it soon after it happened, local companies like Whiterides arranged to leave earlier to beat the extra traffic.

5. Don’t skimp on your transfer fare

“It always amazes me that people come to expensive ski resorts, and they’re willing to spend £10,000 on their holiday, but yet they look to save €20 on a taxi drive,” says Ted Fieldhouse of Ted’s Transfers. “It’s a cut-throat business, with online companies selling ridiculously cheap prices,” he says. But he warns that if you go too cheap, you can’t guarantee what kind of service you’re getting – “whether they’ll turn up on time, or even whether they’ll turn up at all.”